Page 47

"...And another thing—your daughter had an accident at the horse ranch. I don't blame her for suspecting me of foul play. She's just a child, and she's always been biased against me. But what I can't understand is your attitude."

"...My daughter is lying in the hospital undergoing surgery, yet as her mother, I still have to arrange a birthday venue for your daughter. Now that something has happened, you father and daughter are both taking your anger out on me. I know being a stepmother is difficult, but I never expected even you to suspect me..."

Qiao Aiguo rubbed the space between his brows with a headache. One was his daughter, and the other was the woman he planned to remarry. Caught between them, Qiao Aiguo could only try to smooth things over. "Your Aunt Wenhui's daughter has acute appendicitis. She may have been too busy caring for her daughter and overlooked it for a moment. Luckily, nothing serious happened..."

Qiao Shiyu gave a scornful laugh. "Then she's pretty amazing. I would have had to book a place at least a week ahead for my birthday, right? A week ago, she already knew her daughter would suddenly come down with acute appendicitis today and need surgery. Should I praise her foresight, or praise her daughter for being so good at enduring pain?"

Qiao Aiguo was left speechless again.

Father and daughter, one sitting on the sofa and the other standing in the middle of the room. Qiao Shiyu stood with her arms folded, staring at the floor, while Qiao Aiguo stared at his daughter. Neither of them spoke.

The boys and girls seated around the movie room exchanged looks. Lu Chi suddenly stood, took his sister's hand, and said, "...Uncle, you talk. We'll go downstairs and get something to eat first."

The others seemed to snap out of it and quickly got to their feet as well. "Right, right, I'm a little hungry too. I'll go downstairs and find something to eat."

Only then did Qiao Aiguo remember there were other people in the room. He nodded at them awkwardly. When his gaze fell on Lu Chi, he couldn't help asking, "How's your head? Does it still hurt? What did the doctor say?"

"It's fine now," Lu Chi replied flatly.

The boys and girls looked at one another. Once they had left the movie room, Xing Yuan impatiently asked, "Lu Chi, you know Uncle Qiao too?"

Lu Chi gave a hum and casually said, "We met once before."

Met before?

Xing Yuan blinked, about to ask more, when Yue Bin squeezed past him from behind and deliberately changed the subject. "Hey, what else is there in the kitchen? I'm really kind of hungry. Chips aren't filling at all."

"Exactly!" Zhang Yang chimed in. "It's either sweet or spicy, and then there's that sour dried fruit. The more you eat, the hungrier you get."

"Could you have gotten hungry from being scared by a ghost just now?!" Several girls rummaged through the kitchen cabinets as they complained.

"Hey, you girls were scared out of your wits too, okay?" Zhang Yang shot back quickly. Then he remembered something else. His eyes darted around as he said slyly, "Let's make a deal!"

"What?"

Zhang Yang cleared his throat and said solemnly, "What happened tonight stays among us. Nobody is allowed to spread it around, especially not at school. Otherwise, don't blame us guys for getting nasty."

"Oh?" Several girls stood in the kitchen doorway with their hands on their hips, rolling up their sleeves. "And how exactly are you going to get nasty?"

"We'll say... you girls all wet your pants because the female ghost scared you!"

"Ew, you boys are so disgusting!"

In an instant, dish rags, pot scrubbers, and instant noodle bags flew everywhere. The boys fled with their heads covered, eventually retreating into the living room and fighting back with throw pillows. Lu Chi calmly pulled Miao Miao into a corner by the hand.

After a chaotic battle, the boys and girls finally reached a truce agreement to keep the secret together.

Half an hour later, the boys and girls sat in the living room, eating lump soup made from crushed instant noodle crumbs as they discussed, "Hey, what do you think that scraping sound we heard earlier really was?"

"It was probably the SD Doll's head or toes scraping against the wall, wasn't it?" Yue Bin, whose blood had run cold from fright earlier but was now stroking his chin and pretending to be a detective, narrowed his eyes as he analyzed. "Thinking about it, the reason the 'female ghost' looked so strange was because Qiao Shiyu's dad was holding the doll at an angle so he could get upstairs more easily. The staircase was just narrow enough to wedge the SD Doll in place, so it made those scratching sounds..."

Lu Chi turned to look at Lu Miaomiao, who was stuffing herself with cream cake. Smiling, he rubbed the top of his sister's head and said gently, "Don't eat too much, or you'll have indigestion tonight. Remember to brush your teeth later."

"Mm!" With cake crumbs still stuck to her face, little Miao Miao nodded earnestly, her eyes curving into crescents as she smiled.

"Hey?" Yue Bin hooked an arm around Lu Chi's neck, narrowing his eyes as he said ominously, "Didn't we agree to stay up all night? You thinking of bailing before the battle even starts?"

"Kids who stay up late won't grow tall, right?" Lu Chi patted his sister's little shoulder, then glanced at the silent upstairs thoughtfully. "Besides, we might not even get to play all night."

At Lu Chi's words, the boys and girls all subconsciously glanced upstairs.

"It's so quiet!" Several girls let out relieved breaths. "We thought Shiyu would start fighting with Uncle Qiao!"

"But what exactly happened earlier?" One of the girls narrowed her eyes at Xing Yuan. "It feels like you know something we don't?"

Startled stiff by the girls all staring at him, Xing Yuan had no choice but to tell them everything. Earlier, while the girls had been cooking in the kitchen, he had called Qiao Shiyu's father to tip him off, only to learn that Qiao Aiguo was at the hospital accompanying An Wenhui's daughter during her surgery.

"So that's what happened!" Several girls snorted coldly. "No wonder Shiyu booked her birthday party at a place like that. That woman must have been behind it!"

"She even deliberately arranged for her own daughter to have surgery on the same day. How unlucky."

"If you ask me, all mistresses who destroy other people's families should die. Especially shameless, arrogant women like her. I saw that woman myself—before Uncle Qiao even got divorced, she went right up to Qiao Shiyu's mother to flaunt herself. She looked down on her for being a housewife and said she couldn't help Uncle Qiao at all..."