When She Stops Being Dramatic

Chapter 268: Chapter 108: Top Star of the 1960s Cultural Troupe (47)_2

Less than two days after the special performance ended, gossip sympathizing with Xia Zhaoyun and denouncing the Song Family was rampant throughout the factory, even more so than before.

After all, last time Xia Zhaoyun was covered in scars, but this time she was deaf in her left ear and her right hand was crippled. What’s more, the news broke right after she had won such a great honor for the factory.

Public tolerance for the Song Family hit rock bottom.

Song Zhenbao’s mother couldn’t take it either. She feigned illness and stayed home, fuming.

When she saw her daughter come home, she rushed over. ”Sweetheart, why are you back so early? Did someone say something nasty to you?”

”Didn’t you say anything back? Your father and I are the ones at fault, not you. You’re a victim in all this, too. They have no right to take their anger out on you...”

Song Zhenbao looked at her mother’s earnest expression and scoffed internally. ’Who knows how much of this concern is actually genuine?’

Her mind drifted back to her previous life. They hadn’t found her until five years had passed.

Her younger brother had a rare blood type and suffered from a serious illness that required frequent transfusions. That was the only reason the Song Family finally came looking for her.

At that time, Xia Zhaoyun was still known as Song Ruoyun. She had just joined the Central Political Department and was a source of immense pride for both her family and her in-laws.

As a result, she—the true daughter who had been raised in the countryside—was seen as uncouth and coarse. No matter how hard she tried to learn and adapt, she could never fit into their family of officials. Instead, she became a stain on their reputation, someone they wished they could hide away, treating her as nothing more than a walking blood bag for her younger brother.

Her marriage had been far from happy, either. She had married a team leader from the factory who, on the surface, seemed ambitious and decent enough.

But one night, when her husband was drunk, she found out that the woman he secretly pined for was Song Ruoyun!

All of it gave her ample reason to blame her misfortune entirely on the woman who had stolen her life.

Now that she was reborn, she had already changed many things. For instance, she had returned to the Song Family much earlier.

This time, she conducted herself with poise and propriety, quickly earning the Song Family’s approval. Through her cunning, she had driven Xia Zhaoyun from the house and even won the Tong family’s acceptance. This very weekend, she and Tong Yuanbin would have their engagement ceremony.

But this was far from enough. She wanted Xia Zhaoyun to taste every hardship she herself had endured in her past life.

”Mom, I’m back home now, so why hasn’t Xia Zhaoyun gone back to the countryside?”

she demanded, unable to contain her resentment. ”We were switched at birth. Since she refuses to acknowledge you and Dad, then she should go back to the countryside and wait on her real parents.”

”She’s just a vain, social-climbing snob. Since she found out the truth about her birth, has she asked about her real parents even once?”

Her mother paused, recalling her daughter’s stories about the eighteen miserable years she’d lived. From those accounts, it was clear the Zhangs’ preference for sons over daughters was extreme.

Back then, the only reason they’d dealt with the Zhangs at all was because of Xia Zhaoyun’s engagement to the Tong family, not to mention her own talents and stunning looks, which brought honor to the Song Family. They had given the Zhangs a sum of money just to get rid of them.

’Xia Zhaoyun really *should* be in the countryside, sold off for a high price by her own parents!’

Her mother suddenly smiled and pulled Song Zhenbao closer. ”Sweetheart, I was just thinking. For your engagement to Yuanbin this weekend, we should invite your adoptive parents.”

”Now, don’t get upset. Listen to me. No matter how horribly they treated you, to the outside world, they’re the ones who raised you for eighteen years. They’re the Song Family’s benefactors!”

”On such an important day for you, if we don’t invite them to make an appearance, what will people think of you? Of our Song Family?”

”Besides,” she continued, ”the Song Family may have wronged that child, Xia Zhaoyun, but the old Zhangs are her biological parents. We can’t stand in the way of a family reunion, can we?”

Song Zhenbao bit her lip, worried. ”Mom, I’m afraid they’ll get greedy and cause a scene at my engagement party. You have no idea how shameless and vicious they can be!”

Her mother patted her hand. ”Don’t you worry. If I could get rid of them once, I can do it again.”

”We’ll have your cousins ask some comrades at the bureau to borrow a few uniforms—ones without any rank insignias. We’ll have them stand guard at the party and see if the Zhangs still dare to cause a scene.”

Song Zhenbao hesitated for a moment before finally nodding. She added, ”We should have the Zhang Family bring more people. Otherwise, they might not be able to drag Xia Zhaoyun away.”

”Absolutely,” her mother said through clenched teeth. ”Since she refuses to be a part of the Song Family, she can go back to the countryside and live the life she was meant to have.”

”Hah! To think she’d steal my daughter’s life and then turn everyone against us. What a vicious, ungrateful wretch.”