Chapter 22
Chapter 22: Sixty Thousand to Buy Out Family Ties
Xiao Ying Chun stayed silent for a long time. She didn’t look at the dishes or touch her chopsticks. She only turned her eyes to her uncle, then to her grandparents.
Under her gaze, the room went strangely quiet. No one dared to meet her eyes.
When she finally spoke again, her voice was thick with tears. “My parents’ car accident—Uncle, you were involved from beginning to end. The truck driver had no money to pay. He went to prison. The court awarded nine hundred and fifty thousand, but I didn’t get a single cent. You knew that, didn’t you?”
Her uncle nodded. “I knew.”
He didn’t just know. Over the past year, he’d even pulled strings and checked on the driver’s family.
The truck had been bought on a loan. After the accident, it was seized.
The house was mortgaged too. The wife was sick, and the son barely earned anything—two or three thousand a month, just enough to stay alive.
What were they supposed to pay with?
By law, grandparents were also first-order heirs, entitled to a portion of the estate.
Of course her uncle’s family and Ge Chun Yu’s family wanted the compensation to come through. If the money ever arrived, they could demand their share through the grandparents.
But since Xiao Ying Chun hadn’t received a cent, her uncle never mentioned inheritance at all.
“Back then, to try to save my parents, we burned through every bit of savings,” Xiao Ying Chun said. “I borrowed money everywhere. Everyone knew about it, right?”
Her other aunt finally nodded too. “Yes. We all knew.”
Xiao Ying Chun opened her hands. “So what inheritance is there to split? Their ashes?”
Ge Chun Yu lifted her chin. “Don’t you still have that building? Doesn’t that count as inheritance?”
Xiao Ying Chun laughed—sharp and humorless. “Thanks to my aunt, when the demolition resettlement apartments were divided up, Uncle got three, Aunt got two, and Grandpa and Grandma kept one to live in.”
She looked straight at them. “When it was my mom’s turn, she only got a plot of land.”
“The house on it was built with money my dad borrowed. It’s barely a hundred square meters. It’s in an old urban village on the edge of town, and the place is over twenty years old now. Would it even sell for three hundred thousand?”
“And even if it did—if the court split it, it would be me, my paternal grandparents, and you two. Five first-order heirs.”
She spoke as if she’d run the numbers a hundred times. “Split five ways, your share as a couple would be, what, at most one hundred and twenty thousand?”
“Then you turn around and split that between Aunt’s family, Uncle’s family, and me. You think one person can somehow walk away with more than one hundred and twenty thousand?”
Her uncle’s and other aunt’s faces darkened. For a moment, they looked almost offended—like the math itself had cheated them.
Xiao Ying Chun gave a soft scoff. “And you might not know this either. When we filed the property papers, I was already one. My dad put the house directly under my name so we wouldn’t have to deal with taxes later.”
“So the house is in my name. It isn’t inheritance. It has nothing to do with Aunt.”
Ge Chun Yu slammed back immediately. “But that land was given by Grandpa and Grandma! How is it unrelated?”
Xiao Ying Chun turned to her grandparents. “If we’re talking inheritance, you two have the most right to speak. What did you decide?”
Her grandparents exchanged an awkward look. Grandpa cleared his throat. “Your parents’ things can stay with you. We don’t want them.”
He hesitated, then added, “As for the goods debt… talk it over with your aunt. Your aunt hasn’t had it easy…”
Even now. Even here. Grandpa still spoke for her.
Something in Xiao Ying Chun cooled another degree. Favoritism never needed a reason.
She looked at Ge Chun Yu. “Grandpa and Grandma said they don’t want anything. And you still think you deserve more than one hundred and twenty thousand. Based on what?”
Ge Chun Yu couldn’t argue the logic, so she went ugly. “I just don’t have money! If they sue me, fine—then I’ll go to jail!”
“Mom!” Xie Yu Lin’s chair scraped harshly. His face twisted as he glared at Xiao Ying Chun. “If you really go to jail, I’ll kill and set fires!”
The threat hung in the air like smoke.
Ge Chun Yu patted his arm, all fake gentleness, eyes sharp with calculation. “Why are you so worked up? Your cousin invited us to dinner today. She obviously wants to talk and solve this properly.”
Xiao Ying Chun stared at her uncle and other aunt, who suddenly found the table fascinating. Then she looked at her grandparents—who still wouldn’t speak for her.
Only then did she speak, slow and clear.
“Grandpa, Grandma. All these years, Mom and I had grievances. You favored Aunt and Uncle. When apartments were divided, our family didn’t get a single one, and I didn’t say anything.”
“My parents died. Aunt said she wanted to use my shop for free to do business, and I didn’t say anything.”
“Aunt sold twenty thousand yuan of goods through my shop and never paid me, and I still didn’t say anything.”
“But now Aunt wants me to pay another one hundred and twenty thousand, and none of you say a word. You tell me to ‘talk it over’ with Aunt. I won’t.”
“If Aunt insists, then we’ll meet in court. Whatever happens, happens.”
“At worst, I’ll shut down the shop. I’ll leave the house empty. I’ll go work somewhere else.”
She let the words land, one by one. “I’m just a girl. If I’m fed, that’s enough. I don’t have to spend money taking a wife.”
Then she looked at Xie Yu Lin. “And as for your talk about killing and setting fires—I care even less. No one’s ever cared about me. If I die and someone gets buried with me, that sounds pretty good.”
She spoke like she had nothing left to lose.
For a beat, the room went dead still.
Ge Chun Yu’s jaw tightened. “Ying Chun. How about this, then? I really can’t repay the goods debt. I just bought your cousin a house. I paid the down payment and I still have a mortgage.”
Her gaze flicked toward her son—an unspoken justification. “I’ll cover half. You cover half.”
So that was where the money she’d squeezed out of Xiao Ying Chun had gone. A house for that useless son.
Xiao Ying Chun looked from Ge Chun Yu to her uncle and other aunt, then to her grandparents.
All of them watched her with the same hungry hope, like she was the only one with hands to reach into her own pockets.
By then, Xiao Ying Chun understood everything.
She reached into her bag and pulled out a sheet of paper. “My heart’s cold now. No one ever cared about me anyway.”
She set it on the table. “I have an agreement. If Grandpa and Grandma, Uncle and his wife, and Aunt and her husband all sign it, I’ll pay my half.”
Ge Chun Yu snatched it up like a drowning person grabbing a rope.
She read, and the color drained from her face.
“You mean… if you help me repay this sixty thousand, then Grandpa and Grandma’s future support, medical care, and funeral costs have nothing to do with you?”
“This sixty thousand counts as your contribution for their future care, medical bills, and funeral expenses?”
“And after that, there are no financial ties between us—no support obligations, no inheritance, no property distribution. Even if that compensation money ever gets recovered later, it has nothing to do with us…”
She looked up, voice rising. “You’re giving up inheritance rights with the whole family. You’re cutting ties completely?”
Xiao Ying Chun’s mouth curved, but there was no warmth in it. “Was Grandpa and Grandma’s apartment ever going to include a share for me?”
“If Uncle or Aunt had an accident, would any of their property ever go to me?”
“Or can Uncle and Aunt help me recover the money that truck driver owes us?”
The elders froze, stiff as chopsticks.
If there were a way to recover that money, her uncle would have tried long ago. The driver was in prison; the family was so poor there was nothing to enforce. The odds of getting anything back were close to zero.
And their apartments and savings were meant for their own children. Who would willingly hand any of it to Xiao Ying Chun, the niece they’d always treated as disposable?
Silence swallowed the room.
Even Ge Chun Yu’s side—the loudest a moment ago—went quiet.
Her grandparents fell quieter still.
Xiao Ying Chun watched them and almost wanted to laugh. So a reverse threat really did work.
Ge Chun Yu couldn’t hold out. She read the agreement twice more, then shoved it toward Xiao Ying Chun’s uncle and other aunt.
The two of them exchanged a look and started reading carefully.
Right then, the server began bringing dishes to the table.
Xiao Ying Chun leaned back, suddenly calm. “Come on. You won’t finish reading that in two minutes, and the food’s getting cold. Eat while you read.”
The older ones couldn’t swallow a bite. The five younger ones didn’t care. They picked up their chopsticks and started eating as if nothing had happened.