Mrs. Leung hurriedly ran over, carefully holding the invitation as if it were a priceless treasure. “It really says Lin Qianshi! And it’s for his birthday banquet!”

“Exactly. Smell it—it even has a faint fragrance. And look at this! Is this gold foil?” Uncle He and the others were so stunned that they didn’t even dare touch it.

Zhang Qing stared at the invitation, utterly dumbfounded.

How was this possible?

Where did this girl get such an invitation?

If she truly had connections with someone as influential as Young Master Lin, why was she still living in a place like this?

“Xiao Gu, you… you really know young master Lin?” Mrs. Lin asked, her astonishment rendering her momentarily speechless.

Gu Xicao smiled and replied, “We met by chance. Young Master Lin is very down-to-earth. I never expected him to invite me to his birthday banquet.”

She paused for a moment and then turned to Zhang Qing with a pointed look. “So, Mr. Zhang, since you’re friends with young master Lin, did you receive an invitation too?”

She emphasized the word friends, her light smile carrying a hint of mockery.

Zhang Qing’s face turned ashen. He gulped nervously and stammered, “I… I just returned to Hong Kong, so I didn’t know about it. Young Master Lin probably doesn’t know I’m back yet. That must be why…”

“If that’s the case, why don’t I call him and let him know you’re here?” Gu Xicao offered, her tone dripping with false kindness. “After all, it wouldn’t be right for such a close friend to miss his birthday party.”

She turned to Uncle He. “Uncle He, can I borrow your phone?”

“Sure, sure…” Uncle He responded instinctively.

“No!” Zhang Qing shouted abruptly, grabbing Gu Xicao’s hand. His body reacted faster than his brain.

Gu Xicao glanced at his hand, raised an eyebrow, and let out a soft “Oh?” She covered her mouth with her hand and asked, “Why not?”

Sweat poured down Zhang Qing’s face like rain. The crowd’s gaze, once full of admiration, now brimmed with suspicion.

Mrs. Lin crossed her arms and sneered. “Could it be that someone’s big talk has just been exposed? If it’s true, why not call Young Master Lin?”

“Even if my son exaggerated a little, it was just for fun!” Zhang Wu interjected, trying to cover for his son. Despite his embarrassment, he straightened his neck and said, “You people are just taking things too seriously!”

“We’re taking things seriously?” Mrs. Lin scoffed, her lips curling in disdain. “Who was it just now, swearing up and down that they knew young master Lin, claiming he invited them to fly to his villa for parties? What do you take us for—idiots?”

“Mai Cai Lian, enough! So what if my son exaggerated? One day, he’ll definitely know wealthy people. How many people in Hong Kong have qualifications as good as my son’s?”

Zhang Wu puffed out his chest, shaking his head smugly. He shot a contemptuous glance at Gu Xicao and added, “Unlike some people here—a mainlander with no education. Even if she’s good at fortune-telling, what does that amount to?”

A mainlander? No education?

Gu Xicao felt a vein pop on her forehead. He’s really looking to pick a fight.

With a faint smile, she retorted, “It’s true, I don’t have much education. But your son’s qualifications aren’t as impressive as you claim. Let me calculate…”

She brushed off Zhang Qing’s hand, raised her fingers theatrically, and pretended to calculate. Suddenly, she looked at Zhang Qing with mock surprise. “What’s this? You only have a high school diploma?”

“High school diploma?!”

The crowd was stunned. They blinked at Gu Xicao, their faces full of confusion.

Zhang Qing’s expression went blank. His body froze as if someone had pressed a pressure point, leaving him completely stiff.

“What high school diploma? My son graduated from an American university!” Zhang Wu, flustered and indignant, pointed at Gu Xicao and shouted, “You liar! Stop spouting nonsense!”

“Who’s the liar? You know the truth,” Gu Xicao said, clapping her hands slowly. Her gaze fell on Zhang Qing, filled with amused disdain. “Honestly, I admire your nerve. You managed to fool your entire family—and everyone else—for four years, pretending you got into a foreign university when there was no such thing.”

“No way. Is that true? Did Zhang’s son really pull off such a big lie?”

Faced with this revelation, everyone’s first reaction was disbelief.

After all, lying for four years seemed far too outrageous for them to accept.

But Mrs. Lin suddenly raised her voice and said, “Others might not believe it, but when has Miss Gu ever been wrong? This time is no exception. Ah-Wen, it seems we’re lucky after all. This big liar doesn’t have a word of truth in his mouth. Thank goodness the marriage didn’t go through. If it had, who knows how much suffering you’d have to endure in your life!”

Lin Peiwen stood there frozen, staring wide-eyed at Zhang Qing. In a daze, she muttered, “It’s fake? It’s actually fake?”

“Don’t listen to her nonsense! How could I lie about something like this? I… I have a diploma to prove it!”

Zhang Qing finally snapped back to his senses, waving his hands frantically in a panicked attempt to explain, sweat pouring down his face.

Gu Xicao smirked. “A diploma? What’s the point of that? With enough money, anyone can get a fake one overseas. If you want to prove you’re telling the truth, it’s simple: what was the title of your thesis? How many thousands of words did you write? What was your plagiarism check rate? And who was your thesis advisor?”

The string of questions left Zhang Qing’s mind spinning. His mouth opened and closed like a goldfish, but he couldn’t utter a single word.

The others, though unfamiliar with university life or terms like “plagiarism check rate,” could easily tell from Zhang Qing’s panicked and flustered expression who was lying.

Gu Xicao, calm and composed, showed no sign of anxiety, while Zhang Qing’s guilty and bewildered look said it all.

“Don’t tell me you can’t answer. Anyone who’s attended university for even a year would know these things.”

Gu Xicao gave him a once-over, shaking her head. “I don’t even know what to say about you. You’ve got guts, I’ll give you that- lying for four years straight. Life must have been pretty comfortable for you overseas, huh?”

Zhang Qing swallowed hard, guilt and panic swirling inside him. He looked at Gu Xicao with growing fear and regret.

“Tell me, did you really lie to the whole family?”

Zhang Wu finally lost his patience. He turned to his son, the veins on his neck bulging, his face red as if it were about to burst under the scorching sun.

“Dad, I… I…” Zhang Qing stammered, sweat beading on his nose. Meeting his father’s furious gaze, he retreated step by step in fear. “I was just being foolish. I only meant it as a joke at first…”

Before he could finish, his father’s palm came crashing down on his face. The slap sent Zhang Qing sprawling to the ground, several teeth breaking and scattering.

The crowd fell silent.

Everyone stared, stunned, at Zhang Qing lying on the ground and Zhang Wu, trembling with rage.

But one slap wasn’t enough to vent Zhang Wu’s fury.

He threw himself on top of his son, punching him repeatedly. “You bastard! I drained all our savings-three hundred thousand-to send you to school. You ungrateful brat, I’ll beat you to death!”

“Three hundred thousand?!” Uncle He and the others gasped in shock. “I didn’t know Zhang Wu was so rich!”

Mrs. Lin crossed her arms and watched with a gloating smile. “What do you know? Zhang Wu’s family is miserly to the core. They’d share a single jar of fermented tofu among five people and spend less than three hundred yuan a month on food.

Who knows how many years it took them to save that money? Serves them right!”

The others couldn’t help but feel a sting of sympathy.

Three hundred thousand wasn’t a small amount. While it wouldn’t buy a house, for ordinary people, it was a fortune that could take years to save.

If it had been spent on tuition for a real university education abroad, it might have been worth it. But to discover it was wasted on a profligate child? No one could swallow that.

“Dad, I know I was wrong! Please stop hitting me!”

Zhang Qing scrambled on the ground like a rat, dodging his father’s blows.

Hearing the commotion downstairs, Zhang Qing’s mother and his siblings rushed down. When she saw her husband beating their son, Zhang Qing’s mother quickly stepped in to stop him.

But Zhang Wu couldn’t contain his anger. He struggled against her, yelling, “Let me go! I’m going to beat this good-for-nothing to death!”

“Husband, if Ah-Qing did something wrong, talk to him about it calmly,” Zhang Qing’s mother pleaded, her face filled with concern as she looked at her bruised and swollen son. “Ah-Qing has to go to work now. If you beat him like this, how can he show his face at the office? His coworkers will laugh at him!”

Mrs. Lin added fuel to the fire. “Mrs. Zhang, you don’t know what your son did.”

Mrs. Zhang shot her a glare. “What my son did is none of your business. We’re not related, so stay out of it.”

“Fine, fine, I won’t meddle. It’s not my son who squandered all the family’s money pretending to study abroad while never getting into university.”

Mrs. Lin’s smile was as bright as the sun, and her mood couldn’t have been better. It was as if all her frustrations had been swept away.

“He never got into university?”

Mrs. Zhang froze, turning to her husband. “Husband, who didn’t get into university? It’s not our son, is it?”

“Who else? It’s your son!” Zhang Wu roared, his anger flaring once again. “He lied to us, took all our family’s money, and lived the high life in America!”

He’d spent his entire life scrimping and saving, even wearing the same underwear for ten years until it frayed into lace edges- all for this son. And this was how his son repaid him.

“Dad, I didn’t mean to. If you hadn’t pressured me to get into a foreign university and threatened to make me work if I failed, I wouldn’t have done this!”

Zhang Qing hugged his arms and curled into a ball, his tone full of grievance.

“You really lied to the whole family?”

Zhang Qing’s mother asked, her lips trembling as she stared at her son in disbelief. “You didn’t get accepted into a university?”

“Of course not.”

Mrs. Lin laughed gleefully. “Mr. and Mrs. Zhang, you’ve raised a phoenix indeed. Our Peiwen could never match your son. She doesn’t have his audacity, to squander three hundred thousand all on himself. Such a grand gesture!”

Hearing her mockery, Zhang Wu felt the blood rush to his head. He pointed a trembling finger at Zhang Qing, wanting to curse him, but dizziness overwhelmed him. His vision swam with golden stars, and he collapsed to the ground with a loud thud, unconscious.

In that fleeting moment before fainting, one thought crossed Zhang Wu’s mind: If I’d known my son was this ungrateful, I would’ve been better off raising a roast pork bun.