When she was scolded by Han Ziyan, Han Ruochen quickly took a step back, but she was still covered in her spit.

With a cold face, she shot a look of sheer disdain at the woman in front of her and wiped her face. Han Ziyan was really too much. She actually covered her face with her saliva. Wasn’t this dirty? Even if she didn’t think that it was dirty, Han Ruochen did think that it was dirty. She was simply disgusted by her actions.

"Ziyan, what happened?" At the sight of Han Ziyan staring at Han Ruochen with reddened eyes and face, Meng Yunhan quickly asked. She then turned to look at Han Ruochen and asked angrily, "What kind of mess did you get into this time?"

And before Han Ruochen could even bring herself to say something, Han Ziyan launched herself into a tirade. "Dad, Mom, you don’t know what she did. She made us lose all our face. You know what she did? You all kept blaming me, saying that I was the one who did something wrong, that I should have never gotten involved with my sister’s betrothed, but it turns out that this was all sister’s plan from the start! She actually got involved with the leader of the dodgy people, and that was why she wanted to get rid of Brother Jianming."

When Han Ziyan thought about how she had been played by Han Ruochen, she was angered to death. How come she was being treated as a sinner when Han Ruochen was actually involved with the leader of a gang? This was truly too much.

"Sister, I am not saying that you are wrong. But you need to explain yourself. Because of you sister, Mom and Dad have quarrelled so many times. Because of you, our mother has been angered by you so many times. You don’t even bring any money home. You are mom’s daughter, and you have done such a thing. Do you still have a little bit of conscience left in your heart or not? And you even dared to say that Brother Jianming and I let you down. You’d better tell us who was the one who let others down?"

"What? Is there such a matter?" Meng Yunhan believed the words of her precious daughter right away. She turned to look at Han Ruochen with a look of twisted hatred and raised her hand. "You little wretch. I knew you were one scheming brat!"

Han Jianyou was shocked when he saw his mother raise her hand at Han Ruochen. In his memories, he never saw their mother lose her temper at his second sister, but it turned out that his second sister was no better than him. Poor girl was still getting beaten even though she was already so old.

Han Ruochen had no idea that she had suddenly turned pitiful in the eyes of her second brother; she pulled Han Beijiang and Han Jianyou before hiding behind Han Yichen like a nimble monkey. She hid behind his back and sneered. "Look at the two of you. One is my real mother, and the other is my sister, who, despite being adopted, I have treated quite well. From what you said, it seems like you are in a hurry to clear Yang Jianming of the crimes that he had committed. You didn’t even ask me what the crux of this situation was and simply rushed to make your own decisions. You believed others without any question. Are you really my kin?"

Han Ruochen couldn’t stop herself and asked angrily. She really wanted to hear what her mother thought of her. It was fine if she liked her lover’s daughter more than she liked her. But was there any need for her to subject herself or her siblings to any sort of cruelty as she did to them in the past or present? Why did she hate them so much? Why did she have to kill them all just for Han Ziyan? She couldn’t even say that Han Ziyan was exceptionally filial. She was just a sweet talker and nothing else.

"Don’t even think of trying anything funny!" Han Yichen shouted at Han Ziyan and Meng Yunhan. He was also shocked by what Han Ziyan said to him, but compared to an adopted daughter, he clearly trusted his own daughter more. He had never heard Han Ziyan bring up this matter before, but she was suddenly speaking of this matter all of a sudden. These might just be some baseless rumors.

He then turned to look at his second daughter and asked, "Ruochen, what happened?"

"What else dad? Someone was jealous of my consistent performance and spread some rumours about me at school, and someone took it seriously. What can I even do about this situation? Anyway, it is a good thing that, unlike Mom and Ziyan, when Principal Dong heard about this, he asked me whether I was being bullied like the last time and immediately put a halt to the rumours and scolded the person responsible for it."

In other words, Principal Dong, who was an outsider, believed Han Ruochen would never do something so dishonest and was even worried about her condition. And yet Meng Yunhan and Han Ziyan, who were supposed to be her closest kin, actually doubted her. They didn’t even have any evidence and just heard the slightest ruffle in the wind and started to believe that what the rumours were saying was the truth.

Was this something that they were supposed to do?

"You mean to say that Principal Duan didn’t suspect you in the least?" Han Yichen blinked. He heaved a sigh of relief, thanking the heavens that Principal Dong was much more sensible than his wife and adoptive daughter.

"No, he didn’t." Han Ruochen shook her head and then said in a soft voice, "He even warned the person who was spreading the ugly rumours."

"Then what happened? How come that person spread such a rumour?"