The Comeback of the Cannon-Fodder Supporting Actress

Chapter 594 - 584: The Stepmother Who Refuses to Be a Stepping Stone 72 (Bonus for 850 Monthly Tickets)

Lan Cui made a fool of herself and started making a scene with Lu Yi as soon as she got home.

Lu Yi truly hadn’t expected that Li Jingming would abandon her.

She had always believed that no matter what, Li Jingming would treat her kindly. But just over such a small matter, Li Jingming gave up on years of their relationship and immediately married Lu Meng.

Her heart was filled with anger and hatred, cursing Lu Meng for stealing her man, and hating Li Jingming for his heartlessness and treachery.

"I have to go ask him. I need to find out what gives him the right to embarrass me like this."

Lu Yi ran out crying.

Lan Cui quickly grabbed her: "What are you doing? He’s long gone. Going there will just make you lose face even more."

After a fierce bout of crying, Lu Yi began to worry about her own fate.

Over at Li Jiazhuang, the Li family was busily holding a wedding for Li Jingming’s new bride with much fanfare.

Despite the hasty arrangement of this marriage, Lu Jun’s family still prepared a dowry for Lu Meng.

There was no time to buy things, so Lu Jun had someone make a red sign listing the dowry amount, and Lu Mengniang packed several quilts to bring over as well.

Lu Jun’s family wasn’t very well off and hadn’t saved much money over the years.

But they cherished their daughter and gave her all they had, with Lu Meng’s dowry amounting to three thousand eight hundred yuan, which was considered quite a substantial amount in the village.

Li Jingming’s marriage turned out to be quite impressive.

The Li family knew that Lu Meng had been wronged in this marriage, so when she arrived, they were extra hospitable towards her.

Zhang Fengfeng even came over to chat with Lu Meng for a while.

After the relatives and friends had lunch, it was time for Lu Meng to kowtow to the elders in the family.

The Li brothers had all agreed that, for Lu Meng’s kowtows, they would give generously.

Starting with Li Zhipeng, each person gave one thousand eight hundred yuan. Zhang Fengfeng had Lu Meng kowtow to Anning as well, and Anning also cheerfully gave one thousand eight hundred yuan.

When it was Li Zhifang’s turn, his face turned sour.

Lu Meng kowtowed to him, and he shakily took out one hundred and eighty yuan.

Lu Meng still cheerfully called him ’Fourth Uncle’.

Li Zhifang felt embarrassingly shamed.

After Lu Meng finished kowtowing, Li Zhifang didn’t stick around to help clean up and hurriedly packed some food and left.

He said he was going to take food to Wang Baozhu, but in reality, he was avoiding people.

After all the guests had left, Sun Xiumei took the money to find Lu Meng.

She handed all the money from the kowtows over to Lu Meng.

Lu Meng was stunned,

"Mom, this money... you should keep it. I can’t take it."

Sun Xiumei smiled, "Take it if it’s given to you. Your dad and I don’t lack this bit of money. But as a young couple, you’ll need money for setting things up. Do you still expect to reach out to me for money when you buy clothes? Consider this your pocket money."

Even though it was called pocket money, it was actually quite a sizable sum.

With six Li brothers, excluding Li Zhiyuan and his wife who gave jewelry instead of money, the rest had all given a considerable amount. Even though Li Zhifang gave less, the others had given more.

Each of the four gave one thousand eight hundred, and adding it all up, that makes over seven thousand. Plus, Anning and Xiao Yuan also each gave one thousand eight hundred, which alone makes more than ten thousand, not to mention the money given by other relatives and friends.

After all, Li Zhiyuan and his wife had made quite a few good friends outside, and Li Jingming had recognized a few god-relations, all of whom were wealthy and generous.

Lu Meng counted the money; it totaled over twenty thousand yuan.

She was shocked by the amount herself.

By the time Li Jingming finished entertaining the guests and returned, Lu Meng had told him about the matter.

Li Jingming waved his hand: "Just take it if it’s given to you; it’s really not much. Tomorrow I’ll take you to the bank to open a passbook, and you can deposit your money."

"Okay."

Since Li Jingming said so, Lu Meng was of course happy to comply.

On the third day after returning home as a newlywed, Lu Meng even told her mother about it.

As a result, Lu Meng’s mother made a point of loudly proclaiming the news in Lan Cui’s presence, which infuriated Lan Cui so much that she went back and gave Lu Yi a severe beating.

She blamed Lu Yi, thinking that if not for Lu Yi’s assurance of being able to control Li Jingming, the marriage wouldn’t have fallen through, and instead Lu Meng, that little wench, would not have benefitted for nothing.

Meanwhile, Lu Yi grew to thoroughly hate the Li Family.

After Li Jingming’s wedding, Anning stayed in the Li Jiazhuang for a few more days, handed over the affairs of the factory, hired a professional financial officer, and then returned to the Provincial City.

In the following period, Anning became particularly busy.

While Anning was busy building her shopping center, Xiao Yuan also started to expand his own business empire.

Xiao Yuan had been working in finance in the southern cities for several years, and now that he was back in the Provincial City, he wanted to delve into industry.

Xiao Yuan entered into the pharmaceutical and cosmetics industries.

Having been a Divine Doctor and studied biopharmaceuticals and biochemistry, he now had recovered much of his memory and found the business rather familiar.

Both of them were so busy they had no time for romantic leisure.

Just as Anning’s first supermarket was opening, the City was planning construction works; the city was expanding, and the properties Anning had previously purchased for Liu Qi in the city were up for demolition.

Anning was so preoccupied when she received the news that she simply couldn’t find the time to handle the procedures in the city.

Having no alternative, she asked Li Zhipeng to take several children to handle the procedures for her.

The houses Anning had originally purchased for Liu Qi in the city were all large estates, not like today’s apartment buildings with many stories built on the ground — she had bought traditional courtyard houses and a piece of vacant land, along with quite a few storefronts.

All of these were registered in the names of the three Liu Qi siblings.

Anning explained to Li Zhipeng that Liu Shan had entrusted her with the Liu Family’s heirloom on his deathbed, asking her to exchange it for money to provide for the children’s assets.

After all, looking at the dates of property transactions, it was the year Anning married Li Zhifang, and at that time, Li Zhifang didn’t have the money. So, there was no way he could have funded Anning’s purchase of these properties.

Upon Anning’s request, Li Zhipeng handled the matter with great diligence.

Eventually, those houses were exchanged for several new properties for Liu Qi and the others in the city, along with a substantial compensation payment.

The storefronts, rather than being paid for upon demolition, were exchanged for other storefronts.

Thus, each of the three Liu Qi siblings came to hold substantial real estate assets, and though they were still minors, they already had a lot of money to their names.

Liu Ming and Liu Yuzhen both thought the houses were bought with Liu Shan’s money, but only Liu Qi knew the real origin of the properties.

However, Liu Qi didn’t disclose it to the other two.

Xiao Yuan, observing the multitude of properties under the names of the Liu Qi siblings, and that Li Jingyu and her brothers also owned properties, decided to buy several properties for Xiao Shiman.

He bought two properties in the Provincial City and also purchased additional homes in the Capital and several other southern cities, many of which were registered under Xiao Shiman’s name.

Xiao Shiman was shocked when she found out about this.

She had never expected her foster father to be so good to her, to buy properties with such large sums of money and place them under her name without saying a word.

At the same time, she was deeply moved.

Since the death of her biological mother, in all these years, only Xiao Yuan had been good to her.

She resolved that when she grew up, she would definitely take good care of Xiao Yuan.

Time flew by, and as Anning expanded her supermarkets and shopping centers to the Capital, she returned to the village on one occasion and heard that Lu Yi had married into a family in the City. Within a year of her marriage, she was being beaten and scolded every day; life was particularly harsh.

Anning also heard from Lu Meng that Lu Yi had tried to find Li Jingming several times when visiting her parental home. However, Li Jingming had been avoiding her, she couldn’t find him, and she didn’t dare to linger at her parental home too often, so she gave up.