Shen Man pressed Linlin down into the chair in front of the mirror and placed both hands on her shoulders. Studying her face through the reflection, the more she looked, the more irritating she found Linlin’s bangs.
“No, I can’t stand that hair of yours. How about I cut it for you?”
Linlin hurriedly shook her head. “No!”
“Why not?” Shen Man raised an eyebrow. “Who says you can’t?”
Linlin looked at herself in the mirror. “It’ll cause trouble.”
Shen Man quickly understood what she meant. With a mocking laugh, she asked, “Those two men across the way—what are they to you?”
“My brothers.”
“Your real brothers? Both of them?”
Linlin hesitated before answering, “The one with the scar at the end of his eyebrow is my biological brother. The other one isn’t.”
“I knew I wasn’t mistaken.” Shen Man curled her lips into a smile.
The shop had been opened for Shen Man by Shen Changshan.
Shen Man had suffered a great deal and endured plenty of bullying when she was young.
Both she and her mother were beautiful. Kong Baozhu was mentally unstable, and whenever Shen Changshan went out, he would lock her in the house.
But Shen Man still had to go to school.
When she was little, her classmates gave her the nickname Shen the Lame.
Later, as she grew older and more beautiful, the looks people gave her began to change.
Shen Man’s experiences were somewhat similar to Linlin’s, but also different in some ways.
She had parents who loved her. Whenever she was bullied outside, Shen Changshan would risk his life fighting for her.
That was why Shen Man had always been willing to go all out.
When she was in school, she carried a small knife with her. Anyone who dared to provoke her got slashed.
She was eventually expelled, but Shen Man didn’t care.
So what if her legs and feet were impaired? So what if she was beautiful? Neither gave anyone the right to bully her.
Shen Man’s temper grew sharper and sharper, and she also began to dress herself up.
She wanted to be beautiful. She wanted to shine. Anyone who came looking for trouble would go down with her!
Shen Changshan was busy making a living, and there were many things he failed to notice. He had no idea what had caused his daughter’s change in temperament.
He believed he owed her, so he always indulged her unconditionally.
Later, the Shen family was politically rehabilitated, and countless land deeds, properties, and valuables were returned to them.
The Shen family suddenly became wealthy, and they moved away from the small fishing village where they had once been sent down.
But the suffering they had endured couldn’t simply be treated as though it had never happened just because their circumstances changed overnight.
Once Shen Changshan had time on his hands, he suddenly realized that his daughter’s personality had already been set.
In his eyes, there was nothing wrong with his daughter.
But after her family became rich, Shen Man abruptly found that nothing interested her anymore. She stayed at home every day and refused to go out, and even when it was time to eat, she would merely toy with her food and take a couple of bites.
She had no friends and no job. Every day, she simply stayed at home with nothing to do.
Shen Changshan wasn’t trying to make her earn money. He was only afraid she would be bored, so he opened this shop for her to give her something to do.
Everything in the shop was expensive. Apart from guests staying at the hotel, hardly anyone ever came in.
Whenever she was bored, Shen Man would observe the people outside.
Linlin, Yan Yuan, and Jiang Chengzhou were right across the way, so naturally, they hadn’t escaped her notice.
Jiang Chengzhou was clearly more intimate with Linlin, but the tenderness in Yan Yuan’s eyes whenever he looked at her was practically overflowing.
Still, both of those men were rather useless…
Shen Man hooked a finger beneath Linlin’s chin. “If those two…”
Before she could finish, hurried knocks sounded from outside the door.
Jiang Chengzhou and Yan Yuan had watched Linlin enter. Not long afterward, the door here had been closed, and so had the curtains.
Worried that something might be wrong, the two men didn’t even bother with their stall. They came straight to the shop.
With a click of her tongue, Shen Man let Linlin’s bangs fall back into place. “Go open the door.”
“Linlin, are you all right?”
Jiang Chengzhou grabbed her hand and examined it from top to bottom.
“I’m fine, Brother. Big Sister was very kind to me.”
Jiang Chengzhou let out a sigh of relief. He wanted to lecture her for having no sense of caution, but with Shen Man standing right there, he didn’t feel comfortable saying anything.
Shen Man returned to the seat she had occupied earlier and watched Jiang Chengzhou’s anxious expression with disdain.
“Making such a fuss. It’s not as if my shop eats people.”
Jiang Chengzhou ignored her and pulled Linlin toward the exit.
“Stop!”
Shen Man suddenly called out to them.
Jiang Chengzhou halted. “Is there something else?”
Shen Man’s slender, elegant fingers lightly tapped the glass display case.
“Who is this… Linlin? Do the two of you even know what she looks like?”
The moment she said that, Jiang Chengzhou and Yan Yuan’s eyes sharpened. They pulled Linlin behind them and stared at Shen Man warily.
Shen Man let out a derisive laugh. “So you do know. Looks like the two of you don’t dare let her show her face, either. In that case, why don’t you let me take care of her?”
Jiang Chengzhou frowned. He felt as though he had run into a madwoman.
Shen Man continued, “She’s so beautiful. What a shame she’s stuck with two useless men like you, unable even to show her face. She’d be better off with me. I guarantee she’ll eat well and live well—much better than she would with the two of you.”
If Shen Man hadn’t been a woman, Jiang Chengzhou would have already hit her for saying such things.
When Jiang Chengzhou remained unmoved, Shen Man sighed.
“Poor little sister. If you ever regret it, remember to come find Big Sister. I’ll take care of you.”
Jiang Chengzhou had long since had enough. He angrily pulled Linlin away.
Yan Yuan cast Shen Man a cold look as he left. Shen Man wasn’t intimidated; instead, she raised her brows and gave him a provocative smile.
This man wasn’t much better.
Shen Man could tell that compared with the outgoing Jiang Chengzhou, Yan Yuan was, strictly speaking, the more “heartless” one.
She sensed something in him that was similar to herself—
An indifference and detachment toward the world.
Shen Man hated people like that most of all. They had no vitality in them.
He wasn’t worthy of the girl she had just seen.
By the time Yan Yuan returned, Jiang Chengzhou was still lecturing Linlin in front of their stall.
“You really need to be more careful. How can you listen to a stranger? Hurry up and forget everything that happened just now!”
Yan Yuan held Jiang Chengzhou back. “Don’t rush her. Let’s find out what happened first.”
He looked at Linlin. “When she pulled down the curtains just now, what did she say to you?”
Linlin instinctively touched her bangs. “Big Sister said she wanted to cut my hair.”
As soon as she finished speaking, Linlin hurriedly explained to Jiang Chengzhou, “I didn’t agree, Brother. I listened to you.”
Jiang Chengzhou should have been happy to hear that, but after Shen Man had called him “useless,” and seeing how nervous Linlin was now, he suddenly found himself unable to say anything.
Shen Man was right.
He really was useless.
Yan Yuan bent down and looked at Linlin’s eyes, most of which were hidden beneath her bangs.
“Linlin, do you want to cut your hair?”
The sudden closeness made Linlin take a step back.
“No.”
“Why not?” Yan Yuan pressed.
Linlin instinctively touched her face. “Being too beautiful is bad.”
So far, this face had brought Linlin not the slightest bit of happiness.
Her eyes stung as she said, “My mother—I mean, my birth mother. They said she looked like the kind of woman who brings disaster, that she was a beautiful temptress who had caused my biological father’s death and brought about her own. And besides…”
