Chapter269

Since money was going to be spent anyway, spending it on elders was only natural.

With a turn of her foot, she moved from the clothing stores to the section selling gold and jade jewelry.

Gold and jade—two types of jewelry most favored by people, and both highly value-preserving, especially the former.

A smile rested on Xie Shiqing’s face, her expression and tone entirely gentle as she asked, “What does Auntie like?”

The question was asked lightly, yet it brought immense psychological pressure to the two elders.

A huge windfall had fallen from the sky. Being able to latch onto someone so wealthy and powerful—if it were an ordinary person, they would probably already be floating with excitement, or driven by greed to do a series of rather undignified things.

But both Zhong Ma and Madam Zhong had upright characters. Before being swayed by the temptation of money, they first looked at themselves. One should not accept rewards without merit—on what grounds could they receive such exaggerated gifts?

And Little Ning as well… she looked completely corroded by wealth, even loudly saying she loved living off others, when she clearly hadn’t been like this before.

Their family wasn’t wealthy, but they had never lacked food or clothing for her. They had raised her as well as they could within their means. Usually, she didn’t seem like someone who would bury herself in the pursuit of money.

They had already been forced to accept quite a few clothes. They couldn’t leave even if they wanted to, constantly being pulled along—and now they had to accept jewelry as well.

The way Xie Shiqing bought clothes was the same way she bought bracelets and necklaces: she picked out a few she didn’t want, and took all the rest.

The butler was long accustomed to this. He nodded and said, “Miss, why not pick out a few plots of land as well?”

Xie Shiqing replied casually, “Is there a suitable place? I want a horse ranch.”

The butler somehow produced a tablet from who-knows-where and drew on it twice. “Miss, please take a look. This location is quite good; the terrain is very flat.”

Xie Shiqing lowered her eyes to glance at it, her relaxed expression stiffening slightly. “It’s next to a martyrs’ cemetery. This section shouldn’t be open for development, right?”

Otherwise, buildings would have already been constructed there.

The butler smiled faintly. “That’s not a problem.”

Xie Shiqing: “……Then this one.”

After finishing their shopping, they went to the best hotel for a meal. Then Xie Shiqing was about to return to her grand villa, while the three members of the Zhong family were to return to their own home.

Even though she invited them to stay the night, the two parents firmly refused. Accepting so many gifts had already made them quite uneasy.

Zhong Ning and Xie Shiqing exchanged a glance. The former immediately understood, intimately linking arms with her parents and bidding her farewell at the door.

After a full day of shopping, they returned home. Looking at the living room filled with paper bags, Zhong Ma first went to the refrigerator, took out two mangoes, diced them into small cubes, placed them on a plate, then walked back to her daughter’s side, forcing a small smile. “Little Ning, have some mango.”

Zhong Ning had originally felt a bit happy. After all, she had come back, her lover had come as well, and she no longer needed to struggle for a living. From now on, she would be living a life like a celestial being.

But upon seeing her mother’s expression, that bit of happiness immediately vanished.

No filial daughter could keep smiling upon seeing her mother’s hesitant, worried expression.

“Mom, do you have something you want to say?”

As soon as those words were spoken, Madam Zhong, who was sitting on the sofa nearby, let out a sigh. She had never been good with words—she usually did more than she spoke, and had always had a go-with-the-flow temperament. But everything that had happened today made it impossible for her to remain at ease.

“Little Ning, what exactly is going on between you and that Miss Xie? Can you tell us?”

Zhong Ning instinctively wanted to tell the truth, but the words stopped at her lips.

Something this absurd—even her own mother would find it hard to believe. She had no evidence, and besides, not everything she had experienced there had been good. Saying it out loud would inevitably make them upset.

After so much time, she had already become a master of acting. She quickly and imperceptibly turned that moment of hesitation into the distress of not knowing how to begin. After stalling for a moment, she finally said, “We’ve known each other for a long time. We met when I first started streaming. She was one of my earliest viewers, a fan, and later became one of my moderators.”

“Mom, Mother, the two of us are in a completely normal romantic relationship.”

“You never mentioned her before.” Zhong Ma sat beside her, speaking cautiously. “Can you tell us more in detail?”

Zhong Ning held her hand, her heart soft to the extreme.

“At the beginning, Shiqing and I were just a normal streamer and fan. She doesn’t even play games—back then, she was just bored and thought the way I talked was interesting, so she followed me.”

“She may seem glamorous, but she has her own troubles. She lost both her parents at a young age and was raised by the butler. Her family is wealthy, and those relatives only want her property. They nearly took advantage of her youth to drive her out of the house so they could inherit the family fortune.”

Zhong Ning let out a long sigh, her face covered with sympathy and heartache. “No matter how much money someone has, if they have no playmates and no family, they won’t live happily.”

The two parents cried out in unison, “That’s too tragic!”

They were kind people, and among their relatives of the same generation, every single one was decent. In such a big family, it was hard to find even one bad person. They were always the ones who suffered losses, never the ones who harmed others.

The sisters in the family had also grown up supporting one another, so upon hearing about Xie Shiqing’s family situation, they couldn’t sit still.

Zhong Ning had gone through this stage herself—how could she not understand what they were thinking? She added fuel to the fire, saying, “You don’t know how terrifying those relatives are. When she was little, they already wanted to seize the family property. They even tried to trick her into signing an agreement to change the heir to their names. The butler guarded against them strictly. Later, they even planned to lure her out and sell her. If she went missing and was harmed, wouldn’t the inheritance fall into their hands?”

“When she met me, it just so happened that a cousin had come to her house, saying it was to celebrate her birthday, but in reality, she was there to steal her valuable jewelry. Just think about it—having relatives like that, how painful must it be?”

The two parents nodded in unison, deeply agreeing.

This wasn’t entirely untrue. After learning her identity, the butler had specifically explained her situation to Xie Shiqing. Because Xie Shiqing had Periodic Amnesia, she had also left herself a set of notes, briefly listing important points to pay attention to.

Source: Webnovel.com, updated by NovelKeep