Chapter 76 - It Is Only Painful When One Is on the Receiving End (1)
As much as Li XinYun wasn't too happy about her dad, he was her real father after all and was quite nice to her in the past, Li XinYun really didn't want to think poorly of him. But she also didn't think her mother would badmouth her father intentionally, so she was dumbfounded...
Fang JunRong didn't want to say much. She simply picked up the phone and called up Li WangJin. Her voice was cold. "You gave a painting to XinYun?"
Li WangJin sounded a little tired from the other end. "Yeah, hadn't she wanted this one painting of mine? It's her birthday so I thought I'll just give it to her as a gift. She is my daughter after all, of course I care about her."
Hearing his words, Li XinYun's look relaxed some.
Fang JunRong just wanted to snicker. How did he have the guts to still feign that he cared about his daughter after he had made such a disgusting move? Her voice became even colder. "Oh? I don't want to have anything that will remind me of you in my house, so I plan to auction the painting off."
Li WangJin's voice went up a notch right away. "Wait, you can't do that! It's my gift to XinYun. It represents my love for her!"
Fang JunRong looked over at Li XinYun and mouthed to her to play along with her.
Li XinYun definitely trusted her mother more than her father. Taking the phone from her mother, she sounded very apologetic. "I'm sorry, Dad, but I really don't want to upset Mom. If it will make her feel better auctioning the painting off, I'd rather do that.
"Besides, you have already gifted it to me. I should be able to decide what to do with it."
As Li XinYun didn't have a speaker on, Fang JunRong couldn't hear what Li WangJin was saying from the other end, but she could see that Li XinYun's look grew darker and darker. Li XinYun finally just hung up the phone.
She pouted and said, "As soon as I said I am going to auction the painting off, Dad went crazy. He said he regretted about giving it to me and wanted it back. He said he will send me a different gift."
Had Fang JunRong not told her that there was something wrong with the painting in advance, Li XinYun might not have given it much thought. Li WangJin's reaction had confirmed everything. He was worried about the painting being appraised if it was to be auctioned off; meaning he knew all along that there was something wrong with it.
Her own father. The gift from him was a counterfeit? How ironic and laughable!
Li XinYun wanted to cry. She felt very wronged. She didn't understand what she had done that made her father dislike her and would do such a thing to her. He was generous with other women, except when it came to his own daughter. And he'd insult her in such a way.
She sniffled. Her voice with her tears choked back sounded very pitiful. "Why would Dad do such a thing?"
Fang JunRong was calm. "Because Jiang YaGe is the daughter of his puppy love. Puppy love is always the best." To be precise, it was Li WangJin who had an one-sided crush on Jiang YaGe's mother, Wang SiEr.
According to the book that she had read, Li WangJin tried his hand at business during his sophomore year in college and failed. He had lost all the funds given to him from his family as well as all the money in his own savings. Li WangJin was not the official heir of Li's. Not wanting to leave a bad impression with the elders in the family, he did not ask his family for help. If he did, that would be the equivalent of giving up his chance of being their heir.
During the period when he was in abject poverty, Wang SiEr told him that she had tightened her own belt and saved up some money to help him out. She had since become his white moonlight. Except that Wang SiEr already had a boyfriend back then, so she turned him down. Li WangJin had buried this love affair deep inside his heart since.
Chapter 77 - It Is Only Painful When One Is on the Receiving End (2)
Li XinYun was so upset that her face was beet red. "So that was the reason that he treats Jiang YaGe better than he does me?"
Did he think of Jiang YaGe as more his daughter than she was?
Li XinYun severed all of her father-daughter ties with Li WangJin at the very moment in time. She held her head up high to stop her tears from rolling down her cheeks. He was not worth her tears. But she was still angry and upset. Very angry!
Then, she recalled her brother who had not once visited them ever since he had fallen in love with Jiang YaGe. He didn't even send her so much as a text on her birthday.
The father and son were now dead to her.
Fang JunRong comforted her for a little bit longer. "It's alright. We don't care about the painting. Let me use this to get more cash from your dad. The market price of that painting is at least 2 million yuan and up."
It wasn't that Fang JunRong needed the money, but that she knew that Li WangJin was short of cash lately – unless he sold more of his company shares. This month would doubtless be like cutting flesh off of him. Every time she saw him being unhappy made her happy.
Alternatively, she could just let words out about this event, but she didn't want to do that. XinYun was, after all, his daughter. When others spoke of Li WangJin negatively, XinYun wouldn't be able to stay out of it altogether. She treasured her daughter and couldn't allow a piece of sh*t to be stuck onto her.
She squinted a little. She could, however, encourage others to appreciate Li WangJin's collections and preferably have a few experts of antiques in there to help along in exposing him.
***
Li WangJin talked and talked. He spent a lot of time getting the painting back from Li XinYun. Then, he had to give her 2 million yuan shopping money for her birthday. He felt extremely mistreated when he handed the money over.
He started to realize that Fang JunRong had changed a lot from how he remembered her since the divorce. She was even more aggressive than before, as though she truly didn't love him anymore.
He never should have sent over that painting for the purpose of saving some money. Now he was out of pocket even more. What made him worry even more was whether XinYun noticed that something was wrong with the painting.
No, probably not. With XinYun's bad temperament, had she found out about it, she would have unleashed on him already.
He wiped away the sweat on his forehead. Divorcing from Fang JunRong hurt him a lot. Even when he took out a loan, he didn't have a lot of cash that he could work with. XinYun, being with JunRong, had also gotten worse. All she saw now was money and didn't care about her father at all.
Another call came in. Looking at the name flashing on the screen, Li WangJin picked up the phone quickly. He hung up after five minutes. Even though he was still somewhat depressed, he felt a sense of satisfaction.
The call was from a private investigator that he has hired. After a lot of time and effort, he was finally able to collect evidence that Wang Xiao tried to set him up. Once these evidences were sent in, even if Wang Xiao could weasel out of it, he for sure wouldn't be able to get off scotch free.
Ah, he was finally able to take revenge on Wang Xiao and let him know that he wasn't someone that could be offended with no consequences.
The private investigator was good, but also cost a lot. He cost him another 2 million yuan. And Li WangJin still needed to save up some money to network with others and also to cover his daily expenses.
He thought about it for a little and decided to temporarily halt Jiang YaGe's pocket money. After all, the reason that Wang Xiao has been targeting him is because of her actions. Once he has some money free up in the company, he'd make it up to her. YaGe was kind and tender; he was sure she wouldn't mind.
His brows unfurrowed – he just needed to make it through this period of time. He even started thinking that perhaps this was just a bad year for him. Maybe he should make a trip to a temple or have some feng shui master come and check his place out for the sake of improving his luck.
Chapter 78 - It Is Only Painful When One Is on the Receiving End (3)
Jiang YaGe, who was kind and tender in Li WangJin's eyes, was still staying with Wang SiXian in the hospital right now. Wang SiXian had already undergone her first surgery and needed to stay in the hospital for a few days.
Jiang YaGe was not happy after her adopted father told her the news. He had expressed that all of his capital would be tied up in his company recently. He was a bit tight in cash and had to temporarily halt her pocket money. She had just experienced what it was like to spend money madly like a wealthy girl and now her privilege was robbed from her right away.
She recalled what she had heard when she visited her adopted father's company that afternoon.
"Chairman said to send Master Xu's masterpiece to Miss."
"Which Miss?"
"Li XinYun, the Li's real Miss, of course. I heard that the painting is worth over 1 million yuan. It goes to show that Chairman's favorite is still his real daughter, Li XinYun. I had mistakenly thought that he prefers Jiang YaGe over her before."
"You are overthinking this. Jiang YaGe is something fun and a flavor of the day thing. Of course she won't measure up to the real daughter. Just because a sparrow can land on a tree branch doesn't make it a phoenix," said the female voice sarcastically.
"Boy, you are a mean one. Didn't you have her milk tea? She had been bringing us milk tea every afternoon in the last few days."
"Who cares about a cup of 5 - 6 yuan milk tea? I don't even drink it normally. When Miss came to visit last time, she brought everyone Essence Coffee. Now that's how a real Miss should be like, not frugal like Jiang YaGe."
"Hehe. Are you still going to drink the milk tea that she brings tomorrow then?"
"I am not going to drink it, but I can still take it and give it to a beggar on my way home. That will be my good deed of the day."
Jiang YaGe tried very hard to squeeze the words out of her head, but she only ended up with an even more lasting impression of them. No, they were just instigating. She can't trust them! They were envious of her and couldn't bear to see her happy.
She had felt so much appreciation for how her adopted father had doted on her. Yet that feeling of appreciation had changed since she found out that her adopted father had given such an expensive painting to Li XinYun. Her adoptive father had always treasured his collection and would not give them away usually. She had never received any herself.
Now that her adopted father had run out of money, he would rather stop her pocket money than giving her one of his collection. He probably didn't care for her as much as he said he did.
As the saying goes, going from a wealthy lifestyle to a frugal one is always difficult. Jiang YaGe had been going out with her friends a lot lately and bought many luxurious clothing and shoes to emphasize her status as the Li's Miss. That had led to her not having a lot of money remaining at her disposal.
She had planned to take her roommate to a 5-star restaurant in a couple of days. She thought her adopted father would have given her more pocket money so she wouldn't embarrass herself in front of others.
As though her hands have minds of their own, she typed in Li XinYun in the search box of the browser.
Immediately an article showed up about her – Li XinYun standing at her birthday banquet in a dress adorned with a myriad of diamonds, looking proud like a princess. She quickly skimmed over the article. It talked a lot about the birthday banquet; they even hired a few popular singers to perform there. She could only imagine how much the banquet had cost; and she, on the other hand, had her pocket money taken away from her.
All of the discussions were about how envious others were of Li XinYun. She had become everyone's ideal.
Jiang YaGe took a deep breath and closed up the webpage. The more she read, the more unhappy she became. And it wasn't just because of Li XinYun. Even Zhong Yi looked poised and elegant in the picture.
First thing first, she needed to figure out how to get herself some cash. Everybody knew that she had become Li WangJin's adopted daughter. She needed to play the part when school started again. If she didn't, many would gossip about her behind her back. More importantly, she couldn't let Zhong Yi outshine her.
She couldn't possibly sell her clothing or shoes; she would need those to put up the front.
Then something popped into her mind, and her eyes lit up all of a sudden.
That's right. Fang JunRong had gifted her a painting from Xu FangWeng at their first meeting. If she was to sell the painting, the money she got from it could tie her over for a few months at least. By then, her adopted father's money would be freed up and she would receive her pocket money again.
The thought put a smile back on her worried face.