*Flashback*
“What are you doing here?! You can’t be here! We are the only ones allowed to play here.”
Young Lu Xinyi grunted as she was shoved onto the ground by Sun Qiyan. She hadn’t done anything wrong, and yet this group was bullying her again.
“Look! She’s still wearing Hello Kitty panties!” Another girl laughed and pointed at Lu Xinyi.
Embarrassed, Lu Xinyi quickly pulled her skirt back down. She really hated Sun Qiyan, and this was certainly not the first time that she and her friends made fun of her. She stood up, only to be shoved back down again. Her eyes brimmed with tears, but she refused to look like a weakling.
“Go away! Leave her alone!” A younger girl ran in front of her and defended her from Sun Qiyan’s group. Lu Xinyi blinked away her tears and saw the five-year-old Sun Qiushan throwing punches her elder sister’s way which Sun Qiyan easily evaded.
“Qiushan! Stop this nonsense!” she exclaimed back at the kid who just started crying.
“No! Big Sis is bad. Don’t hurt Sister Xinxin. You’re bad!” Sun Qiushan wailed louder.
“A crybaby saving Lu Xinyi?” Another girl with long curly hair laughed. “Both of them still need to wear their diapers.” The group laughed louder.
“Yes! Yes! Why don’t you two cry ‘I want my mommy!’ at the same time?” Sun Qiyan told Lu Xinyi who was trying to console the crying girl. Sun Qiushan buried her face on Lu Xinyi’s clothes and cried harder. “Oh, I forgot. You don’t have a mommy anymore!” Sun Qiyan laughed louder.
Lu Xinyi gave her a fierce glance. Indeed, her mother just had passed away last week when she was admitted to the hospital. She only found out that her mother met her untimely death when a nurse, who was a friend of her mother, came to console her.
“Fuck off!” She wasn’t the one to curse people. Her parents had told her it wasn’t a nice thing to say to another one, but Lu Xinyi couldn’t help but get mad whenever Sun Qiyan insult her and her mother.
“W-what?”
“Are you deaf? Do you need some hearing aids? Stupid.” Lu Xinyi snorted and wiped the dirt from her skirt.
“You—”
“What’s the meaning of this?” Another girl’s voice resounded from the balcony above them. Lifting their sight, they saw Sun Feiyan staring down at them coldly. Her eyes went from Lu Xinyi to Sun Qiyan. “Qiyan, didn’t I tell you not to hurt Lu Xinyi?”
“She started it!” Sun Qiyan pointed a finger to Lu Xinyi, accusing the girl of something she did.
“I don’t care who started it. Don’t you have a music lesson to attend today? Why are you still here? Go back and meet your tutor.” Sun Feiyan spoke with a condescending tone. She turned her attention to Lu Xinyi, whose gazeLu Xinyi met with equal disdain.
“But—” Sun Qiyan tried to argue, but Sun Feiyan cut her off.
“No buts. Just go. I don’t want to hear or see that you’re hurting Lu Xinyi again. I’ll make sure Chairman Sun will hear about it if you dare to do it again.” Sun Feiyan warned her before taking her leave, leaving them behind.
Once she was gone, Sun Qiyan glared back at Lu Xinyi and her younger sister. Damn that Sun Feiyan. Just because the Chairman had seen potential in her, she thought she could boss her around? She was tempted to hit Lu Xinyi again, but her friend caught her arm.
“Let’s go, Qiyan. I don’t think Feiyan was joking. Chairman Sun did tell us to treat Lu Xinyi well. If he found out what we’re doing to her…” Her friend was clearly worried about what might happen to them.
Lu Xinyi gave her a middle finger without batting an eyelid. Ha! She was so glad that she didn’t have to undergo those ridiculous lessons to become a lady. Too bad for Sun Qiyan though, she wasn’t allowed to make mistakes within the Sun Mansion while Lu Xinyi could get away from every mischief she did.
“Why you—” Sun Qiyan swung her arm to hit Lu Xinyi’s face, but she was dragged away by her friends.
The small commotion at the Sun Estate dissipated. Lu Xinyi plopped down on the ground with Sun Qiushan. Looking down at her estranged cousin, Lu Xinyi couldn’t understand why this girl was looking up to her.
“Why didn’t you hit back Big Sis?” Sun Qiushan asked, wiping the tears on her cheeks using her soiled hands.
Lu Xinyi laughed awkwardly. It was so obvious that she and Sun Qiyan would never get along.
“I’ll only make her more stupid if I hit her. One hit could flatten her bird brain.” Lu Xinyi muttered to herself.
—
*Present time*
“Are you okay? Did she hurt you in any way? She didn’t threaten you?” Xiao Lan barged her with questions like a mother hen.
“Relax, Xiao Lan. I’m okay. As if Sun Qiyan could hurt me.” Lu Xinyi replied. It had been an hour since she met her cousin, and Xiao Lan had been in a frantic mood and nervous. If this was another symptom of her friend’s pregnancy, Lu Xinyi wondered how absurd she could be once she got pregnant with Shen Yi’s child.
“You sure?”
“Positive.”
Passing the store with the name ‘Starlight’, Lu Xinyi remembered that it was the same brand that Yuan Jin and Xia Yuhan mentioned to her before. Wasn’t this the same clothing line that Sun Feiyan bought using her own money?
Lu Xinyi took a look over the store once, and her eyes fell on the mannequin on display near the entrance of the shop. The mannequin was wearing a not-so-girly A-Line dress. The design looked very familiar, and if she was right, this might be one of the designs that Starlight copied from Flair Apparel’s collection.