The Fake Daughter is a Max-Level Green Tea [Transmigrated into a Book] - Chapter 66

Chapter 66: Past Events (3)

“It’s almost five o’clock. You don’t think they’ll stand us up, do you?”

“It takes time to get here from that side. Don’t worry, Chumu will definitely come back once she hears about that incident.”

The moment Lu Chaoqing pushed open the door, she was greeted by the noisy clamor of aunts and uncles. Just like many years ago in front of Lin Chumu, they didn’t even bother to hide their true colors—at least, not until they heard the footsteps approaching. When they saw the unfamiliar yet familiar girl enter first, the smiles began to pile up on their faces.

“Xiaoqing!”

Lu Chaoqing had grown up to be even more beautiful than they had imagined. Tall and slender, her features bore a slight resemblance to her biological mother, but she combined the best traits of both parents into a unique look of her own. However, the people sitting here today didn’t care about her looks; after all that effort, they were only interested in the money.

The Lin family weren’t complete fools, especially if they dared to pull off what they did years ago. As they entered, Lu Chaoqing noticed that the Wi-Fi in the private room was down and the cell signal was terrible—they must have installed a jammer somewhere. The two girls were certainly not going to let themselves be slaughtered in a den of thieves, which is why they met at a restaurant of the family’s choosing, though they wouldn’t touch a single bite of the food.

Lu Chaoqing accepted a glass of water handed over by the woman who claimed to be her aunt—who was hypocritically wiping away tears—but she simply placed it aside without expression, stating she wasn’t thirsty.

Gazing at the girl, whose personality seemed entirely different from her public persona, the maternal aunt secretly grumbled that these big stars were all just “characters” acted out for the camera. Even so, she didn’t give up. She grabbed Lu Chaoqing’s arm and began to wail, crying about how hard life had been for her sister back then.

Lu Chaoqing remained like an unmelting iceberg, her brow showing only a faint trace of disgust and disdain. When the woman’s two children tried to tug at her clothes, she subtly pushed them away.

Lin Chumu, unable to stand their hypocrisy any longer, shielded Lu Chaoqing behind her. Her voice was cold: “Just say what you have to say. Why did you call us here?” She paused, her voice turning even icier. “And why did our father really fall from that construction scaffold back then?”

The Lins didn’t answer immediately; instead, they looked with surprise at their tightly intertwined hands. But before they could comment on a relationship that seemed different from what they expected, the conversation shifted. Lin Chumu had always known the Lin parents’ health wasn’t great. After giving birth to Lu Chaoqing, Mother Lin suffered complications. Father Lin had a vasectomy so they wouldn’t have more children, wanting his wife to rest while he worked alone to support them.

Lin Chumu remembered that when her memories first awakened, her grandmother was the one looking after her so her mother didn’t have to. But shortly after, her grandmother died of cancer. From then on, Father Lin worked even harder, and life was relatively smooth until the day he fell while working at a high altitude. Mother Lin was devastated and never recovered, falling seriously ill herself.

It all started with that “accident.” And Lin Chumu vaguely remembered that the tall, burly uncle had been working at the same site as Father Lin.

The long delay only made them more irritable. Lin Chumu clearly wasn’t going to give them a chance for a long-winded speech. After a brief silence, the woman stepped forward with a face full of grief. Even after Lin Chumu shook off her attempt to grab her hand, she wasn’t angry: “It was Ma Qiwei! It was Ma Qiwei!”

Ma Qiwei was a distant relative of Father Lin, and they had been on good terms, working at the same site. According to the woman, Ma Qiwei had something to do that day and asked Father Lin to help him. Father Lin, too kind to refuse, went along. That rare instance of cross-team assistance became a fatal mistake.

The high-altitude equipment had been tampered with.

“Actually, I thought it was strange when he fell, but the equipment smashed to pieces along with your dad. The police couldn’t find a specific cause. Plus, Ma Qiwei was a distance away and had no motive, so the matter was dropped…”

She spoke while crying, but seeing Lin Chumu’s unmoved face and Lu Chaoqing’s lack of reaction, she thought to herself that a child raised elsewhere really was different. She felt a surge of dislike for Lu Chaoqing. But since the play had started, she had to keep acting. The woman continued to sob, “Your uncle accidentally overheard a drunk Ma Qiwei talking about it recently. He even said he wanted to take Xiaoqing back… He’s connected to some official in the county now and looks down on us…”

“What do you want?”

Lu Chaoqing’s blunt sentence cut off the “heartfelt words” the woman had been brewing. An embarrassed expression flashed across the woman’s face at being exposed, but it vanished in an instant. After all, the death of her relative wasn’t a tragedy to her; it was a bargaining chip for real profit. Since Lu Chaoqing was being so “materialistic,” the woman saw no need to keep pretending.

However, after several “small requests” were rejected, the woman finally realized they had no intention of cooperating. Her face twisted into a look of frustrated rage. She glared at Lu Chaoqing and Lin Chumu with a vicious intensity: “Lin Chumu! Your father used every last cent of his savings to put you in such a good orphanage! And those people were Lu Chaoqing’s biological parents! You two are going to just walk away? Aren’t you afraid their spirits won’t find peace!?”

She lunged forward to grab them, but Lin Chumu slapped her hand away. The tall woman stood between the relatives and Lu Chaoqing, refusing to let even the children get close. Her protective stance was so obvious that even the dimmest person could see the nature of their relationship. The woman and the others turned red and white with anger and shock.

“Lesbians… you two are actually lesbians…”

Before they could finish their sentence, Lin Chumu pushed open the door and strode out without a word, her arm around Lu Chaoqing’s shoulder, no longer hiding their intimacy. The moment she kicked the door shut to block their view, Lu Chaoqing immediately reached into her pocket. Her phone was gone.

At the same time, inside the room, the woman who had been cursing just a moment ago turned off a recording pen. She held her breath and quietly cracked the door open to peer outside.