Chapter 18: Supporting a Useless Brother? Not Happening!
The woman was dressed in a black, form-fitting, knee-length slip dress and walked in a pair of red high heels. Her waist was slender, almost as if it could snap in the wind.
At a glance, she looked around thirty-six or thirty-seven, but a closer look revealed fine wrinkles at the corners of her eyes—a kind of maturity that comes only after weathering life’s storms.
She might have been forty, or even fifty. Just as Yang Xiaofang had said, she was the kind of wealthy woman whose age was impossible to guess.
She appeared casual, but everything was meticulously styled: a carefully pinned-up hairdo; a dress made of high-end fabric; perfectly shaped stilettos; and in her hand, a glossy red snakeskin clutch.
Every detail made it impossible to ignore her.
And that face—strikingly beautiful—drew countless stares as she walked.
Lin Zhifeng’s eyes followed her too, but unlike ordinary onlookers, she didn’t see her as some peerless beauty.
‘If I weren’t always wrapped up in a battle robe, carrying a fifty-meter-long saber and yelling threats,’ she thought, ‘and if I wore one of those awkward dresses, I’d round up to being the second most beautiful woman in the God Realm.’
Look in the mirror often enough, and you build immunity to beauty.
Lin Zhifeng calmly walked to the inpatient building, trying to come up with a reason to strike up a conversation. But to her surprise, the woman spoke first.
“Wait.”
Lin Zhifeng stopped and turned to face her at the entrance.
“What’s your name? Do you know Wang Tingmei?”
“I do. She’s my mother now.”
The woman in the black dress didn’t question the odd phrasing—she simply pointed outside and said, “Can we talk out there for a moment?”
“Who are you?” Lin Zhifeng took a few wary steps back, her expression guarded—playing the part to perfection.
The woman in the black dress stood tall and straight, clutching her red clutch with both hands. Her tone was cold, emotionless, as she replied:
“I’m your grandmother. Zhao Jiaoyue.”
…
The summer moon was bright and gentle, casting cool silver light that drove away the lingering heat of the day.
Zhao Jiaoyue was like that cold moon—still and composed as she sat in a garden swarming with mosquitoes. She didn’t so much as flinch. Lin Zhifeng, on the other hand, kept swatting at bugs, one moment fanning them away, the next slapping her leg, waiting for the other woman to speak first.
“When I was pregnant with Nini, the Qin family’s business wasn’t nearly as big as it is now.”
The hand Lin Zhifeng had just raised to swat her leg suddenly froze mid-air.
There’s only one Qin family in this novel, she thought. So… Zhao Jiaoyue and the major Qin shareholder were once married? Nini… that’s Wang Tingmei. Their daughter?
“Even so, countless women had their eyes on the position of Mrs. Qin,” Zhao Jiaoyue continued. “The most cunning among them was a woman named Ai Lin. She bribed a nurse at Qin Hospital. The moment Nini was born, she was taken from me. If my trusted aide hadn’t sensed something was wrong, I might not have survived.”
When Zhao Jiaoyue spoke about her past, it was as if she were recounting someone else’s story—detached, unaffected. Whether it was her nature or years of hardship that shaped her, it was hard to tell.
“After that incident, the rift between me and Qin Li became irreparable. I fought for as much as I could in the divorce, but what I got was barely a sliver of his fortune.”
After her divorce, Zhao Jiaoyue had continuously hired people to investigate the whereabouts of her daughter, but no matter how deep they dug, the result was always the same: the child had died and was buried on the spot.
She had undergone countless rounds of psychological therapy, trying to shake off the shadows of the past and move on with her life. But to her surprise, the newly crowned Mrs. Qin—Ai Lin—insisted on driving her to the edge.
A series of “accidents” followed: car crashes, objects falling from high places, even getting caught in a shootout abroad. Everything pointed to one conclusion—Ai Lin was behind it all.
That’s when Zhao Jiaoyue got angry. She hadn’t left Qin Li or given up the status of Mrs. Qin because she was afraid. She had walked away out of disappointment—because she no longer cared about Qin Li or the Qin family.
If Ai Lin wanted her dead, there was no way Zhao Jiaoyue would just sit and wait for it.
She activated every resource at her disposal and began building her own power base in secret. Her trusted aides changed their names and identities, stepping into the light to battle the Qin family directly. For years, she made Qin Li and Ai Lin’s life a living hell, all while keeping her true identity hidden.
But as time passed, the Qin family’s empire only grew stronger. She realized that it was impossible to dismantle such a colossal enterprise from the outside—and fighting it alone was becoming increasingly difficult.
So, she adopted a four-year-old boy from an orphanage—Zhao Xiao. His cold, feral gaze reminded her of herself at that age.
She raised him as her successor, and Zhao Xiao didn’t disappoint—he lived up to both her training and her trust.
At this point in the story, Lin Zhifeng suddenly interrupted, “Ai Lin already got what she wanted—a secure place as Mrs. Qin. Why would she still go after you like that?”
For the first time, a flicker of emotion crossed Zhao Jiaoyue’s face. She looked at Lin Zhifeng with a glint of appreciation in her eyes. “You have a sharp perspective. I wondered the same thing at first… until five years ago, when I finally learned the truth.”
Zhao Jiaoyue hadn’t gone out of her way to conceal her movements—she merely added four bodyguards with mercenary backgrounds. That made her easy to locate, but extremely difficult to harm.
One night, after attending a banquet and heading home through a relatively secluded road, a disheveled man with a scar on his face suddenly ran out and blocked her car.
The scarred man claimed that, years ago, he had been ordered by Ai Lin to str*ngle the newborn Nini—stolen straight from the hospital—and dispose of her on the outskirts of the city. But in the end, he couldn’t bring himself to do it.
Instead, he drove through the night and abandoned the baby in a remote rural village. Without resting, he rushed back to Guocheng to report to Ai Lin.
But Ai Lin was shrewd. She immediately sensed something was off based on the timeline. She had him dragged away and tortured—eventually uncovering that he had never carried out the task.
“He hated Ai Lin with all his heart,” Zhao Jiaoyue said calmly. “No matter what they did, he refused to reveal Nini’s whereabouts. He was lucky enough to escape from Ai Lin’s clutches and went into hiding. It wasn’t until five years ago that he finally found me.”
Lin Zhifeng instantly understood.
Wang Tingmei, just like Ai Lin’s children, was born during the marriage. That gave her legitimate inheritance rights—and made her a massive threat.
Ai Lin wasn’t stupid enough to search the whole world for a missing baby. That would require a vast network and immense effort. Killing Zhao Jiaoyue was a much cleaner solution.
Once Zhao Jiaoyue was dead, Ai Lin could claim Wang Tingmei was just an illegitimate child. She could easily find another woman to pretend to be the birth mother.
“Qin Li values his illegitimate sons,” Lin Zhifeng muttered, “but daughters born out of wedlock mean nothing to him. Ai Lin knew that very well.”
Lin Zhifeng thought of Qin Jiaming, who had also been hunted down. Qin Li had always protected him, sparing no effort to keep him alive. But when it came to his legitimate daughter who had gone missing—or however many illegitimate daughters he might have—he simply didn’t care.
‘A man like Qin Li,’ she thought, ‘truly wasn’t worthy of Zhao Jiaoyue.’
After hearing all this, Lin Zhifeng finally understood why Zhao Xiao had stayed in this godforsaken place—it wasn’t for the female protagonist, but because of Wang Tingmei.
Five years ago, the scar-faced man had shown up. Four years ago, Zhao Xiao came and settled here.
“Zhao Xiao is now the second-largest shareholder in Hengrui, isn’t he?” Lin Zhifeng had already suspected this. Asking Zhao Jiaoyue now was just to confirm it.
Zhao Jiaoyue once again showed a hint of appreciation in her expression, along with a flicker of surprise.
“You’re very clever. And observant. I like you, granddaughter.”
“Heh, I am clever and observant,” Lin Zhifeng replied shamelessly, not bothering to feign modesty.
Zhao Jiaoyue smiled lightly and nodded, as if testing her further.
“Then tell me—why do you think I came here?”
