Chapter 18: Still Pressuring Her

Night fell swiftly.

Inside the internet café, Zheng Xiu sat idly, bored out of his mind. His phone buzzed once. He toyed with a business card in his hand and replied with a voice message, “Brother Yan, she didn’t come again today…”

“Maybe she switched to another internet café. Forget it,” came the reply.

He then stuffed the business card into a drawer.

Under the star-studded night sky, the countryside was alive with the sounds of cicadas and birds. Frogs croaked from the paddies. Lin Mo sat outside the house, eating watermelon, while her grandmother, Li Guihua, brought over a plate of stir-fried dishes.

“Mo Mo, come eat dinner soon. You must be starving!”

“Grandma didn’t know you’d be back today, so dinner’s a bit late.”

“Have you told your mother you’re home?”

Li Guihua set a bountiful table, her face full of affection.

Though this was the countryside, Lin Mo didn’t feel it was any less than the city. She savored the watermelon, for this place was the one she longed for in her soul... This was truly her home.

“Grandpa, Grandma, don’t worry. It’s summer break, after all.”

“Soon I’ll be starting university. I wanted to come home for more than half a month before military training at the end of the month.”

Li Guihua smiled proudly. “You’re the only one from our valley who got into university this year. Such a bright future!”

Li Fugui boasted, “Of course! Don’t forget whose granddaughter this is!”

At last, Lin Mo smiled genuinely.

The next day, she insisted on taking her grandparents to the city hospital for a checkup. The doctor recommended hospitalization, and after the tests, surgery was necessary.

Li Guihua was deeply worried and secretly asked the doctor about the cost. Learning it might be around two hundred thousand yuan, she burst into tears.

Lin Mo comforted her grandmother, “I have money. Over five hundred thousand yuan. I earned it myself, not from the Lin family.”

“Grandma, don’t tell Grandpa how much it will cost. His health is the most important thing.”

Fortunately, the surgery went smoothly.

The hospital stay would be a month, but Lin Mo planned to leave early. She spent 250,000 yuan from her card and prepaid 20,000 yuan for hospitalization fees.

She secretly opened a savings account with 200,000 yuan, which she slipped into her grandmother’s backpack.

With 30,000 yuan in hand, she returned to the Lin family home in the provincial capital during the last week of August.

However, upon entering the house, a bowl of rice was smashed at her feet.

“Lin Mo, you disappeared for over half a month without a word. Do you even consider this home yours?” Qin Lian’s face was full of anger. “You knew how critical your sister’s studies were, yet you deliberately went off the grid!”

“You had to make sure your sister couldn’t continue studying to satisfy yourself, huh?”

“How can you be so heartless? How could I have given birth to such an ungrateful child?”

Qin Lian raged like a protective leopard defending her cub.

Lin Mo’s shoes were stained with spilled food. She looked down, expressionless.

Dusty and weary from half a month at the hospital, constantly by her grandpa’s side, she was already drained and fragile.

Facing Qin Lian, she felt nothing but exhaustion.

“You’re not angry because I disappeared, but because your worries about Wanwan haven’t been resolved,” Lin Mo said quietly.

Qin Lian’s gaze flickered evasively. What else could it be?

Did she really worry that Lin Mo, this wild child, might get into trouble outside? Not a chance. With such a calculating mind, what danger could she possibly face? Ridiculous.

“If you know, then stop pretending to be clueless!” Lin Tiancheng’s face darkened as he sat firmly in the main seat.

His tone was low and grave, yet commanding.

“Mo Mo, what are you really thinking? Just say it.”

“This dragging on with no certainty benefits no one.”

“When school starts, you can just leave. What about Wanwan? You should think about your sister’s difficult situation.”

Their dissatisfied eyes fixed on Lin Mo.

Before she had even set foot inside, she was already a criminal in their eyes.

She found it hard to move.

Their stares felt like thorns piercing her back.

Lin Mo frowned. She had done nothing wrong, yet it was as if she had committed an unforgivable crime.

“Mo Mo, it must be because of me that you don’t want to come home.”

“Your parents are worried about you. You’re the biological daughter of the Lin family; I’m just an adopted daughter.”

“If you distance yourselves because of me, then I’d rather leave immediately…”

Lin Wan, her eyes red, choked back tears and lowered her head. Tears streamed down her face.

She seemed deeply wronged, crying silently without a sound.

This made her all the more pitiable.

“Mo Mo, if you hate me, please don’t hate Mom and Dad…”

Lin Mo stared at Wan Wan in a daze.

Unlike Wan Wan, who had been cherished by their parents and brothers since she could speak, Lin Mo had been a wild child.

She never cried or played the victim.

Even when she fell and bled, she simply cleaned up and never worried her grandparents.

She was used to biting her tongue and swallowing her pain.

She lowered her gaze, smiled faintly, her expression somewhat distant.

“I’ve said it before. How many times do I have to say it for you to be satisfied?”

“You just didn’t hear the answer you wanted, so you keep pressuring me here.”

Her eldest brother, Lin Yunhe, was already troubled and tugged irritably at his suit collar.

“Mo Mo, what exactly do you want? What will it take for you to agree?”

“I’ll try to meet your demands.”

He seemed to have lost all patience. “How much money would it take for you to give up this spot?”

Her second brother, Lin Hen, looked conflicted.

Rarely did he fail to blame Lin Mo.

“Make sure the family’s affairs are properly arranged.”

Their third brother, Lin Juan, leaned back in his chair.

Once a young CEO famous for his looks, he had fallen silent.

He sighed and pressed his lips together.

“Lin Mo, we’re not trying to force you. We’ve just lost all patience.”

“You know we’re busy. We don’t have time to repeatedly negotiate terms with you.”

“Just give us a price once and for all. Don’t waste time.”

Lin Jianchen toyed with a lighter, his eyes downcast, voice low and somber.

He seemed amused. “If we really played hardball, what could you do but be slaughtered?”

Their fifth brother’s words were always cutting.

Now was no exception.

Lin Qinglang said, “Lin Mo, maybe you shouldn’t come back at all. You’re really unnecessary here.”

“If it weren’t for you, Wanwan could have easily been the top in the city. You used such despicable means to ruin her mindset.”

“You owe her this spot. She didn’t beg you for it.”

Time seemed to stand still, silent.

But the suffocating, oppressive mood filled every moment.

Lin Mo’s face was pale as paper. She still held her suitcase, which contained little more than two changes of clothes and some preserved duck and spicy chopped chili her grandmother had packed for her journey.

She had always been alone and dared not buy many things, fearing one day she might be driven out by the Lin family.