CHAPTER 13: Outlaw

The living room fell into a terrifying silence.

Yi Xiaoya stood there, not daring to speak. She would never again say her biological dad wasn’t treating her well enough.

Just look—her dad even dared talk like that to his own father.

Yi Hongping was seriously considering whether he should fetch a heart pill for Grandpa. He had a strong feeling the old man was going to get high blood pressure from dealing with his little uncle.

“So? Can we do it or not?” Old Master Yi coughed lightly, ending the act.

“Of course!” Yi Yao said. “If it’s not a crown worth over a hundred million, it’s not worthy of our little princess.”

Yi Xiaoya nearly toppled over—even though she hadn’t even taken a step. She was just standing there. Maybe she really should’ve been sitting down. If her dad weren’t standing next to her, she would’ve collapsed by now.

Being too reserved is self-sabotage!

A hundred million?! She’d only mentioned something in the tens of thousands! Maybe hundreds of thousands, tops… but when it came out of her dad’s mouth, it had magically multiplied.

“There’s no crown worth that much lying around, but if we throw in a few extra gems…” Old Master Yi looked at Yi Xiaoya. “Then it’ll be close enough.”

Yi Xiaoya imagined her head getting crushed by all those gemstones. Would she even be able to walk straight, or would she be wobbling all over the place, worried someone might try to pick the stones off her crown?

“No—”

“Not suitable? That’s fine, we’ll just add a few small gems. They’re not worth much,” Yi Yao cut his daughter off. She clearly wasn’t like him—if she didn’t take advantage of the old man now, when would she?

Yi Yao knew his father had quite a few precious gems and heirlooms left behind by his own mother. All of them were extremely valuable. He himself hadn’t taken any of it, so surely his dad would be willing to give some of it to his granddaughter.

“…” Yi Xiaoya felt that she truly didn’t understand the world of the rich. She was seriously worried that if this kept up, she might actually turn into a classic villainess heiress.

No way. She definitely didn’t want to become some vicious, spoiled rich girl.

But there really wasn’t anything particularly “rich” about Yi Xiaoya. She grew up in a rundown neighborhood. Sometimes when her mom—no, her aunt—asked her to go buy soy sauce, she’d have to figure out how to save ten or twenty cents.

Usually, if she managed to save ten or twenty cents, Aunt Lin wouldn’t ask her to hand it over. But if it was fifty cents or a whole yuan, then she’d get questioned about it.

Prices back then were different from now. One yuan used to get you four green apples. These days, you needed several yuan just to buy one.

“Sit down,” Old Master Yi said. “If there’s anything you like to eat, just say it. They’ll make it for you.”

“She loves meat—sweet and sour ribs, pork rib and kelp soup, barbecue…” Yi Yao added. He had noticed this during their meals together: Yi Xiaoya loved meat and barely touched vegetables.

So Yi Yao made sure to have more fruit delivered to her. Eating too much meat and not enough greens wasn’t good for the body.

“And you,” Yi Yao turned to the old man, “need to watch your fat intake and avoid high blood pressure, high cholesterol, and high blood sugar.”

“I can just not eat it!” Old Master Yi glared at him. Did he have to say something so unpleasant?

“You’re right. You can just not eat it,” Yi Yao nodded. “Just don’t turn around later and say my daughter eats too well and accuse her of being unfilial.”

“She’s still growing!” Old Master Yi snapped. “If you don’t want to stay here, then leave!”

“Heh. If I’m not here, are you all just going to bully my daughter?” Yi Yao sat down. He wasn’t going anywhere today.

Yi Yao was determined to prevent any chance of his daughter turning dark. He wouldn’t let these people nitpick her posture, the way she sat, or how she ate. He looked over at his daughter. She had already sat down, tugging at her clothes nervously before grabbing a nearby pillow to hug.

She looked very tense, clearly feeling uncomfortable.

If he weren’t here, she probably would’ve ended up crying.

Unfortunately, Yi Xiaoya had no idea what was going through her dad’s head. If she did, she’d definitely say he was overthinking things.

Her dad was such a drama king!

After a while, Yi Hongping came to take Yi Xiaoya out to play, leaving Old Master Yi behind with Yi Yao.

“You really need to fix that temper of yours. You’re a father now,” Old Master Yi said. “Act more proper.”

“Like you? Always with a stern face? Trying to scare people?” Yi Yao replied. “You need a mirror. Take a good look at yourself. Didn’t you see how fast my daughter ran off the second you said she could go play?”

“……” Old Master Yi fell silent, wondering if maybe he did come off too strict. He had actually been trying to act a little gentler today. But with only family around, he couldn’t be too soft on his daughter-in-law—otherwise, he wouldn’t be able to hold his ground. People might even get the wrong idea and think he had feelings for her. As for the younger generation, he had to be even stricter.

A jade must be polished to become a gem. Old Master Yi believed he had to keep his descendants in check—otherwise, they’d squander the family fortune. Wealth rarely lasted past three generations. If they weren’t careful, the Yi family would become a joke.

Yi Hongping was a few years older than Yi Xiaoya, the youngest among the cousins.

“Big Brother—he’s Uncle’s eldest son,” Yi Hongping said as he brought Yi Xiaoya to the grassy yard outside. He was worried she might feel nervous. “He already works at the company and is a total workaholic. He comes back late all the time, even on weekends he’s usually still at the office. He didn’t know you were coming today—if he did, he definitely wouldn’t have gone in.”

They had always wanted a little sister growing up. Unfortunately, none of their parents ever gave them one.

Once, someone even brought a baby girl claiming she was Yi Yao’s daughter. But the Yi family wasn’t so easily fooled. They looked into it and found that the woman had stolen someone else’s child, just trying to sneak her way into the family. Her plan was to get in first, then have a real child later. By the time the truth came out, it would be too late to do anything about it.

Yi Yao had a reputation for being a flirt, and he’d been with a lot of women. He always gave them decent breakup compensation. To him, it was just a clean transaction. But some of the women didn’t want to let go, hoping to latch onto him.

Some even publicly claimed to be his girlfriend, but none of them ever made it through the Yi family’s doors. One of them later tried to break into the entertainment industry, but everyone knew she had fallen out with the Yi family—of course she didn’t get any good opportunities. When she tried livestreaming, she was banned from the platform.

It wasn’t even the Yi family who banned her. She got flagged for suggestive behavior, was reported by viewers, and also caught for tax evasion.

Yi Hongping knew some of this, but he would never tell his cousin. Girls didn’t need to hear all that. No one in their family would ever sink to that level anyway.

“I heard Uncle’s hiring tutors for you?” Yi Hongping didn’t really know what to say—it was his first time taking care of a younger sister, and he was a little excited.

“Yeah.” Yi Xiaoya sighed at the thought.

Before, she could always say her classmates went to cram school, so of course their grades were better than hers. But now her dad was hiring top tutors for her, so she couldn’t use that excuse anymore.

That meant she’d have to admit her brain just didn’t work as well as others’. She couldn’t say her family didn’t have money, couldn’t say she didn’t get extra lessons. Well, she could still claim her foundation in primary school was weak.

“Dad even asked the handsome guy next door to tutor me,” Yi Xiaoya said. “He’s not even worried I might start dating early. He said with how bad I am, there’s no way the guy would like me.”

She pouted. That guy next door really was handsome—but she was also very aware of the huge gap between them. Back when she was at No. 4 High, couples would take evening walks around the track, and the teachers had to patrol the area.

Some couples didn’t dare to show affection openly and even dragged friends along to be third wheels.

Yi Xiaoya used to wonder what the point of dating in high school was. Wouldn’t it be better to wait until college? Especially with all the homework—they barely had time to breathe.

“You’re amazing,” Yi Hongping said sincerely.

“What’s amazing about me?” Yi Xiaoya tilted her head. “With my grades, the teacher said if I perform well, I might make it into a first-tier university. But if I mess up, I’ll probably end up in a vocational college.”

“Is there really that much of a gap?” Yi Hongping asked in confusion. “Are your grades usually unstable?”

“They’re just a little… all over the place,” Yi Xiaoya admitted, feeling a little guilty. “Like for composition, sometimes I get high scores, and sometimes they’re low. English is a real struggle—I honestly don’t understand most of the listening sections, so I just guess randomly. I like chemistry the most. Biology’s okay too. I can almost get full marks in those two.”

Physics would be fine too, if only it didn’t have multiple-choice questions. Get one wrong and you lose the whole point—tragic.

Yi Xiaoya thought to herself: what’s so bad about being unbalanced in subjects? How many people are truly all-rounders anyway?

“Out of a total score of 750, getting over 500 is still pretty good,” Yi Xiaoya said. “But for top universities, you really need over 600…”

“That’s… that’s good enough…” Yi Hongping couldn’t bring himself to say she wasn’t doing well.

“My dad says my English is so bad that I wouldn’t even be able to go abroad,” Yi Xiaoya added. “Now he wants me to enter a chemistry competition!”

“That could work too,” Yi Hongping said.

“Why do you always say ‘could work’?” Yi Xiaoya asked, puzzled.

“As long as you get into a college, it’s all good,” Yi Hongping replied.

Yi Xiaoya glanced around, then leaned in and asked quietly, “Just hypothetically… remember, this is if…”

“Go on,” Yi Hongping said.

“I mean… if your family went bankrupt, would the things you gave me get seized by the court too?” she asked suddenly. “Not that I wouldn’t give them up to help pay off debt, I’m just… curious.”

She realized right after that it was kind of a weird question. It made her sound cold and selfish, like she was being stingy.

“If there’s no debt, and we gave you the stuff before that, then no, the court won’t take it back,” Yi Hongping said, amused by her conflicted expression.

“Really?” Yi Xiaoya asked. “Wow, you sure know a lot, Cousin.”

“Well, gotta understand a bit of the law. My dad’s a lawyer, and he’s worried I’ll turn into a lawless rogue,” Yi Hongping joked. “Can’t go living on the edge of legality.”

Elsewhere, Xiao Caiyu was asking their classmates if anyone had Yi Xiaoya’s contact info. That’s when they realized Yi Xiaoya had never been added to the class group chat.