CHAPTER 292: MY SHOULDERS, FREE

The file in AiLin’s hands was deceptively simple, just a few crisp sheets of paper bound together. But every word etched on it carried the weight of an entire empire.

This wasn’t just a legal document. To others, it was a declaration of trust, or perhaps, a transfer of power. Each person who created this document would have their own reasons but in the end it’s all the same- a final, irreversible choice.

No one, absolutely no one, would draft such a document lightly. Not unless they were ready to hand over everything they owned. Betting their wealth, legacy, and entire family name. And unless that person was bound by blood, who in their right mind would ever do such a thing?

Yet AiLin... she was no longer a Jiang.

She had severed that tie long ago.

And still—

The contents were undeniable:

15% of Jiang Corporation’s shares.The ancestral mansion they were currently standing in.Several luxury hotels nestled in the most lucrative districts of Beijing.And the remainder of Grandmother LinLin’s personal fortune.

All of it, all of it, under AiLin’s name.

The value?

Sixteen billion yuan.

Six. Teen. Billion.

AiLin’s eyes snapped up to Grandmother LinLin, her hands trembling as if she were holding a live bomb.

This couldn’t be real, but it was.

She flipped to the final page. The signature was already there. Signed and stamped with the family’s stamp, just ready for her to sign and everything was hers. Hers.

This wasn’t a decision in the making.

It was a decision already made.

"Impossible..." she whispered, barely able to process it.

Behind her, Mrs. Jiang had been peeking with growing anxiety, and when she caught a glimpse of what was written, her face went ghost white then crimson with fury.

She lunged forward to snatch the file from AiLin’s hands, ready to tear it apart to shreads.

But YanLan was faster, he stepped forward, arm raised, blocking Mrs. Jiang like a wall of steel. His usual calm was gone, eyes wide in disbelief, but his instincts remained sharp.

He knew who would be the first to lose control.

"Mother!" Mrs. Jiang shrieked, her voice cracking under the weight of betrayal. "How could you—?! All of that was supposed to go to MengYao and NianNian! How could you give it to her?! An outsider!"

She pointed a shaking, accusatory finger at AiLin. "You always said blood mattered most! That was why you didn’t stop her from leaving the Jiang Family! Because she wasn’t one of us!"

Grandmother LinLin’s eyes closed for a brief moment, like she was flinching at the echo of her past self. Those words, the words she had once spoken so carelessly, had come back to cut deeper than a knife.

But now... She’s different. She knew how to differentiate monsters and humans. Her eyes snapped open coldly over mrs Jiang and in anger she scoffed.

"An outsider?" she repeated, her voice laced with a warning. "You dare to call her an outsider?"

The room froze.

Mrs. Jiang stumbled back, stunned by the underlying threat in Grandmother LinLin’s tone.

And the way her eyes locked on her, knowing and accusing, made it feel as though the old woman had peeled away every mask she ever wore and seen everything. She had seen through her secrets...

But no! There was no way that she knows. If she does, they wouldn’t still be here in this house!

"Mother-in-law..." Mrs. Jiang breathed, her voice barely a whisper.

Even Jiang MengYao, silent all this time, felt the shift. He followed his grandmother’s gaze and for the first time, he realized:

She was looking at them

as the outsiders now. Not AiLin but them. The realization was as cold as an ice bucket poured over them, a slap of reality that warned him he was about to lose everything.

"Enough," Grandmother LinLin said, voice like a whip cracking through the air. "Get out. All of you. OUT!"

Her fragile body trembled in the bed, but her command was thunderous.

"I want everyone out of my room except AiLin!"

Chaos broke loose upon her demand. The lawyer rushed forward and all the nearby servants moved quickly, pulling a protesting Mrs. Jiang and a stunned MengYao away.

"No! You can’t do this!" Mrs. Jiang screamed, her face twisted in rage. "That girl, she doesn’t deserve it! She doesn’t belong here!"

"She deserves everything you never gave her!" Grandmother LinLin spat back. "You vixen! I should have not been blinded by rage!"

"Mother, MOTHER! Don’t let her take it all!" Mrs. Jiang shrieked. "What about your grandchildren?! What about MengYao?!"

But Grandmother LinLin didn’t respond. She didn’t look at her as if her mind had been made up.

And that silence, that decision, was worse than a slap.

Mrs. Jiang’s eyes burned with hatred as she was dragged out of the room, her fingernails clawing at the doorframe like a madwoman. She didn’t care that the doctor had warned her about causing stress, didn’t care if her shouting pushed the old woman’s health to the brink.

In fact... She should just die from anger now!

Let the old hag die right here, let her die before AiLin signs anything.

That would be better than watching her inheritance, her children’s future, fall into the hands of the one girl she had always wanted to erase from their lives.

The door slammed shut behind them, the echo still vibrating in AiLin’s chest. Yet the chaos hadn’t left the room—it clung to the air like smoke, thick and suffocating.

From the hallway, she could still hear Mrs. Jiang’s shrill voice screeching like a mad banshee, clawing against the walls, protesting her loss like a cornered animal.

And honestly? AiLin found it satisfying.

She had waited years

for this day. Waited in silence while that woman pranced around like the queen of the Jiang Family, belittling her, erasing her, casting her aside like trash.

But today?

Grandmother LinLin had flipped the script.

Still, there were far more dangerous truths left untold.

AiLin turned toward the old woman, whose fragile frame slumped deeper into the velvet armchair. Her eyes were tired, clouded with regret and guilt that time could no longer rewind.

"Grandmother LinLin," AiLin spoke, her voice low but steady. "You knew."

The silence that followed was deafening. Grandmother LinLin’s lips trembled, and her gaze fell to her lap.

"...I knew too late."

AiLin’s heart didn’t flinch. The pain was old now, muted by years of betrayal. But she needed confirmation.

"So... MengYao and NianNian. They aren’t your biological grandchildren?"

It was a brutal question, but necessary.

The old woman inhaled sharply, as if breathing in shards of her own shame. "I don’t know who fathered NianNian. But MengYao... he’s not my son’s child. He belongs to your second uncle."

AiLin’s brows didn’t twitch. Her lips curled into a small, cruel smile.

Of course. Of course.

Mrs. Jiang, the self-proclaimed matriarch, had sex with her own brother-in-law, birthed a bastard, and paraded him around as the legitimate heir of the Jiang family.

Truly... disgusting.

"You’re not shocked," Grandmother LinLin noted, her voice faint with sorrow.

AiLin leaned back into her chair, crossing one leg over the other with the ease of a woman who had seen too much. "Why would I be? She’s not my real mother. What loyalty did I ever owe her? And as for the damage, well, it barely left a bruise."

The old woman’s throat tightened, as if swallowing a lifetime of guilt. "You must think I’m a fool."

"No," AiLin replied calmly. "You’re just... human. A human who let a snake into your home and mistook its hissing for music."

Grandmother LinLin closed her eyes, her voice cracking. "I hated her... because I knew. Deep down, I always knew. She was too eager around wealthy men. Too flirtatious and too calculating. She had a terrible history with men but my son foolishly fell for her and believed that he had to marry her because she’s pregnant. But with her messy history, how could I not doubt whether MengYao was really my son’s?! I despised her, but I kept silent for the sake of appearances."

Then she sighed, long and bitter.

"But MengYao... he looked so much like your father..."

AiLin scoffed softly. "Well, my father and my second uncle don’t look all that different."

"They do," Grandmother LinLin snapped, her voice bitter like bile. "Your second uncle is the son of a mistress."

AiLin stilled.

Oh. So that was it. The rot in the Jiang family had started long before she was even born. Generations of deception... and she had merely become another casualty of its legacy.