When the Fair Rich Beauty Becomes the Poor Girl - Chapter 2.2
Chapter 2: 14 yuan (Part 2)
Jiang Bao initially wanted to get into the house and into a bedroom, then charge her phone and leave. Now, she could only stand awkwardly in the living room.
She finally understood. When Lin Can had work, she would be brought along by Shen He Xiang. When she didn’t have work, she would be sent to school.
Shen He Xiang smiled as she said, “How about you eat dinner first then go back to school?”
“That’s fine. But I need to charge my phone first.”
Shen He Xiang handed a charger to Jiang Bao, then turned her head and entered the kitchen. Not long after, she carried two bowls of noodles out.
Jiang Bao didn’t have any appetite. She was thinking of waiting for the phone to charge until it reached two bars, then she could finally leave.
There was someone at the door lock. A man wearing beach shorts came in and sat at the dining table, furious.
“You’ve already wasted 3000 yuan of my money by being admitted to the hospital! I won’t take care of you for no profit! Go to work right now! Immediately!”
He had been playing cards when he got a call of complaint from his son. He hurriedly came back, seething with anger.
Jiang Bao looked at him. This must be Lin Can’s uncle.
The man noticed she wasn’t replying. He reached out his hand and wanted to drag Jiang Bao.
Jiang Bao took a step backward. She had had enough. Why did this whole family like to be all touchy-feely?[1] But it could be seen that Lin Can had always surrendered to their ways.
Lin Can’s birth mother… was a crazy “brocon”.[2]
Knowing that woman, Jiang Bao’s last beautiful fantasy about her was already destroyed.
Although her birth father was a womanizer, he would not force them into it. In the beginning, it was Lin Xiao Yuan who threw herself at him to prevent her younger brother from being locked up after scamming others.
Afterward, to pay for her married younger brother’s house, she sent the swaddled Jiang Bao back to the Jiang family and received quite the amount of money.
Jiang Bao didn’t know what she had in mind, as Lin Xiao Yuan hid the fact that she had given birth to twins that year and made Lin Can stay by her side.
Jiang Bao couldn’t comprehend this. After all, the child that she hid… wasn’t even taken care of.
She only ever thought of her daughter as a meal ticket. Otherwise, Lin Can wouldn’t have wanted to kill herself so easily.
Lin Xiao Yuan got married when Lin Can was only two years old. Her husband strongly opposed her bringing in her child. So, the woman left the child to her younger brother, Lin Xiao Jun, to take care of.
Lin Xiao Jun was extremely unwilling to do so until there was a time when he brought his niece out and took a walk on the streets. There, she was unexpectedly scouted as a child model. Since she was young, Lin Can had always been the most beautiful among her peers. The whole family immediately found a business opportunity.
After her marriage, Lin Xiao Yuan would take some money to support her younger brother, which made her husband very dissatisfied. So, when she heard her daughter could earn money, she felt relieved.
During the time she gave birth to the twins, she never went to a proper hospital, which led to her inability to conceive again. Fortunately, her husband had a son with his ex-wife. It was also because of this that she felt humiliated in her husband’s family. She didn’t even dare to care for her daughter.
Lin Can had resisted before. She didn’t want to work on a tight schedule; she wanted to study instead. But Lin Xiao Yuan told her, “Your uncle’s family isn’t doing well. Since you can earn money, helping him out isn’t a big deal.”
These few able-bodied adults felt justified and at ease exploiting a young girl to earn money for their own enjoyment.
Jiang Bao recalled the contents of the diary. Her eyes immediately turned icy towards the man.
Lin Xiao Jun saw that Lin Can had dodged him. He was even more outraged. “You think you got what it takes now, huh?[3] I provided food and clothing for you, but now you despise me?”
Jiang Bao felt it comical. Lin Can’s clothes weren’t good. During puberty, her body would go through a rapid growth spurt. Her clothes seemed not to fit anymore, and it was in such a plain style. Logically speaking, the money earned should have been sufficient for herself.
She was obviously being sucked dry by the Lin family. How can this man shamelessly yell like that?
Jiang Bao didn’t feel like reasoning with them. She turned her head and saw that the phone had charged to 58%, then unplugged the charger and walked towards the door.
Lin Xiao Jun shouted, “Where are you going? Don’t you know I’m talking to you? When your mom got married and abandoned you, if it wasn’t for me, you would’ve died long ago!”
Jiang Bao held the phone in her hand, then turned around and left. Thankfully, the man didn’t follow behind her.
Shen He Xiang sighed, “Why do you have to scold her like that!”
She still needed to coax her to earn her money.
“I can’t reprimand her now? I don’t believe she would dare to go far from us![4]” The man flew into a rage.
When Jiang Bao came out of the small district, it was evening.
She turned on the phone, but suddenly, she didn’t know who to call. This was such a ridiculous matter. She needed to find someone she could fully trust.
It was difficult to get straight As and high scores on the SAT. Not only was intelligence important, but so was discipline. Jiang Bao and the other Young Masters and Young Ladies in the social circle were only acquaintances who nodded at each other.
She didn’t have the time to deal with those people. Besides academics, her physical fitness, club activities, and competitions had taken away all her attention.
Jiang Bao’s father was a self-made man[5], so she was considered a person born with a silver spoon[6].
As those Young Ladies thought that the ‘truly rich’ needed to have at least three generations of presence, they looked down on her as a nouveau riche, and also as a disgraceful illegitimate daughter.
In this situation, they just needed to wait for another 10 years and the situation would get better, as the Jiang family would turn from new money to old money.
Jiang Bao didn’t think too much about it as she saw the group of young ladies who had a keen interest in collecting Himalayan crocodile leather bags get all Ds on their report cards.
They had to spend a large amount of money to get into the Ivy League, but could they even graduate successfully after entering?
Jiang Bao, who got a full scholarship, was even more arrogant than them.
Jiang Bao dialed her own number. She didn’t know the situation over there, which made her anxious. The impersonal voice of a woman could be heard. “The user’s phone has been switched off.”
Jiang Bao grasped her phone tightly. She thought for a moment and dialed her Second Brother’s number.
She had five older brothers. The eldest was older than her by 25 years, and even the youngest was at least six years older than her.
As they weren’t from the same mothers and had never lived under the same roof together, most of them had a distant relationship with each other.
Among her older brothers, Jiang Bao was the closest to her Second Brother. Jiang Hao Zheng was the current head of the corporation and had just turned forty last year. But he had yet to be married, nor did he have a child.
Jiang Bao dialed the number she had memorized by heart. It was in a busy tone three times in a row. She then realized that this was her Second Brother’s private number.
Unknown numbers cannot contact the caller and would be denied access.
She later dialed the number of her Second Brother’s assistant. This time, it connected.
——-
Footnotes:
[2] 扶弟魔 – I switched to brocon but the more accurate meaning is a person who has been brainwashed since young to always put her younger brother first, to take care and support him but it’s to the next level type, to the point of being a slave to the younger brother.
[3] 你倒是长本事了啊 – another translation is “You think you’re all that now, huh?”
[4] The original was 我就不信了她还敢不认我们, which means I don’t believe she’d dare not recognize/acknowledge us but I think ‘go far from us’ sounds better xD
[5] 富一代 – first-generation rich
[6] 富二代 – 2nd gen rich