After the family split up, my stepmother and scumbag father begged me to come home.

The news spread faster than the wind.

The news that Lin Qianqian had asked her second grandfather's family to dig for poisonous potatoes spread throughout Qinghe Village by noon.

The person who reacted the most was Old Mrs. Lin.

"What?!" The old lady slammed her teacup on the table, splashing tea that soaked the surface. "Let the second branch of the family dig too? Doesn't she know the first branch has long since severed ties with the second branch? Those traitors, they're disgracing their grandfather!"

The old woman couldn't sit still any longer. She paced back and forth on the ground, growing angrier with each passing moment. Suddenly, she slammed her cane down and yelled, "Come on, let's go find that troublesome woman. Tell her not to accept anything from the second wife's family; let it rot in the house!"

"Mother, this time you have to teach that brat a lesson she won't forget," Lin Xiaohua chimed in, her eyes gleaming with a mischievous glint in her eyes.

At the entrance of the Lin family's old house, a stall for collecting poisoned potatoes was set up, with a queue stretching half a street.

Lin Qianqian was weighing the items with her head down, making marks on the ledger with a vermilion pen. When she looked up, she saw the person second in line and paused slightly.

He is my second grandfather's younger uncle, Lin Guodong.

He stood in line with his head down, as if afraid of being recognized, the tips of his ears turning an uneasy red.

"Uncle," Lin Qianqian called out, her voice soft but conveying a natural intimacy.

Lin Guodong looked up abruptly, paused for a moment, then hurriedly responded, rubbing his hands as he stepped forward, his awkwardness impossible to hide.

"Why are you all alone?" Lin Qianqian looked behind him. "I saw Second Grandma and Auntie on the mountain too."

"Sigh." Lin Guodong scratched the back of his head and chuckled dryly. "My dad wouldn't let us come, so we sneaked in. They... were all embarrassed, afraid you wouldn't accept us. After all..."

He didn't finish his sentence, but his meaning was clear—after all, the two families had been estranged for thirty years, after all, she was from the eldest branch of the family, and after all, no one in Qinghe Village would dare to do such a thing against Old Madam Lin's dignity.

"Of course I'll accept it," Lin Qianqian chimed in, her tone as light as if she were commenting on the weather. "My grandma is my grandma, and I am me. I remember how good my second grandma was to me. Don't worry about anything else."

Lin Guodong's eyes suddenly welled up with tears. He opened his mouth, as if to say something, his Adam's apple bobbing up and down, before finally managing to squeeze out, "Qianqian, I didn't expect you... We were overthinking things. We thought you were just like them."

Lin Qianqian smiled but didn't respond.

She lifted the bamboo basket onto the scale and adjusted the weight: "Ninety catties, ninety copper coins."

The coins were counted from the money box, clinking as they fell into her hand, as crisp as silver dropping onto a porcelain plate. She handed the coins over, her eyes crinkling into a smile: "Uncle, take these."

Lin Guodong reached out to take it.

"Don't give it to him."

From the crowd, an aged voice rang out, like a blunt knife—not fast, but ruthless.

The people in line all turned their heads away.

Grandma Lin squeezed through the crowd, her steps quick and steady, not at all like someone in their sixties. She first glared fiercely at Lin Guodong, her eyes like they were coated with venom: "Take your things away, we won't take yours."

Lin Guodong's lips moved, but he didn't dare to say anything.

The old lady turned to Lin Qianqian, her chin slightly raised, adopting the air of a matriarch: "You're not allowed to accept gifts from them. Don't you know we don't get along with the second branch of the family?"

"I know," Lin Qianqian said.

"You knew and you still accepted it?" The old lady's voice rose a half-octave. "Are you slapping your grandfather in the face?!"

"That's right, you brat, you did this on purpose!" Lin Xiaohua peeked out from behind the old lady and chimed in, her eyes darting around as if she wanted to make the whole thing even bigger.

Lin Qianqian glanced at her but ignored her.

She turned her gaze back to Old Mrs. Lin's face, her voice soft but clear: "I only collected poisoned potatoes. As for the affairs between your older generation—I'm just a child, it's best if I don't interfere."

After saying that, she stuffed the ninety copper coins into Lin Guodong's arms and gently pushed him.