Beauty Was Never Enough on Its Own

After Xu Junshan left, only Shen Shuyi and her biological daughter remained in the living room.

Shen Shuyi had intended to ask her daughter about the sarcastic thoughts she had just heard, but when she saw the girl standing with her head lowered, looking nervous and frightened, she decided to set the matter aside for now.

"Don't be afraid. I'm your mother, your biological mother.

This is your home. We'll be living together from now on.

I'll do my best to make it up to you, too. Whatever you want, just tell me."

Shen Shuyi walked over to her daughter, took her hand, and soothed her gently.

Shen Banxia nodded timidly.

She had yet to fully adjust to this body, and many of her reactions and mannerisms were still its instincts and conditioned reflexes.

So she still looked dull and timid, nothing like what was going on inside her head.

One could say her body and soul were each doing their own thing.

"Let me take you upstairs to see your new room. See if you like it," Shen Shuyi suggested with a smile.

Shen Banxia followed her mother upstairs to the new bedroom prepared especially for her.

"Do you like it? If not, I'll have the designer redo it."

"I like it. Thank you!" Shen Banxia's eyes lit up as she gazed at the dreamy princess room, decorated mostly in pink.

Seeing her daughter's gaze fixed on the princess bed, Shen Shuyi was feeling relieved that she liked the decor when she heard-

[So many expensive ornaments. They'd fetch quite a bit if I sold them, wouldn't they?]

She hadn't forgotten what she had heard before transmigrating: the money she earned could be exchanged for combat points and life points.

Life points were useless. She wanted combat points so she could protect herself!

Shen Shuyi froze, then felt a pang of heartache. Her daughter must have suffered so much to be thinking of selling things for money.

"Banxia, now that I'm here, I won't let you suffer or be mistreated ever again."

"Thank you, Mom!" Shen Banxia turned to Shen Shuyi and answered sincerely.

Looking at her biological mother, who remained poised, gracious, and exceptionally elegant despite her age,

and seeing the tenderness in her eyes as she looked at her, Shen Banxia couldn't help being moved. She had been independent since childhood and had never known the warmth of a family.

[Mom is so beautiful. I'm lucky to have such a beautiful, elegant mother!]

Shen Shuyi was so overwhelmed that her eyes reddened, and she said in a choked voice,

"Once you've finished looking at your room, I'll show you around our home, where you'll be living from now on."

She vowed to give her daughter the best life and all the love she could, making up twice over for everything she had missed.

"Mom, I'm a little tired. Could I rest first?" Shen Banxia blinked and asked somewhat self-consciously.

The Shen Family's home was too big to explore in a short while. She had only just transmigrated, and her strength had yet to recover.

All she wanted now was to get intimately acquainted with that soft, warm bed.

She could enjoy her life of luxury once she felt more energetic.

"Of course, of course. I won't disturb you, then. Get some good rest. I'll send someone to call you at dinnertime," Shen Shuyi said, nodding repeatedly.

After leaving her daughter's bedroom, she thoughtfully closed the door behind her.

Once Shen Shuyi had left, Shen Banxia glanced around the bedroom, then walked out onto the balcony and looked at the sprawling back garden filled with flowers in bloom.

Life in a wealthy family really was something else.

A moment later, she thought of how this estate had been passed down from her great-grandfather's generation and expanded through the efforts of several generations to cover dozens of hectares.

Yet Xu Junshan's schemes would force it into someone else's hands, and the Shen Family would be torn apart and lose their lives. It was a sobering thought.

But Shen Banxia quickly shook off the gloom. They weren't bankrupt yet, so she would enjoy herself first.

With that thought, Shen Banxia felt even more pleased with her surroundings.

She went back inside and entered the walk-in closet, filled with a dazzling array of new clothes, shoes, bags, and accessories.

She had to admit that Shen Shuyi had truly put thought into caring for her biological daughter.

But after the body's original owner returned to the Shen Family, Xu Mingyue had constantly made things difficult for her and smeared her reputation.

The calamity that befell the Shen Family had also happened so quickly, coinciding with the original owner's return.

With Xu Junshan's people spreading rumors on top of that, the Shen Family had mistakenly believed the original owner had brought disaster upon them and taken their anger out on her.

But she was no longer the weak, timid original owner, afraid of strangers and easy to bully.

Being bullied without daring to fight back wasn't her style, either.

She had always lived by one rule: leave her alone, and she would leave you alone. Cross her, and she wouldn't even spare the flowers and grass in your yard. She would never let herself get the short end of the stick.

Whoever tormented her in the future would get it back tenfold, a hundredfold.

Rather than wear the clothes the Shen Family had prepared, Shen Banxia took an old outfit from the luggage she had brought and went into the bathroom.

For one thing, she still had to maintain the original owner's dowdy, tacky image.

For another, she could take the luxuries in the walk-in closet to a secondhand shop later and turn them into cash. Brand-new items were worth more than used ones.

After her shower, Shen Banxia looked at herself in the mirror.

She had taken off that hopelessly dowdy padded jacket, and gone were the complexion as black as soot and the blush as red as a monkey's bottom.

Now her skin was fair and clear, her beauty fresh and ethereal, her almond-shaped eyes soft and alluring-all of it entirely natural.

Without the bulky padded jacket hiding her body, her shapely curves were all the more apparent.

She was so beautiful that even her own breath caught.

The genes were there, after all. With such a beautiful mother and a handsome scumbag of a father, the original owner couldn't possibly have been that ugly unless the genetic lottery had somehow gone completely the other way.

The only explanation was that she had been deliberately made to look ugly while living with her adoptive parents in the countryside.

Beauty was a tremendous bonus when paired with other advantages, but on its own, it was a disaster rather than a blessing.

Given the original owner's personality, such breathtaking beauty would only have brought trouble upon her.

Viewed that way, her adoptive parents' efforts to make her look ugly seemed more like another way of protecting her.

With that in mind, Shen Banxia decided to find a suitable time to visit her adoptive parents' home and learn more.

Of course, she couldn't rule out the possibility that she was giving them too much credit.