Chapter 2: Father, I’ve Fallen for Someone Else

“So a grown daughter’s heart really does fly out the door! Don’t worry, Little Five. I know what you’re thinking. That Bai boy is yours. He won’t get away!”

Father, you don’t understand!

Lin Yaoyao shook her head. As expected, Lin Xuanzhong planned to announce her engagement to Bai Jingming at the Treasure Appraisal Gathering.

“I was going to keep it a secret and surprise you in three days.”

A surprise? It was a shock!

Lin Xuanzhong took a green jade bracelet from his storage space and handed it to Lin Yaoyao. It was the dowry her late mother had left for her.

“Your mother made me promise to keep this for you. Now that you’re getting married, it’s time you had it.”

Lin Yaoyao looked at the bracelet, not knowing whether to laugh or cry.

She had come to ask the little old man to help her call off the marriage. Instead, he had pulled out her dowry and was tearing up at the thought of his daughter getting married.

With the mood built up like this, Lin Yaoyao had no idea how to bring up the subject.

“Father, honestly, I think Bai Jingming is pretty average. He’s not good enough for me. I don’t want to marry yet. I want to stay with you a few more years.”

Lin Xuanzhong nodded. Lin Yaoyao’s heart leapt.

There was hope!

“Little Five is the finest woman in the world. No one deserves my daughter. It’s just that…”

Lin Xuanzhong patted her head, his voice a little choked. Now that his eldest son, Lin Qingshan, was crippled, who would look after Little Five in the future?

“I’m old, and your brothers… If Little Five marries, there will be one more person to protect her. I can rest easier.”

With her father and eldest brother fallen from power, Lin Yaoyao’s life in the Lin family wouldn’t be easy. A good marriage was her way out, and Lin Xuanzhong had put real thought into it.

Marrying into the Bai family was his careful plan for his daughter.

What the little old man didn’t know was that marrying Bai Jingming was a dead end for Lin Yaoyao too.

Lin Xuanzhong wasn’t doing this for a family alliance. The original Lin Yaoyao had adored Bai Jingming since childhood. Everyone knew it. She had followed him around for years.

Three years ago, she fell into the cold pond. She had meant to trap Bai Jingming into marrying her. Instead, she lost her own life.

Sigh. The original Lin Yaoyao was a lousy schemer who loved to scheme. Her lovesick brain ran wild, and she paid with her life.

The original her had caused the mess, but Lin Yaoyao was the one bearing the blame now.

“Father, I don’t like Bai Jingming anymore!”

Since the original her was already a scandal, Lin Yaoyao didn’t mind adding another stain to her name, like being fickle and quick to fall for someone new.

Lin Xuanzhong was startled. He felt Lin Yaoyao’s forehead.

No fever!

For Bai Jingming, the original Lin Yaoyao had caused no end of trouble for her family. She had even given the Lin family’s heirloom, the Mystic Soul Spirit Stone, to the Bai boy for free.

“Are you still our Little Five?”

Lin Yaoyao’s heart tightened. Had the little old man noticed something? She composed herself and said:

“Father, if I’m not Little Five, who else could I be? I just don’t like Bai Jingming anymore. I’ve fallen for someone else.”

Falling for someone new fit the original her’s persona perfectly. Lin Yaoyao breathed a quiet sigh of relief.

His daughter was as boy-crazy as ever, loving whoever she saw?

Lin Xuanzhong was curious. What kind of person could make his daughter give up the Bai boy she had chased for years? That Bai boy was one of the best of the younger generation, and plenty of young ladies had their eyes on him.

Little Five was prone to changing her mind. In a few days, she might start crying to marry Bai Jingming again. As her father, he had to vet this carefully.

“Little Five, which young master have you taken a fancy to?”

Lin Yaoyao couldn’t answer. She couldn’t just invent a person out of thin air.

“It’s a secret!”

This time, Lin Xuanzhong couldn’t indulge her. While he was still the head of the Lin family, Little Five’s marriage had to be settled as soon as possible.

“Don’t try to fool me. In three days, I’ll make the decision and finalize this engagement with the Bai family.”

Even if she told her father about her dream, Lin Xuanzhong wouldn’t believe it. She had no choice but to come up with another plan.

“Master, something terrible has happened!”

A servant rushed in to report that Third Young Master Lin Feiyuan had been beaten.

Lin Feiyuan had heard that someone had crippled his eldest brother Lin Qingshan’s legs. Furious, he had taken a pack of his rowdy friends to pick a fight with the culprit. He came back with his face bruised and swollen.

Arena matters are settled on the arena!

Causing trouble and taking revenge off the arena broke the rules. Lin Feiyuan had also shamed the Lin family.

Lin Xuanzhong punished him by making him kneel in the ancestral hall to reflect. Lin Feiyuan hung his head, looking anything but convinced.

Lin Yaoyao couldn’t spare an ounce of sympathy for her third brother.

Sigh. He was only at the third level of Qi Refining, yet he went swaggering off in the Lin family’s name to avenge Big Brother. He had neither strength nor brains. No wonder he got used as a punching bag.

Lin Feiyuan had been kneeling for a day and a night. Father Lin Xuanzhong couldn’t swallow his pride, so he hinted in a roundabout way for Lin Yaoyao to bring Lin Feiyuan some food and medicine.

“Yaoyao, take these things away. I’m not eating! What’s wrong with avenging Big Brother?”

Oh wow, this fool was really digging in his heels!

Lin Yaoyao was speechless. With a brain like Lin Feiyuan’s, in the modern world, he probably couldn’t even outsmart a schoolkid.

Eat or don’t eat. Let him starve, see if I care!

Lin Yaoyao started eating by herself. Lin Feiyuan gulped, his stomach growling loudly.

Serves him right. All that pride, and he was only making himself suffer.

The little old man was pitiful. Of his four sons, the only one in good health had a head full of mush.

Sigh. For the sake of how well the little old man treated her, Lin Yaoyao decided to knock some sense into her third brother.

“Third Brother, you said you were avenging Big Brother. Did you succeed? Did you tear off his arm? Or his legs?”

Lin Feiyuan looked embarrassed. Forget arms or legs, he hadn’t even landed a single punch on the man. He was the one who had gotten beaten.

“What cultivation realm is the enemy at? What martial arts does he know? Did you look into any of that? Even Big Brother couldn’t beat him, and you went rushing to your death. If not for the Lin family’s name, you’d be dead by now.”

The words were blunt, but the logic was sound. Lin Feiyuan hung his head.

“Yaoyao, so we’re not avenging Big Brother after all?”

“We will! There are plenty of ways to take revenge. I have a few plans. Catch him off guard with a sneak attack. Set an ambush and take him by surprise. Or trap him, knock him out, put a sack over his head, and beat him within an inch of his life. We could also hire a top expert to assassinate him. Or find his enemies and join hands with them to take him out…”

Before Lin Yaoyao could finish, someone hugged her legs tight.

‘Lin Feiyuan, did you get water in your brain?’

“Yaoyao, you can think of all those plans. That’s amazing!”

Lin Feiyuan couldn’t believe it. Was this still the same sister who used to be arrogant, willful, and empty-headed?

In recent years, his sister had been cold and distant. He never thought she could be this resourceful, with such hidden depth.

Lin Yaoyao told Lin Feiyuan that the best way to avenge Big Brother was to let Big Brother kill the enemy with his own hands.

Killing one man wasn’t hard for the Lin family. But if this man died, would Big Brother’s legs heal? Could Lin Qingshan ever return to his old spirited self?

An enemy’s existence could also be a reason for a man to keep living.

Lin Yaoyao wanted to give her eldest brother, Lin Qingshan, a goal to pull himself together.

A gentleman’s revenge is never too late, even after ten years.

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