Su Xiufeng naturally understood the reasoning, she just needed a way to save face. Pretending to be angry, she said, "This time you’ve really screwed me over."
She hung up the phone after speaking.
Song Ennian scoffed, "Who’s screwing whom?"
And so, Su Xiufeng took a few pieces of clothing and returned to Imperial with her two nephews from her maternal home.
She left the running of the pharmacy business to Su Jinxun and Su Jinzhe, quickly liquidated the newly returned clothing stock, and put up the shop front for transfer.
She and both Su Jinxun and Su Jinzhe intended, once the pharmacy opened, for her to run it as the general manager.
The money earned would be split three ways.
Although she was going into business with her two maternal nephews, Su Xiufeng didn’t plan to go back to her maternal home.
Her inner pride would not allow it.
She simply decided that if they reached out to her on their own initiative, she would let bygones be bygones.
But other than Su Jinxun and Su Jinzhe, who had their own motives, why would anyone else from the Su Family come looking for her?
Those in the Su Family who were kind-hearted dared not approach her, and those with impure intentions disdained to do so.
What she didn’t know was that the revenue-sharing contract she had signed with Su Jinxun and Su Jinzhe was fake.
In other words, they planned to take her prescription and then kick her to the curb.
Su Xiufeng wasn’t vigilant against this, but Song Ennian had considered it.
Although he wouldn’t mind seeing Su Xiufeng suffer, he didn’t want to be implicated by her, and reminded her, "You can’t judge a book by its cover. Be careful not to tell them all your prescriptions at once, otherwise it’ll be troublesome if they turn against you one day."
Su Xiufeng found him annoying, "We have a contract, I’m not afraid of them turning against me."
"What if the contract gets stolen?"
Su Xiufeng, thinking of her own experiences with theft, was taken aback and decided to take Song Ennian’s advice, "I know, I’ll keep something to myself."
Su Xiufeng didn’t lose money on the transfer of the clothing store, but she neither repaid Song Ennian nor Song Enzhi.
It wasn’t that she planned to go back on her word; she intended to pay them back after making a sum of money, lest she need to borrow again in case something came up.
At this time, Lin Fangwei had already ostensibly developed a rose-scented whitening cream.
However, because she wanted to further verify its effectiveness, she didn’t immediately apply for a patent.
Shen Ci and Meng Chuyue took this opportunity to have Erhu steal a copy of the secret recipe Lin Fangwei had written for other members of the Li Family. After Erhu put it back exactly as it was, they offered the secret recipe to the state and suggested they should immediately apply for a patent.
After seven days of verifying the miraculous effects of the rose whitening cream, the Li Family was overjoyed. While applying for the patent, they began quietly producing it, wanting to launch it on the market as soon as possible.
But what they hadn’t expected was that the patent application failed.
It wasn’t that their product failed to meet standards, but rather that just a few days ago, someone had successfully patented an identical product.
Their first reaction was, had the rose whitening cream recipe been stolen a few days ago?
Otherwise, what were the odds?
Lin Fangwei was also furious.
She had planned for so long, only to end up inadvertently dressing someone else in bridal wear.
Even more frustrating was that without exposing the thief within the family, she dared not bring out her recipes in the future.
She pleaded with Li Feng to seriously weed out the internal traitor.
Li Feng and the rest of the Li Family thought similarly to her.
Consequently, in the following period, their household focused solely on this issue, putting Lin Fangwei’s pharmaceutical research on hold.
With nothing else to do, Lin Fangwei wanted to get out.
She had been stewing during this time.
She felt that if she didn’t go out for a walk soon, she’d surely go mad, especially when she remembered how close she had come to being incarcerated and felt a chill at the memory.