<div> Chapter 87: Uncle Chi
 Yuanfeng frowned, placing his fork down carefully. "That’s not the landlord. He usually calls first."
 Huaijin’s spine straightened instantly. She recognised the arrogance in that sound.
 That authoritative, impatient force could only belong to one side of the family she was trying to avoid.
 Yuanfeng went to the door and opened it, revealing the figure of his elder brother, Chi Yuantian.
 Chi Yuantian was everything Yuanfeng was not: impeccably dressed in a tailored suit, radiating an aura of crisp professionalism and financial success, and possessed of a perpetually tense expression that suggested he viewed the world as an inefficient ledger needing correction.
 He was the eldest son of the powerful Chi family. This man viewed his brilliant but impoverished younger brother with a mixture of pity and contempt for failing to capitalize on his potential.
 "Yuanfeng," Chi Yuantian stated curtly, stepping into the small entryway without waiting for an invitation, his expensive leather shoes scuffing the worn linoleum.
 He didn’t bother with pleasantries, his eyes sweeping over the cramped space and the simple breakfast table with an expression of barely concealed distaste.
 "What is Yuanying still doing here? Her mother has been frantic. She should be back at the manor preparing for school, not slumming it in... this."
 Yuanying instantly dropped her fork, her face paling slightly. The comfortable warmth of the morning vanished, replaced by the familiar pressure of her home life.
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 </div> "Uncle Yuantian, I was rehearsing with Huaijin!" Yuanying began to explain, but her voice was immediately overridden.
 "Rehearsing? Rehearsing is done with a professional tutor at the manor, Yuanying. Not... not here," Yuantian said, his gaze settling on Yuanfeng with condescending disapproval. "We need to discuss this strange infatuation with the variety show later. Collect your things."
 Yuanfeng, despite his discomfort with his brother’s attitude, remained the picture of gentle composure. "Elder brother, please, you’re upsetting the girls. Yuanying was here at her mother’s suggestion to bond with her cousin. We had a lovely, productive evening."
 "Bonding is fine. Overnights in this... environment... are not," Yuantian snapped, gesturing dismissively around the room.
 Huaijin, seeing Yuanying shrink under the familiar parental pressure, decided to intervene with a small, strategic escalation of her clingy persona.
 She slid off her chair and immediately ran to Yuanfeng, wrapping herself around his free leg, the one not currently blocking the entrance.
 "Daddy, Uncle is too loud! He’s going to break the sound barrier in our tiny apartment!" Huaijin complained loudly, burying her face in his trousers.
 The sight of the small, clingy Huaijin and the desperate, territorial embrace always flustered Yuanfeng, and it effectively stalled Chi Yuantian, who viewed public displays of affection as vulgar.
 Yuantian merely sighed in exasperation at the scene. "See, Yuanfeng? This is why you need a woman in the house. You simply can’t manage a child’s discipline or your own life."
 It was at that moment that Huaijin felt a chill travel down her spine that had nothing to do with the apartment’s draftiness.
 She knew, with chilling certainty, why Yuantian had suddenly arrived unannounced.
 Her gaze shifted past her uncle and landed on the person standing slightly behind him, lingering in the shadows of the hallway, the person who had been patiently waiting for the main familial confrontation to subside.
 It was Xu Meilin.
 Xu Meilin was the walking, breathing definition of the Trojan horse.
 In her past life, Huaijin had learned the hard way that the sweet, gentle smile, the soft, melodious voice, and the demure, pretty features were all a carefully constructed mask.
 She was the perennial pursuer of Yuanfeng, obsessed with securing a brilliant, if initially low-status, husband to elevate her own social standing.
 In public, Xu Meilin was an angel, the kind, patient woman who looked at the impoverished scholar with eyes full of sympathy and love.
 But Huaijin knew better than that. In private, after she realised Huaijin was the obstacle to her marriage and her ticket to the upper echelons of society, her sanity frayed, and she became a dangerous, obsessive monster.
 ’She tried to poison my juice at a family picnic, rigged my bicycle brakes during a trip to the park, and even engineered a terrifying ’accident’ with a speeding taxi just outside my school gates!’
 The memories, sharp and cold, hit Huaijin like a bucket of ice water.
 She had narrowly survived dying a horrible death in the hands of this seemingly gentle mini-boss character too many times.
 And now, here she was.
 Xu Meilin wore a simple but elegant cream-colored dress, her hair pulled back neatly.
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 </div> She carried a small, covered basket, and her expression was one of profound, sympathetic concern, tailored perfectly for the scene of the two brothers arguing in a shabby apartment.
 "Oh, Uncle Yuanfeng, I’m so sorry to intrude like this," Xu Meilin murmured, her voice soft and apologetic, easily cutting through the tension. "I was just passing by the manor when Uncle Yuantian was leaving to fetch Yuanying, and he mentioned you might be short on some supplies here, given the... temporary nature of the apartment."
 She extended the basket slightly. "I baked a fresh batch of bread and brought some extra fruit. I just wanted to make sure the children had a good breakfast before they went off to school."
 It was the perfect act of unsolicited, benevolent charity, a calculated move designed to showcase her caring, domestic nature in stark contrast to the rough, male confrontation between the brothers.
 She was subtly positioning herself as the necessary, gentle maternal presence that Yuantian had just declared Yuanfeng needed.
 ’Shameless!’ Huaijin seethed, tightening her grip on her father’s leg.
 Yuanfeng, completely unaware of the internal battle raging within his daughter and the sinister past that colored her perception, reacted with polite awkwardness.
 "Xu Meilin, you really shouldn’t have. That’s very kind of you," he said, stepping back slightly to accept the basket, which allowed Huaijin to move, too.
 Huaijin, now released, did not revert to her chair.
 She immediately positioned herself squarely between her father and Xu Meilin, her small body acting as a human shield.</div>
 

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Chapter 87: Uncle Chi

Chapter 87: Uncle Chi Yuanfeng frowned, placing his fork down carefully. "That’s not the landlord. He usually calls first." Huaijin’s spine straightened instantly. She recognised the arrogance in that sound. That authoritative, impatient force could only belong to one side of the family she was trying to avoid. Yuanfeng went to the door and opened it, revealing the figure of his elder brother, Chi Yuantian. Chi Yuantian was everything Yuanfeng was not: impeccably dressed in a tailored suit,...

The Main Characters Won't Stop Pampering Me!

Chapter 87: Uncle Chi

The Main Characters Won't Stop Pampering Me! - Chapter 87: Uncle Chi