After leaving Song Fei'er's house, Wen Yan went to a temple, then took a taxi to a private kitchen restaurant in the city center.
Outside the private kitchen, the parked cars were uniformly luxury vehicles.
Wen Yan hadn't made a reservation in advance, so she couldn't dine in a private room and had to sit at a small table in the main hall.
It didn't matter to her anyway, as she was alone.
She ordered three dishes, a soup, and some dim sum.
True to its reputation as the highest-rated private kitchen, the flavors were absolutely superb.
As long as there was delicious food, Wen Yan's mood would turn delightful.
Full and satisfied, she picked up a napkin and elegantly dabbed her mouth.
When a waitress passed by her table and saw that she, a slender woman who looked like she didn't have an ounce of extra flesh, had finished all that food by herself, she couldn't help but show a look of envy in her eyes.
The waitress was busy from morning till night, didn't dare eat much, yet was still slightly overweight.
Comparing oneself to others was truly maddening!
Feeling sleepy after a full meal, Wen Yan yawned and lazily walked to the cashier. "Check, please."
Seeing Wen Yan in her red gown, radiant and beautiful as a rose, the cashier couldn't help but marvel inwardly: this woman was even more stunning than the female celebrities who usually dined here.
"Miss, the total is 18,300. I'll round it down for you, so just pay 18,000!"
Wen Yan swallowed hard.
So expensive?
"Miss, did you miscalculate? I only ordered three dishes, a soup, and a small dim sum!"
The cashier's look towards Wen Yan slowly changed.
Could it be that she was all glamorous on the outside but dirt poor on the inside?
Everyone who dined here was well-known and had money to spare. Her bill of eighteen thousand was actually the cheapest order here.
"No mistake. Please show your payment code, I'll scan it."
Wen Yan pursed her red lips, took out her phone, and opened the payment code.
The cashier scanned it, frowned, "Insufficient balance. Or you can pay by card."
Wen Yan then took out a bank card from her wallet.
"Also insufficient balance."
Only then did Wen Yan remember: after the original host was recognized and brought back to the Wen family, she wasn't accepted and usually received a pitifully small allowance. Whatever money she did have, she vainly spent on luxury goods for Gu Beichen.
Right now, she could probably scrape together at most a thousand bucks from her pockets.
A miscalculation, a serious miscalculation.
She should have figured out a way to make money first.
Seeing Wen Yan in such straitened circumstances, the cashier immediately lost her pleasant demeanor. "Looks all pretty, but turns out to be a dine-and-dasher. Hurry up and find a way to pay, or I'll call the police!"
Just then, several socialites dressed in name-brand outfits and carrying limited-edition bags walked out.
At the center of attention was Wen Yue, who looked delicate and graceful.
She was the female lead in the story.
"Yueyue, isn't that your sister Wen Yan over there?"
After Wen Yan was recognized and brought back to the Wen family, the family only publicly stated that she had been frail since childhood and raised in the countryside, that she was Wen Yue's fraternal twin sister.
Outsiders didn't know that Wen Yan was the real heiress, while Wen Yue was just the fake one.
Everyone in the Wen family disliked Wen Yan, considering her crude, brainless, and an embarrassment.
"Oh, she's the one who mistook the finger bowl for soup at that socialite gathering once!"
"Not only that, I heard she even stole Yueyue's amethyst necklace!"
"Not just brainless and lacking virtue, but also loves competing with Yueyue. Yueyue goes to Yecheng Arts School, so she has to follow, with no talent at all. Does she really think she can make it in the entertainment industry just by relying on her face?"
Wen Yan and Si Moyan had a secret marriage. Apart from the Wen and Si families, no one else knew Wen Yan was already married.
These socialites only knew about the embarrassing things Wen Yan had done in the Wen family.
Listening to these malicious taunts, Wen Yan casually curled the corner of her lips.
Why did the original host go further down an extreme path? Why could Gu Beichen so easily manipulate her? Wasn't it precisely because the Wen family had never truly treated her as family?
She was switched at birth and raised in the countryside. Although her adoptive father and younger brother were good people, she grew up without maternal love, extremely sensitive and insecure.
Finally returning to the city and to her biological parents' side, her biological parents and brothers looked down on her.
She tried hard to perform well to get their attention, but the result was constantly making a fool of herself.
She simply couldn't fit into upper-class society.
The worse she was, the more it highlighted Wen Yue's excellence and brilliance.
Wen Yue was proficient in music, chess, calligraphy, and painting, had a sweet mouth, and was very good at shedding tears to win the Wen family's affection.
The original host couldn't do that; she was clumsy with words and slow-witted.
The only ones who were kind to her were Gu Beichen and Song Qingyu.
However, these people were only using her.
Perhaps the pitiful have their hateful aspects.
The original host was just too desperate to integrate into high society, too eager for the Wen family's approval. After being recognized, she completely neglected her adoptive father and younger brother.
Wen Yan didn't sympathize with the original host.
As for the taunts from Wen Yue and the others, she wouldn't take them to heart at all.
Apart from life and death, nothing could affect her mood.
"Sorry, I didn't bring that much money. Could I owe it and definitely pay it back tomorrow?"
The cashier shook her head with a look of disdain. "No, we don't allow credit here!"
Wen Yue walked over, her gaze gentle and soft as she looked at Wen Yan. "Sister, you can't afford the bill, can you?"
Wen Yan really didn't like this kind of white lotus. She raised an eyebrow slightly, the teardrop mole at the corner of her eye a captivating crimson. "What's it to you?"
Wen Yue was taken aback.
Ever since Wen Yan was brought back to the Wen family, she had never dared to speak to her in such a tone.
Had Wen Yan not yet recognized her current situation?
Wen Yue gave a slight, gentle smile. "Sister, it's one thing for you to be rude and unreasonable at home, but how can you dine and dash outside?"
Wen Yan narrowed her fox-like eyes. "What, are you going to pay for me?"
Wen Yue took out a credit card from her bag. "Sister, as your younger sister, of course I don't want to see you embarrass the Wen family. Use my card!"
"Yueyue, you're too kind!"
"I heard Wen Yan often bullies you at home and even tried to take your room. Don't pay for this ungrateful wretch!"
Wen Yue glanced back at the socialites speaking up for her and smiled softly. "It's fine. What's mine is my sister's."
Wen Yue handed the card to Wen Yan, but as she did, her fingers loosened.
The card fell to the ground.
"Sorry, sister, the card dropped. Pick it up, will you?"
"Yueyue, make Wen Yan kneel to pick it up! Otherwise, she can't use the card!"
"Wen Yan, get on your knees and beg Yueyue! Haha, I'm going to record a little video and send it to the socialite group later."
"Besides her face, Wen Yan is inferior to Yueyue in every way. But if she were to sell herself, those old men would probably still like her— Ah!"
A loud bang echoed.
The socialite who had just been taunting and laughing at Wen Yan was instantly kicked several meters away.
The air around them fell silent for a moment.
After crashing into the wall, that socialite rolled several times before collapsing on the ground.
A mouthful of blood spilled from her lips!
