The first thing that caught her eye was a necklace, which had always hung around the original owner's neck when she was a child. It was not worth much: a peach wood carving of a Chinese zodiac sign, and hanging from it was a brownish pendant that was somewhere between jade and stone.
It was said that this was what the adoptive parents had found on her neck when they found her. Judging by this setup, she guessed she must not have been a favorite with her birth parents either. The only possible use for it was that her date of birth was engraved on the back of the peach wood plaque; it felt almost as if they knew she would be lost, which was somewhat ironic.
She felt that her current orphan status was just fine and did not plan to go looking for her relatives; she had no wish to bring a whole host of ancestors upon herself.
At the bottom of the box were two sets of property deeds: one for this house and another in her adoptive mother Ding Zhilan's name. The house under Ding Zhilan's name was rented to the government. The rent was previously sent to her adoptive mother, Ding Zhilan; after her sacrifice, Grandfather had arranged for it to be sent to the original owner.
Thinking that she was about to go to the countryside, she still had to make a trip there before leaving to explain the situation.
Just as she was lost in thought, someone knocked on the door loudly. "Yunyi, open the door."
She recognized the voice instantly; she had not yet gone to settle the score with them, yet they had come knocking on her door first. Perhaps it was the remnants of the original owner's consciousness, but a surge of anger rose in her heart. She stood up swiftly, but with too much force, and her hand accidentally scraped against the sharp corner of the open hidden compartment. The sharp edge sliced her hand, and beads of blood immediately seeped out.
Thinking that the Sun Family was precisely after the assets laid out before her, she ignored the bleeding wound on her hand and quickly stashed the property deeds back into the small box. Just as she was about to throw the worthless necklace back into the box, a droplet of blood from the wound fell onto the brownish pendant. Yunyi was about to look for something to wipe it off when an entirely different scene flashed through her mind. As someone who had once possessed a 'cheat', how could she not understand what this signified?
She felt a mix of shock and delight, coupled with some disbelief. However, now was not a good time to investigate, as another round of knocking came from outside.
She quickly tended to the wound on her hand, put everything back into the hidden compartment, and then left the courtyard, saying, "I'm coming."
As soon as the door opened, it revealed Mrs. Sun's ingratiating face. "Yunyi, why did it take you so long to open the door?"
Yunyi didn't intend to let her in. "Aunt Sun, is there something you need?"
Mrs. Sun glanced at the nosy neighbors peeking in their direction and said with a forced smile, "I was worried you might feel lonely by yourself, so I thought I'd come over to keep you company."
Yunyi was not in the mood to waste words with her. "No need. I'm a bit tired and want to rest well."
Her words, "I want to rest well," cut off whatever Mrs. Sun intended to say next. Inwardly, Mrs. Sun cursed Yunyi half to death but still kept a smile on her face. "Then you rest first. Even though your grandfather is no longer with us, you have us for everything; don't worry."
But Yunyi was not the original owner. She said directly, "I have nothing to worry about. My grandfather has arranged everything for me, so I won't trouble you with it."
She didn't make her statement too harsh, as she didn't want to jeopardize her plans for revenge.
Without waiting for Mrs. Sun to say anything more, Yunyi added, "If there's nothing else, I'll go rest now."
She nodded to the other neighbors outside and then closed the door firmly.
Nobody was a fool; the neighbors could all see what the Sun Family was after. They just wanted to swallow up her inheritance. But considering the recent burial of Old Master Chu, everyone could understand Yunyi's attitude.