Ch 51: After My Mother Returned to the Rich Family

The banquet introducing the Liang family’s newly found daughter left an indelible impression on the attendees. At the same time, Ruan Zhengfei and Wei Jiao astonished everyone by shattering preconceived notions.

No one could understand how these two—hailing from a small town, without degrees from prestigious universities, and currently unemployed—could be acquainted with prominent families like the Lu family, the Yang family, the Ye family, and even major figures from the neighboring city’s elite.

Some children who accompanied their parents tugged at their sleeves with innocent questions:
“Mom, Dad, can I also stay unemployed at home in the future?”

One father replied, “They’re unemployed in a mansion, where will you be unemployed?”
Another mother retorted, “If you can’t manage or earn, you’ll be unemployed in your pigsty!”

The child: qaq.

Among all the attendees, no one was more shaken than Liang Qianling. After a lengthy conversation with Liang Zongqi upstairs, which failed to uncover his intentions, she impatiently went downstairs.

There, she witnessed something almost unbelievable: the esteemed guests invited by Ruan Zhengfei were not just being polite—they were genuinely enjoying their conversations with him, as if they’d been long-time acquaintances.

Even the Ye family and Lu family, which the Song family could never align with, seemed to have free time to play with the little girl, Ruan Cha!

Liang Qianling wiped her eyes, confirming she wasn’t hallucinating.

These influential family heads were openly displaying a double standard. Where was the cold indifference they showed toward the Song family?

Almost instinctively, Liang Qianling wanted to march downstairs and question them—were they blind to favor the Ruan family? But her steps halted when she scanned the grand hall filled with guests.

She realized that her earlier remarks mocking Ruan Zhengfei had already backfired. If she confronted them publicly, she’d only expose her disdain for the Ruan family, embarrassing herself further.

Liang Zongqi, observing her reaction, felt a mix of emotions—concern, relief, and disappointment. He quietly advised her, “Second Sister, you share both honor and disgrace with your family. Don’t do anything you’ll regret.”

“I share honor and disgrace with the Song family,” Liang Qianling retorted before brushing her hair self-consciously. “But of course, I’m not foolish enough to cause a scene and embarrass my own family. I can maintain appearances.”

Despite her confident words, she couldn’t hide a tinge of regret.

She thought back to her earlier outbursts, feeling a wave of shame. She had let her emotions cloud her judgment, acting irrationally and behaving like a madwoman, utterly humiliating herself.

Moreover—

Her gaze fell on Wei Jiao. Though she harbored a strong dislike for her, she couldn’t justify letting that dislike lead her to lose decades of cultivated decorum.

Liang Qianling pondered how she managed to uphold a mask of civility in other social settings but repeatedly lost control when faced with the third branch of the family.

Liang Zongqi didn’t press further. After they went downstairs, he resumed his role as host, dutifully greeting guests and introducing Wei Jiao to several family allies.

By 10:30 p.m., the banquet came to an end. After seeing off the last guest alongside Old Master Liang, Liang Zongqi’s cheerful demeanor finally darkened.

“Dad, Master Shen is still waiting upstairs. Let me take you to him.”

Old Master Liang glanced at Liang Zongqi’s expression and then turned to Ruan Zhengfei, Wei Jiao, Tang Hua, and Liang Cunjin. “This concerns the family, so everyone should come up and listen. There’s nothing here that anyone shouldn’t hear.”

Liang Cunjin was still dazed, grappling with his misconceptions about Ruan Cha’s family. Before he could fully process the situation, he was hit with another bombshell from Master Shen.

“E-Emotional manipulation?” he stammered.

Seeing Ruan Cha looking a little drowsy, Master Shen decided to keep it brief and straightforward. “To put it simply, emotional manipulation requires long-term psychological suggestion. The suggestions usually revolve around ideas like, ‘I’m the only one who truly cares for you,’ or, ‘You must always prioritize me and cannot refuse my demands.’”

This simple explanation made Old Master Liang’s face turn so dark it seemed like it might rain.

Master Shen paused briefly before continuing. “As for the frequent, uncontrollable outbursts of anger, they’re linked to the pendant on Liang Qianling’s bracelet.”

As he spoke, Master Shen opened his palm to reveal a small, yellow, teardrop-shaped pendant no larger than a soybean.

He handed the pendant to Old Master Liang. “I discreetly removed this from Liang Qianling earlier. It’s not particularly mystical—it’s been soaked in herbal concoctions. Prolonged wear can gradually increase irritability and, in severe cases, cause hallucinations. If someone already harbors negative emotions, this pendant amplifies them over time.”

Since the pendant had been removed, Liang Qianling’s mental state seemed noticeably clearer. When she came downstairs earlier, she hadn’t exhibited her usual erratic outbursts or irrational behavior toward the Ruan family.

“For instance,” Master Shen continued, “if someone holds a prejudice against another person, the pendant could escalate that prejudice from a mild six out of ten to an intense ten. Similarly, if someone harbors thoughts of self-harm, the pendant could push them from contemplation to action.”

“Bang!”

Before the family could fully digest Master Shen’s words, a sudden loud noise startled everyone.

Wei Jiao ignored the shattered teacup on the carpet and rushed to check on Ruan Cha. “Cha Cha, are you burned? Quickly, Zhengfei, get some tissues!”

Before Ruan Zhengfei could respond, Tang Hua swiftly handed over her handkerchief. “Use this—it’s softer. Make sure she isn’t burned.”

Ruan Cha shook her head. “I just lost my grip. I’m not burned.”

Even as she reassured them, Ruan Cha bit her lip and looked at Old Master Liang. “Grandpa, you can continue the discussion. I’ll just go change my clothes.”

“Go ahead; this doesn’t really concern you anyway,” Wei Jiao said while checking her daughter’s hand. Once satisfied that it wasn’t too serious, she gently instructed, “It’s getting late, Cha Cha. Wash up and go to bed after you’re done. Be a good girl.”

Ruan Cha nodded and was about to bid everyone goodnight when she suddenly remembered the excuse she had given her father after the parent-teacher conference.

“Grandpa, Master Shen, actually, there’s something I think might be related to Aunt,” she said, trying to sound as sincere as possible. “One day, I saw Aunt meeting with the father of one of my classmates. I didn’t think much of it at the time, but during Friday’s parent-teacher conference, my classmate mentioned that his father is an expert in psychology. Now that we know Aunt has been under long-term psychological suggestion…”

Old Master Liang frowned. “It seems unlikely to involve that parent. Long-term suggestion like this usually comes from someone close—how many people could possibly achieve it besides a spouse?”

Unlike Old Master Liang, Old Master Shen was intrigued. “What’s the name of that parent? If he’s knowledgeable in psychology, I might have heard of him.”

Ruan Cha steadied her mind, carefully articulating each word. “Yu Zheng. Yu as in lush greenery, Zheng as in expedition.”

“Yu Zheng.” Old Master Shen tapped his finger a few times on the scar at the corner of his eye. “The name doesn’t ring a bell. I’ll check into it when I get back.”

After sharing the name, Ruan Cha felt an inexplicable sense of relief. Carrying the burden of certain knowledge for so long and suddenly having someone to share it with felt surreal, almost as if it wasn’t happening.

She bid everyone goodnight, closed the door behind her, and left the sitting room.

Returning to her bedroom, Ruan Cha exhaled softly, loosened her braided hair, and prepared to take a shower to cool down. The moment she caught sight of the pendant, the memory of her dream resurfaced. The scene from the book flashed vividly in her mind—where the “Ruan Cha” in the story encountered a similar pendant during a psychological counseling session. The scent it emitted was strikingly familiar.

Ruan Cha recalled how Yu Zheng had claimed the pendant had calming properties. But in retrospect, the emotional breakdown of the “Ruan Cha” in the book seemed closely tied to the pendant.

“Does our family have a grudge against Yu Zheng? Why is he targeting us so intensely?” Ruan Cha let the shower’s water cascade over her face, her usual bright demeanor drooping like a sunflower battered by stormy weather.

In the book’s past life, “Ruan Cha” was first targeted by Ren Qingqing, then calculated against by Yu Zheng. Based on Yu Zhiyan’s behavior, it seemed highly likely that Yu Zheng was aware of the system’s secrets. All things considered, Yu Zheng appeared to have been scheming to ensure “Ruan Cha’s” demise from the start.

Turning off the shower, Ruan Cha wrapped her hair in a towel and began drying herself, her expression contemplative. “Did I throw Yu Zheng into a garbage bin and roll him around for three days and nights in a past life or something? What kind of grudge is this?”

The “Ruan Cha” in the book had grown up peacefully in a small town. As a teenager in the prime of her youth, she hadn’t killed anyone, committed arson, or tortured small animals. So why had she become the target of a twisted, murderous mastermind?

And the pendant on her aunt—could it have been one of Yu Zheng’s experimental tools? After confirming its effectiveness on her aunt, did he later use it on “Ruan Cha”?

The theory she had constructed in her head startled her. She quickly changed into her pajamas, dried her hair, and, taking advantage of the fact that Sunday was the next day, decided not to sleep. Instead, she reopened the unfinished Artificial Intelligence book and continued her research.

As someone who was quite confident in herself, Ruan Cha firmly believed that she could self-learn her way into dismantling the system from the inside!

She had already finished the book between Friday night and Saturday during the day. However, while she had memorized it, there were still deeply technical aspects that she struggled to comprehend.

Wait—

Ruan Cha stared at a section of the book that she couldn’t quite grasp yet, suddenly recalling a conversation she’d had with Fu Chen after school about artificial intelligence. Within that discussion, there seemed to be a key point…

As she thought more about it, she mentally matched the content she had memorized with the book, substituting variables and converting them into the current binary system. In the next moment, Ruan Cha’s eyes lit up brightly.

Calling up the white virtual interface, she locked her gaze on a glowing dot in the lower-right corner of the panel. Tapping it lightly, she indeed found a program framework. With the insight she had just gained, Ruan Cha felt brimming with confidence as she dove straight in.

Since the system was shamelessly biased toward Ren Qingqing, there was no need for her to be polite either.

[Error in program. Please re-enter.]

Ruan Cha: “…”

It seemed her confidence was a bit overblown.

From a young age, Ruan Cha had always been someone with fleeting interests. However, once she decided to tackle something, she would see it through no matter what. Take her experiences with the erhu and suona, for example. She didn’t particularly love either instrument, but she had forced herself to learn just enough to earn a meal should she ever end up on the streets.

Now, staring at the system’s nearly mocking error message, Ruan Cha felt slightly defeated for about a second. Then, she rubbed her hands together and tried again.

If once didn’t work, then twice. If twice didn’t work, then three times.

On Sunday, Ruan Cha spent the entire day in her room tweaking the code. Occasionally, she would message Fu Chen on WeChat under various pretexts to seek his input. After discussing their ideas, both would return to their respective tasks.

Their collaboration was seamless, except for one thing that puzzled Ruan Cha. Fu Chen suggested that they keep a voice call open for smoother communication. She agreed, but somehow, their WeChat call stayed connected the entire night.

When Ruan Cha woke up on Monday morning, she stared at her nearly drained phone and the active call interface. Her expression froze for a moment. Could it be that Fu Chen had been waiting for her to hang up the entire time?

Hurriedly ending the call, Ruan Cha typed out a “Good morning” and sent it to Fu Chen. After the message was sent, instead of immediately getting out of bed to wash up, she grabbed her phone and began carefully typing out the optimization code she had thought of just before falling asleep.

“I refuse to believe you’ll throw another error this time.”

[Program (Art Module) corrected successfully. It will take effect in ten minutes.]

Ruan Cha: Hahaha, the loneliness of a genius!