Everyone jumped at the sudden voice and turned in unison toward its source-
The screen that had been playing the club's surveillance footage had now switched to a messaging app interface.
Text messages appeared on the left, with voice messages on the right.
The text was read aloud by an AI voice, while the voice messages played directly:
"Young President Jiang, everything's arranged. The paparazzo is an old hand and knows how to keep his mouth shut. That young master from the Liu family took the bait, too. He's always liked fooling around, and when he heard there was a minor celebrity, he went running over... If anything unexpected happens, the paparazzo will insist he was just pimping and that Young Master Liu mistook her for someone else."
Jiang Sinian's voice was unmistakable. "Make sure you get photos of Song Yutang tussling with a man. Pick an angle that looks intimate."
"Understood. But about the third young madam... what if she gets photographed, too..."
Jiang Sinian sounded impatient. "She's courting death herself. Who else can she blame? This will let that old fossil see just what sort of trash she picked as her granddaughters-in-law..."
Each voice message landed like a heavy hammer, smashing into the silent living room.
Jiang Sinian's face went from deathly pale to livid before he finally panicked completely. "Th-this is AI-generated! Someone's framing me!"
Wen Jingyan stared fixedly at the screen, her eyes red. "You think I wouldn't recognize my own husband's voice? And that WeChat profile picture belongs to Assistant Zhang, who's worked for you for five years."
She had long known that Jiang Sinian had not cared whether she lived or died.
But hearing him say it himself still chilled her heart.
For the first time that entire evening, Jiang Sinian felt a little guilty. He fumbled to take her hand. "A-Yan, let me explain. I... that's not what I meant... I didn't say those things. Someone's framing me. You're my wife. Even if you really did something wrong, I'd protect you. How could I deliberately hurt you..."
Wen Jingyan shook off his hand and turned away in disappointment.
The old master's gaze, however, grew colder as he slowly turned toward Jiang Sinian. "What did you call me? An old thing? An old fossil?"
Jiang Sinian's legs buckled, and he nearly fell to his knees. "Grandpa... I-I didn't mean that... Someone deliberately edited it... Yes... it was Song Yutang! She's framing me!"
Chen Ruyin hurried forward and defended him in a soft, gentle voice. "Brother Kun, someone must be framing him. Sinian may not amount to much, but he's always been filial to you. How could he say something like that? Someone must be deliberately driving a wedge between you and your grandson."
Song Yutang glanced at her indifferently. "Whether he's being framed will be clear once Butler Wang checks the chat logs, bank transactions, and call records, won't it?"
Jiang Qingyu still tried to argue. "Dad, someone is clearly-"
"Enough." The old master abruptly cut him off, his gaze sweeping over Jiang Sinian like a blade. "Tell me yourself. Did you do it?"
"No, I didn't..." Jiang Sinian opened his mouth, still intending to deny it.
Chen Ruyin suddenly beat him to it and dropped to her knees with a thud, sobbing so hard she could barely breathe:
"Brother Kun... it's all my fault... Back then, I loved you too much. I regretted that I couldn't stay by your side, so I left Qingyu with you in my place. After Sinian was born, I never had the chance to properly guide him as his grandmother, either..."
As she cried, she dragged both father and son down to their knees with her, tears falling like pearls from a broken string:
"Qingyu is flesh of my flesh! All these years, not a day has passed when I didn't miss him. I was an incapable mother who let her son be separated from his own flesh and blood from childhood, and I failed to raise my grandson properly, too... I, Chen Ruyin, am an internationally renowned dancer, after all. But ever since I became yours, your granddaughter-in-law pointed right at my nose and called me a mistress and a concubine the moment she entered this family. Guoqiang and Xiulan show me no respect whatsoever, either. I can endure all of that. As long as I can stay by your side, I can bear any grievance.
"But Sinian is still young, at an age when his blood runs hot. How could he bear that kind of humiliation? That's why he lost his head for a moment and went astray. Whatever the wrong, it's all my fault. Brother Kun, if you must punish someone, punish me. At worst... I'll give my life to make it up to the eldest young madam..."
Jiang Sinian hurriedly took the escape route she offered, kneeling and kowtowing as he admitted his mistake. "Grandpa... I know I was wrong... I just lost my head for a moment... Seeing Grandma so upset by Eldest Sister-in-law every day that she couldn't sleep, I... I came up with this stupid idea..."
The old master looked at the three people kneeling on the floor, his gaze complicated.
They were, after all, the son and grandson he had raised for so many years. It would be a lie to say he felt nothing for them.
Seeing the old master waver, Jiang Guoqiang finally mustered the courage to step forward. "Dad... if we get pushed aside a little, we can endure it and let it pass. But Yutang... she's still a young girl. Since she married into our family, she's one of us. We can't bully her like this..."
Li Xiulan hurried to state her position, too. "That's right. Yutang must get justice over this. Even in our village, only families with no morals would bully a new daughter-in-law."
Chen Ruyin immediately accused them shrilly, "Are you trying to drive my son and me to our deaths? Helping someone with a different surname bully your own family?"
Jiang Guoqiang and his wife were poor with words. At her shout, they immediately began stammering, unable to get anything out.
Song Yutang gently patted their hands and looked calmly at the old master. "When Grandpa was sick and needed a kidney, everyone in my uncle's branch of the family born of a concubine was tested, but none of them was a match. In the end, my dad donated his kidney."
Pushed to desperation, Wu Caixia blurted out without thinking, "Wasn't it just a kidney? What's so great about that?"
Song Yutang simply looked at the old master. "There's nothing so great about it, indeed. But why wouldn't an outsider donate-or rather, why couldn't they? Why did it have to be your biological son? As the birth mother of the Jiang family's great-grandchild, I'm connected to the Jiang family's bloodline. If I'm an outsider, how can someone with no blood relation whatsoever count as family?"
Chen Ruyin's eyes swam with tears. "How can giving birth compare to raising a child? Qingyu has always treated Brother Kun as his biological father. You erase fifty years of affection between father and son with a few casual words. Just what are your intentions?"
Her stammering, plaintive manner made the old master uncomfortable. After an instinctive glance at her, he felt even more uncomfortable.
His tone immediately turned somewhat cold. "Ruyin, you're getting on in years, too. Carrying on like this in front of the younger generation every day really is inappropriate. For the next seven days, you'll clean the ancestral hall."
Song Yutang was right.
As the richest man's confidante, putting on airs in public, crying, making a scene, and threatening to hang herself was truly unseemly.
It was time she properly learned some rules.
That would keep her from making a spectacle of herself on important occasions in the future.
Chen Ruyin looked up in disbelief. "Brother Kun..."
Song Yutang added casually, "If you don't want to, forget it. You're only a mistress, after all, not a legitimate member of our Jiang family. As long as you stay out of the Jiang family's affairs from now on, since the old master likes you, just serve him well. You won't be treated poorly."
The words were viciously cutting, yet they struck the old master right where it hurt.
He waved a hand, allowing no argument. "That's settled."
Chen Ruyin trembled with anger but did not dare object again.
Song Yutang turned back to the old master, her tone serious. "A mistress can never be presented in polite society, so whether she's punished doesn't matter. What matters is that since my younger brother from the concubine's branch has been entered in our household register, he's a member of the Jiang family. He's morally corrupt and has done something like this to frame his eldest sister-in-law. We absolutely cannot let it end here."