17 Retaliation

The next day being Sunday Su Li knew all three of them would be at home. She had deliberately asked for the lamp during last night's dinner. Afterall, if a play was to be enacted, she needed her intended audience to witness it first hand. If the information was passed later on by word of mouth it wouldn't be that impactful.

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It was still quite early when she went out for a run around the garden. She felt the most relaxed in the garden since she had always loved all kinds of fauna and flora. As soon as she completed her run she saw Zixi standing at some distance. She knew he must be waiting for her since the orders would have been conveyed to him yesternight. Without giving him a chance to speak she walked towards the entrance, "Make sure the lamp is all cleaned and in working condition and bring it to the sitting room after breakfast." Finishing her words she carried on to her room.

She had an anticipatory feeling inside her so during breakfast she talked to Yu Jian about a few inconsequential things and even deigned to give Yu Yan a slight warm smile. Recalling the information she had received from the system she also told Yu Jian that the Feng Corporation was also trying to vie for the underground sea canal project the Yu Corporation had an eye upon. Since she had a non - compete clause with Yu Jian, she had taken an initiative on her own to try her level best to help him in any endeavours he was interested in.

For a moment Yu Jian had admonished her for talking about business in the dinning hall instead of the study, moreover, at the breakfast table but there was a faint gleam of pampering and doting in his eyes. She was taken aback by that look in his eyes and had been reminded of her own father who would always say to them not to pay attention to anything else while eating.Later on, she had rationalised that all parents would have that kind of look for their children.

Yu Jian had a bittersweet feeling in his heart when he saw Yueyue giving a faint smile to Yanyan. When Yueyue informed him about theprobable tussle they might have with the Feng Corporation in the near future, he wanted to ask her how she knew about it. It wasn't that he didn't believe her information to be reliable, he just didn't want her to take any unnecessary risks for the company. He could still shoulder most of the responsibilty of the company until she grew up into a more mature person. However, before he could say anything he saw Yueyue looking at his eyes in a daze as if being reminded of someone else and there seemed to be slight tears at the corner of her own eyes. Without further inquiry he could understand that she must be thinking about his late wife. He didn't want her to be too upset thinking about it so just patted her shoulder in consolation.

Soon she came out of her daze and gave him an apologetic smile and lowered her head. He wanted to take her mind off those memories so he asked how she knew about it.

"Feng Zi Jin goes to the same college and I inadvertently heard her alluding to it."

He replied, "Really muddle headed to talk about any business dealings or decisions outside."

After breakfast just as he was about to get off the table, Yueyue held his hand, "I asked the person to bring the lamp to the sitting room. Please come with me to have a look."

He knew it must have taken a lot out of his daughter to ask him to accompany her since generally, she didn't like showing her weakness to anybody. She had an unreasonable thought that showing weakness infront of others was akin to asking other people to pity you in front and mock you in the back. He went along with her wishes and readily agreed.

Su Li knew from Yu Jian's face expression that he would send Yu Yue back to her room but how could she allow that to happen. For an act to continue onwards, it required all the actors along with the audience to be present. Therefore, she just held and squeezed his hand to indicate that she was fine with having Yu Yan's presence. Soon afterwards Zixi brought the lamp into the room and placed it on the centre table.

The lamp was an aesthetic vision in leaded glass. The lampshade exhibited a wonderful harmony of diverse colours, with subtle tones in an intricate pattern like a Wisteria tree hence it's name Wisteria lamp. It had a tree trunk as its base. The model featured almost 2,000 pieces of stained-glass of varying thicknesses arranged by hand. It had cost Yu Jian an arm and a leg to win the final bid at that time. More importantly, it wasn't valuable to him and the original Yu Yue due to its exorbitant price rather due to the emotional sentiments attached to it.

In the original plot, few days prior to the original Yu Yue's accident Yu Yan had taken this lamp out of the storage and had deliberatelybroken it in a fit of anger. Now, the original soul was nowhere to be found and she had brought forward the original act with a slight twist of her own at the end.

As soon as she saw the lamp Su Li almost faltered in her plan. She didn't want to play with or destroy someone else's emotions. Even if she herself didn't have any attachment to the lamp but when she saw Yu Jian wilt in front of her eyes after taking one look at the lamp she almost ordered to pack and stow it away once again. She knew what she had planned would hurt Yu Jian where it mattered the most to him. But she thought that she might as well play a self directed play while keeping his well being in mind rather than let an illegitimate child take undue advantage. She vowed she ll try to make it up to him somehow at a later date.

Everyone noticed that when Zixi brought in the lamp, Yueyue fell into a slight daze and then suddenly looked at her father as if afraid of triggering something. Yu Jian patted her hand and watched as the lamp was placed on the table. Afterwards, Yueyue circled the lamp a few times looking at it from every angle, knelt on the floor and with trembling hands touched the base. As soon as her fingers made contact with the base she bowed her head down with her eye lashes trembling as if blinking her tears away. Then she asked one of the maids to get a white coloured pure fur table mat and placed it under the lamp and lit it. There was a soft glow to the lamp while the table mat gave the illusion that it was a Wisteriatree in full bloom with snow settled around it after a heavy snowfall.

Yu Jian, "Zixi take the lamp and place it in Yueyue's room."

Before anyone could take a step forward, Yueyue said that it was better if the lamp was kept in the sitting room for now. It should be placed at a place where everyone could view it. Afterwards everyone noticed how Yueyue was in a trance while gently touching the lampshade and the base every few seconds. Her gaze held a peace that hadn't been seen for a long time, as though time had stopped within her eyes. Thereupon, she gave a jubilant smile to everyone present from the patriarch to the household staff and left for her room joyously as if she had reached some semblance of inner peace.

Yu Yan hadn't paid much attention to the talk of the lamp at the dinner table but after she had heard father saying that he would instruct Zixi to bring the said item from the storage, she was a bit puzzled. Earlier on he had said that Zixi would be working under her until she came to a final decision but now why was he saying that he would order him to do something that even a Buttler or any other staff could do. She wanted to clear her doubts: if father was trying to show overt favouritism to his heir and giving her a warning but there was no one she could ask these questions to. She made up her mind to take the twins outside the next day as it was a Sunday and she wanted to get away from this stifling atmosphere.

Next morning before she could even think of getting ready to go out her father asked her to follow him to the sitting room and watched silently as a table lamp was brought to the living room. She had naively thought that the lamp Yu Yue was talking about was a simple piece but it was only now she realised that it was an exquisite piece of work. From the looks of it, it seemed to be something lavish and upscale and was something important in an intrinsic way to the Yu household that nobody dared to be careless with it.She even saw Zixi who was always without any expression had a look of slight reverence when handling the lamp. This made her a bit curious about it so she carefully observed as different emotions passed her father's face but more importantly she saw the emotional attachment Yu Yue had with the lamp. Since she wasn't living comfortably due to the cruel words said by father that day, she had an irresistable desire to wreak havoc on this lamp. But before she could take any actionshe needed to find out about the details related to it and weigh the pros and cons of the matter.

Consequently, she called Xun Mei to her room in the afternoon and questioned her extensively about the lamp. The answers she recieved had left her fuming. That lamp was bought at a sky high price at an auction just because the flighty princess had said that it was pretty and she wanted to have it in her room to look at while listening to herbedtime story before her sleep. Therefore, father and the deceased Mrs. Yu had bought it but unexpectedly the latter had passed away a few days later. Also, she got to know the emotional turmoil, the sob story about the father - daughter duo's anguish and their respective concern for the other person. So it appeared that while she was fighting tooth and nail over every single morsel of food with other children in the orphanage, the Yu princess was busy spending bucket loads of money on an immaterial object that had taken her fancy.

Hearing about the details, she wanted to smash everything in her room but belatedly realised that the complete set of decorations in her room were not even one - tenth of the money spent to buy that lamp. Earlier she had felt like a modern day Cinderella. She had thought that since she had broken the shackles of poverty with her new identity, she had the entire world at her finger tips but now the wonderful dream had shattered. Father had treated her as if she was the light in his dark world when he had brought her to this place but it was only now that she realised that all of that might have been a facade to deceive her. How could it be that he hadn't realised the difference in treatment between herself and the legitimate child. He had even brought her to this room on her first day and had seemed satisfied with the decor. She had thought that he was pleased with the decorations, pleased that nobody had dared to slight this new daughter he had found but now it looked that he had been pleased about the fact that the decorations resembled her less than desirable status perfectly.

Since these people tried to play games with her, she ll show them what she could do. She ll definitely make that girl regret flaunting her status and wealth so unabashdely in front of her.