Chapter Sixty-Three: As Expected, I Was Set Up

Seeing Chen Xin approach, Liu Chunyan finally pried herself free from her husband’s grasp, smoothed her disheveled hair, and forced a faint smile to greet Chen Xin.

Chen Xin didn't step inside, but handed the lunchbox containing the cake to Grandma Liu at the doorway.
“This is a yogurt steamed cake I made at the shop today—low in oil and sugar, steamed in a pot. It’s just right for you and Grandpa Liu. Let me know what you think after you try it.”

“You’re just pretending to be nice!”
Suddenly, Liu Jianmin’s wife scrambled up from the floor, trying to lunge at Chen Xin, but Liu Chunyan kicked her back down.

“Chunyan, what are you doing?” Liu Jianmin, supporting his wife, roared, his eyes bloodshot.

“What am I doing? Your wife is like a mad dog, biting whoever she sees. She’s so starved for money she’s even set her sights on our parents! Was ruining my factory not enough for you? Do you want the entire Liu family to fill the pit you two dug?” Liu Chunyan snatched a plate from the table and hurled it at her brother. “You spineless coward! If you don’t mind your mother-in-law and wife sucking you dry, that’s your business—but don’t drag the whole family down with you. And you have the nerve to yell? Listen to me: if you and your wife anger our parents into falling ill, I’ll risk everything to drag your whole family to hell with you.”

The shards from the plate grazed Liu Jianmin’s face as it shattered against the wall. He closed his eyes and fell silent. His wife clung to him, shrieking incessantly.

“What are you screaming for? If you don’t stop, I’ll smash both of you wretches to death.” Liu Chunyan was on the verge of losing control again. Her husband, though he despised his brother-in-law and his wife, didn’t want his own wife driven mad by them, so he did his best to calm her.

“Chunyan, let’s not make a scene. If you have something to say, let’s talk it through. Grandpa and Grandma Liu can’t take this.” Chen Xin could do little but help soothe Liu Chunyan.

Grandpa Liu, exhausted, spoke up at last, telling both siblings to go home and leave the elders in peace for a while.

Liu Jianmin’s wife was reluctant to leave, but was dragged away by her husband. Afterwards, Liu Chunyan went to wash up in the bathroom. Once she had tidied her hair, she pulled her husband along to borrow Chen Xin’s place for the night.

While Liu Chunyan was freshening up, Chen Xin and her husband tidied up the house, gathering the broken items into trash bags to be thrown out. There wasn’t much real damage; even in her anger, Liu Chunyan had been measured—she hadn’t smashed everything in sight, and only targeted empty spaces. The only real casualty was the wall between the kitchen and the living room, which was chipped and damaged.

Once the children had left, Grandma Liu couldn’t hold back her tears any longer.

“Don’t be upset, Chunyan didn’t mean to anger you.” Chen Xin boiled some water, mixed it to a safe temperature, and handed a cup to Grandma Liu, coaxing her to take a sip to soothe her throat. Crying in silence like this was hard on the body, and she worried the elderly woman wouldn’t be able to bear it.

“Xiao Xin, your grandpa and I have decided to go stay with her family in the countryside for a while,” Grandpa Liu said after a long, heavy silence. “The children are grown; we can’t and won’t interfere anymore. Liu Jianmin can deal with his own mess. As for Chunyan, I hope you’ll help talk some sense into her.”

He treated Chen Xin as one of the family and didn’t hide Liu Chunyan’s outburst from her.

It all started with the factory they’d bought down south. From the beginning, Chen Xin had worried that Liu Jianmin’s wife would get her relatives involved and cause trouble, so she’d distanced herself and hadn’t asked about it since. But who would have guessed things would go wrong so quickly?

“Her cousin, egged on by someone, bought poor-quality fruit and mixed it in, thinking no one would notice once it was canned. But before the cans even reached their expiration date, they started to mold and spoil. A child even got food poisoning after eating one. When the quality inspection bureau and the disease control center investigated, they found issues with the product quality and immediately shut down the production line. Because Chunyan was the legal representative, she bore direct responsibility. As soon as trouble arose, Liu Jianmin’s cousin fled. Then his wife started deflecting blame—first saying they were partners but Chunyan was in charge of quality, then claiming Chunyan set her cousin up just to get rid of him.”

Disdain filled the old man’s eyes as he spoke of his daughter-in-law. “I know my own daughter. She can be calculating, but she’d never do something so heartless. After the incident, Chunyan and her husband poured all their savings into settling the matter. The plan was for her to talk things over with her brother, with the factory becoming hers alone, and for him to keep his wife’s family out of it. But today, Liu Jianmin and his wife came back demanding compensation for her cousin’s so-called illness—claiming he fell ill from helping Chunyan and now needs medical expenses.”

Hearing this, Chen Xin was incensed. If ever there was an example of shameless fabrication, this was it. No wonder Liu Chunyan lost her temper—if it had been her, she might have reached for a kitchen knife.

“So what now? Was there a formal agreement at the time? How was the final ownership and profit split determined?”

“The factory was initially funded by Chunyan, with some money from a bank loan. The agreement was a sixty-forty split—Chunyan sixty, her brother forty. But he said he was short on cash, so Chunyan fronted the money. He only gave twenty thousand yuan, promising to pay the rest by year’s end, or else deduct it from his share of the profits. Over the past few months, he received a salary. Now they claim his cousin was hospitalized due to work and are demanding Chunyan cover the medical bills.”

Chen Xin considered this, then asked seriously, “Grandpa Liu, what’s your plan? Will you take legal action or try to settle privately?”

“We’ll go through the courts!” Grandma Liu burst out. “Why should my good daughter be bullied like this? As for that wretch Liu Jianmin, I consider him no son of mine.”

Though Chen Xin knew these were words spoken in anger, she still offered some analysis.

“Grandpa Liu, you know, even informal agreements have legal standing. When the ownership was transferred, I had Chunyan notarize the purchase—she paid the full amount herself. The later expenses—production line upgrades, repainting, warehouse and cold storage renovations—came from the bank loan. As for the twenty thousand yuan from Liu Jianmin, I’m sure it went through the company account.”

Grandpa Liu, with his years in the state sector, wasn’t familiar with private enterprise, but Chen Xin had accompanied Liu Chunyan on the trip south and, before going, had sought advice from Mr. Huang and his wife, learning the basics of business operations.

“When the court hears the case, they’ll trace the source of the funds and review all income and expenditures, so Liu Jianmin and his wife won’t be able to exaggerate their contributions. For purchasing raw materials, there’s a fixed procedure: who negotiated the contracts, who inspected the goods, who handled quality control—it’s all documented and easy to check. Of course, there’s a chance someone falsified the records to set Chunyan up. If so, report it to the police.”

Given the factory had only been running for a few months, it was unlikely everyone inside had been bribed. Once a single weak point was found, the rest would be easy to unravel.

“But the key is to find the person who orchestrated the scheme. Since he led Liu Jianmin’s cousin to buy inferior fruit, he must be colluding with the fruit growers. The police can’t help here—if the growers insist you ordered the fruit, nothing can be proven. So you’ll need a witness who knows the truth but isn’t officially involved. That’s the hardest part—finding someone you can truly trust.”

Grandpa Liu narrowed his eyes and nodded, saying he’d look into it. “This mess won’t be dumped on my daughter’s head. Whoever caused it will bear the consequences. In our family, we don’t swallow injustice in silence.”