The Xu Family Really Was Ruthless

After Shen Shuyi and her three children left,

Xu Cuie's face instantly hardened, and she snapped at her daughter,

"Get on your knees!"

"Mom!" Xu Yanni's eyes widened in disbelief.

"Get on your knees!" Xu Cuie repeated harshly.

Startled, Xu Yanni could only kneel before her mother, looking aggrieved and deeply reluctant, just as she had been punished for serious mistakes as a child.

"Yanni, I usually turn a blind eye to your willful behavior. You're my only daughter, after all.

But look at the trouble you've caused these past two days!

If your eldest brother hadn't pulled strings right away last night to hush things up,

his affair with Xiyue would have been exposed.

If Shen Shuyi found out, forget living in luxury-we might all end up starving.

And you still had the nerve to come running to me first thing this morning to complain!"

"Mom, if Lin Xiyue hadn't hurt me, would I have gone to confront her? She even hit me," Xu Yanni protested miserably.

"She let you off lightly!

If you felt wronged, why couldn't you come to me? Why did you have to go to her?

Now you know to come complaining to me first thing in the morning. Where was that sense before?

You nearly ruined everything!" Xu Cuie ground her teeth in fury, her face livid.

Xu Yanni shuddered and lowered her head, no longer daring to look at her mother, much less argue.

Yet she still seethed with resentment and felt deeply wronged. Of course her mother would side with Lin Xiyue and her eldest brother. After all, wearing those earrings brought good fortune to the Xu Family, which was exactly what her mother wanted. She had been a fool to come here and complain.

"Junshan, do you think Shuyi really didn't hear anything just now?" Xu Cuie shot her hopeless daughter a frustrated glare, then turned to her son and asked again, still uneasy.

"She probably didn't get here in time. With her temper, if she knew I had another woman, she'd have raised hell," Xu Junshan replied.

The instant he saw Shen Shuyi walk in, his first thought had been that he was finished. But her subsequent reaction had put his pounding heart at ease.

"That's good, that's good. Otherwise, we'd be in trouble!" Xu Cuie breathed a sigh of relief, then turned to glare at her daughter again. "Be smarter from now on. Stop stirring up trouble for no reason.

If you think those earrings are unlucky, just don't wear them. Stop making a fuss all day."

"Mom, I understand!" Xu Yanni answered sheepishly.

She had never thought her mother favored sons over daughters before, but the recent incidents had finally opened her eyes.

Her mother only claimed to dote on her. When interests were really at stake, she couldn't care less whether her daughter lived or died.

"If there's nothing else, go home early. Fill Wenchuan in, too, so he doesn't give anything away later," Xu Cuie instructed.

"All right!" Xu Yanni agreed, only then shakily getting to her feet and heading outside.

She had come hoping her mother would stand up for her. Instead, she had gained nothing and been hit and scolded to boot.

She would definitely make Lin Xiyue pay for this.

"Junshan, I still don't think we're safe. We need to hurry up with our plans.

If Shen Shuyi notices anything one day and starts guarding against us, we'll be in trouble.

Even if she doesn't notice, those children aren't easy to deal with either," Xu Cuie discussed with her son.

"Mom, don't worry. I know what I'm doing," Xu Junshan reassured her.

"Rather than dealing with them one by one, we might as well wipe them all out at once!" Xu Cuie narrowed her eyes, her voice vicious.

Xu Junshan stared at his mother, dumbfounded. They had never considered killing them all together.

Xu Yanni, who was hiding outside the door and eavesdropping, was so frightened that she nearly cried out. She hurriedly clapped a hand over her mouth.

"Mom, it's not that I don't want to, but that's too risky. They could easily trace it back to me," Xu Junshan said hastily after recovering his wits.

"Then think of a way to keep yourself in the clear.

We've waited long enough. We can't keep waiting and risk complications," Xu Cuie said venomously.

Why else had she agreed to let her son marry into their family back then, if not to seize their fortune once no heirs remained? She had thought they would only have to endure it for two or three years at most.

Once those two old fossils died, their time would come.

Who could have known the wait would last more than twenty years? She had swallowed her anger and bowed and scraped before those old fossils for over twenty years, too.

They had finally found an opportunity to kill the pair. If they didn't act quickly now, were they going to wait until she was in her coffin?

"Mom, I'll give it some serious thought!" Xu Junshan replied.

If there really was a way to do it, that would naturally be ideal. It would save him from dealing with them one at a time and going through all the trouble of finding ways to transfer the assets.

After catching a venomous snake and bringing it back as an eel, Shen Jinyan and Shen Ruogu were no longer in the mood to stay.

Today had to be an unlucky day for everything. They hadn't had a moment's peace since morning.

After leaving the leisure resort, they didn't return directly to the Shen Family home. Instead, they went to the Imperial Delicacy Pavilion for a feast.

They had nearly been scared half to death. Surely they deserved some good food to recover.

Besides, an inventory and appraisal were underway at the Shen Family home. They needed to give Xu Junshan some time and space to deal with the mess his own people had made for him.

The third and fifth brothers had finished their work as well and went over to join them.

Everyone in the Shen Family except the eldest and sixth children had gathered at the Imperial Delicacy Pavilion.

Shen Jinyan was now vividly recounting Shen Banxia's ridiculous mishap to the third and fifth brothers.

"'Mom, brothers, look at the eel I caught! It'll smell delicious grilled-'

Grill, my ass! You were holding a venomous snake and telling it to its face that you were going to grill and eat it.

Weren't you afraid it would bite you first and finish you off?"

"I thought it was an eel! It really did look like one!" Shen Banxia defended herself, looking utterly innocent.

"Like one, my ass! Aside from both being long, how were they alike?" Shen Jinyan snapped.

"You said it yourself, Jinyan. They're both long!" Shen Banxia pursed her lips, still stubbornly resisting.

"You share a common ancestor with apes, too. How come I didn't mistake you for one?"

Shen Shenxing and Shen Zhishan couldn't hold back any longer and burst out laughing.

"You two are laughing your heads off now, but you have no idea how the three of us nearly had our hearts leap out of our throats when we saw that," Shen Jinyan said irritably.

"Banxia, don't touch dangerous animals again!" Shen Shenxing stopped laughing and gave his younger sister a solemn warning.

"I won't, I won't. I won't even touch Wangcai!" Shen Banxia waved her hands and promised helplessly.

At this point, it wasn't the venomous snake that had frightened her, but her two brothers and their crazy antics.

"Who's Wangcai?" her brothers asked in unison, turning to look at Shen Banxia.

"My adoptive parents' guard dog. We get along great-better than I do with you brothers!" Shen Banxia explained.

"..." Her brothers were instantly speechless with exasperation.

They should never have asked.

"Jinyan, you've talked so much today. That must have taken a lot out of you. Eat more!" Shen Banxia took the initiative to place an abalone in her second brother's bowl, changing the subject.

This abalone should shut Jinyan up, right?

Shen Jinyan was just about to retort when a sea cucumber suddenly plugged his mouth.

"Have some sea cucumber. It'll build up your strength!" Shen Shenxing said with a humorless smile.

Shen Jinyan sheepishly bit into the sea cucumber, then watched helplessly as his third brother disdainfully switched to a fresh pair of chopsticks. He bit down even harder, as though he were chewing on his third brother's flesh!