Chapter 516

Chapter 516: Chapter 481

Before Yun Jiao’s school term began, the parents of her two older brothers’ girlfriends came to Sea City.

Yun Chenxi figured that since they were all gathering to talk, they might as well arrange the engagements at the same time to save themselves the trouble.

And so, the parents of the three families met.

The discussions went very smoothly.

Yun Chendong and Yun Chenxi had obviously promising futures, and men in the military were still highly sought-after.

On top of that, Shen Yunlian and the Yun family were generous with the bride price.

The bride price for each future daughter-in-law was the same: two hundred thousand.

How could the brides’ parents possibly disagree?

The prospective sons-in-law were handsome and had bright futures, their family’s elders were good-natured, there were no property disputes, and the family was generous.

Thus, the marriages were settled. Since the parents from both sides were present, the engagement ceremonies were held just two days later.

As for the weddings, they would have to wait until the National Day holiday in October.

After the engagements, the New Year holiday passed and the festive atmosphere faded. The young people who had come home for the celebration packed their bags once more—students returned to school, and workers went back to their jobs.

Yun Jiao, her brothers, and Fu Mingyu also boarded the train to the Capital.

She was now seventeen years old.

She didn’t look much different at seventeen than she had at sixteen.

Aside from studying, she spent her days joining Fu Mingyu in a battle of wits against his family. It was quite amusing to watch his relatives fly into a powerless rage every time they were thwarted.

“When is Grandpa Fu coming back? It’s getting annoying watching them constantly stir up trouble.”

Fu Mingyu replied, “Soon. He’ll be back in May.”

Yun Jiao was scooping steamed egg custard into her mouth with a spoon. She was currently sitting on the second floor of her Sixth Brother’s private restaurant.

As she glanced down, her eyes landed on a familiar figure.

She didn’t pay the person much attention. ‘I think her name was Su… Su Nian?’

Her memory was excellent, after all, and she managed to dig the name out from some forgotten corner of her mind.

However, Yun Jiao’s gaze wasn’t fixed on Su Nian, but on the woman beside her.

“Miss, your mother is only doing this for your own good…”

Su Nian grew even angrier. “For my own good? Everything is for my own good! Why doesn’t she ever ask what I want? What right does she have to arrange my entire life!”

“I’ve already told her I like someone else, yet she still insists that I get close to that Fu Mingyu person. I don’t want to! She’s clearly just telling me to go seduce a man. I’m supposed to be the daughter of a wealthy family, so why is she making me do such disgraceful things? And she calls it ‘for my own good’? She just wants to sacrifice me for a marriage alliance to pave the way for my brother!”

Yun Jiao raised an eyebrow slightly and glanced at Fu Mingyu, who was sitting across from her.

‘Well, what do you know,’ she thought. ‘This bit of drama involves the person right here with me.’

Fu Mingyu’s expression, however, didn’t change in the slightest.

He had grown used to this sort of thing by now.

After all, didn’t his dear father and stepmother spend every day plotting to use his marriage as a bargaining chip for some alliance?

Su Nian ran off, and the woman, who was dressed like a nanny, hurried after her.

Yun Jiao frowned. “That woman… I feel like she’s very familiar, but I can’t quite place her.”

This surprised Fu Mingyu. ‘There’s actually someone she can’t remember?’

After all, Yun Jiao’s memory was incredible. If she had seen and made a note of someone, she could recall them even after a long time had passed.

“I’ve definitely seen her before!”

Yun Jiao said with conviction. For some unknown reason, she felt unsettled by it.

But she couldn’t remember… ‘Oh, forget it.’

“I want some cake,” she said.

“Should we go find your Sixth Brother?” Fu Mingyu asked.

“Let’s go, let’s go!” said Yun Jiao. “We can see if Sixth Brother is busy. If he isn’t, I’ll get him to make me a cake to take home.”

*

That night, Yun Jiao was in bed, hugging Little Sanhua.

Suddenly, she shot upright, startling Hua Hua, who was next to her.

“Meow?”

A strange light flashed in Yun Jiao’s blue eyes.

“I remember who she is.”

The reason she hadn’t been able to recall it clearly was because the memory was ancient—from when she had first arrived in this world.

That’s right. That woman was the person who had thrown her into the river!

“No wonder… no wonder her voice sounded so familiar.”

And her face… even though the woman had been wearing a headscarf back then, Yun Jiao had a faint impression of her face, especially the conspicuous black mole just below the corner of her mouth.

Yun Jiao hugged Hua Hua and yawned. ‘Now that I remember who she is, this will be much easier to handle.’

Yun Jiao had always known she wasn’t the Yun family’s biological daughter, but they treated her so well. Besides, with no surveillance cameras and no witnesses back then, trying to find the person who abandoned her would have been like searching for a needle in a haystack.

So, she had never considered searching for her birth parents.

Who would have thought she would run into the woman by chance after all this time?

She wasn’t in a rush. After a full night’s sleep, she waited until breakfast to tell her brothers what she’d remembered.

Her brothers didn’t find it the least bit strange that a tiny baby could remember the person who had abandoned her. In fact, they thought it was perfectly natural.

Their sister was so incredible, wasn’t it only natural for her to be born with such knowledge?

“Jiaojiao, do you want us to investigate her?”

They weren’t worried that Yun Jiao would leave them to return to her birth family.

What a joke. The bond between them was so strong; there was no way Jiaojiao would ever leave them.

“Of course we need to investigate,” Yun Jiao said. “I have to understand the circumstances. If it was a conspiracy, I’ll make the people responsible pay the price. If it was an accident and my birth parents are living well, I won’t bother them.”

She had no intention of seeking a reunion.

“Leave it to me and Brother Qi,” said Yun Xiaojiu. “He has some skilled investigators working for him.”

Yun Jiao nodded. “Then I’ll leave it to you, brothers. Oh, right. She’s probably a nanny or something for the Su family, so you can start the investigation with them.”

Yun Jiao didn’t dwell on the matter, simply carrying on with her daily life.

After all, so much time had passed; an investigation like this would certainly take more than a day or two.

In the meantime, the auction on the Flame was about to begin, and invitations were being sent out.

Only five hundred invitations were issued in total, distributed worldwide.

Every recipient was a person of power and influence.

Information about a few of the treasures had been released in advance for this auction. The mention of Jue Sha, a legendary silk impervious to both fire and water, was enough to pique most people’s interest.

The promise of more precious medicinal herbs and rare pearls and gems also attracted a great deal of attention.

Now, in high-society circles, everyone was asking who had received an invitation to the Flame.

With only five hundred invitations available, receiving one was an undeniable symbol of one’s status in those circles.

Even at school, Yun Jiao could overhear snippets of conversation about the Flame.

“I hear the items up for auction on the Flame are incredibly rare. They even have a thousand-year-old ginseng root.”

“For real? A whole thousand years?”

“I don’t know about that, but I heard they have Jue Sha. Is it really the same Jue Sha from the legends?”

These discussions were limited to the children of the elite, so they didn’t spread very far.

But since Fu Mingyu was also part of this circle, Yun Jiao didn’t need to rely on secondhand gossip.

“Are you free?” he asked her. “Want to go to the auction on the Flame?”

Yun Jiao actually really wanted to go back and check on it.

She asked if he wanted to go. The Fu Family had actually received an invitation as well, but it had been addressed to Mr. Fu.

The Flame conducted legitimate business, more or less. Some of its goods had been plundered from the treasure troves of other islands, while others were things Yun Jiao had scrounged up from the sea herself.

For instance, the ping-pong-ball-sized black pearl was found in a deep, unique part of the sea. She had discovered it inside a type of giant clam just a bit smaller than a Conch, but the clam’s habitat was so specific that Yun Jiao hadn’t been able to take it with her.