After checking, Mrs. Jiang didn’t notice anything wrong about it, so she heaved a sigh of relief. “There’s not much problem. Have you put your lipstick on?”
“Yes.” Jiang Xiaobai put the makeup mirror and lipstick into her bag. “Shall we enter?” she asked.
“Sure.” Because of the incident with the eyelashes, Mrs. Jiang quickly forgot about what had happened with Xiao Su. After getting out of the car with her daughter, she reminded her as they walked to the hotel, “Today is very different from usual. Your Uncle Yanming invited many people, so you must make yourself presentable to let them know that even though we only have a daughter, you are much better than the rest of them. Got it?”
Jiang Xiaobai replied, “Mom, why do I always have to compete with others? I don’t like that, and I’m too lazy to do that.”
“Silly girl, it’s not a competition at all! You just take it as making your parents proud. After all, you are the only child of our family—the responsibility lies on you.”
“Fine.” Jiang Xiaobai sighed. It’s so mentally tiring!
While they were making their way to the hotel, a few people beside them walked toward them. From afar, Jiang Xiaobai felt they looked familiar. Just when Mrs. Jiang was about to ask if Jiang Xiaobai knew them, she heard one of them ask, “Isn’t that Xiaobai?”
Upon hearing their voices, Mrs. Jiang focused her gaze, and her face immediately fell. “It’s your second aunt and Jiang Mei.”
Jiang Mei? Upon hearing the name, Jiang Xiaobai’s spirits sank a little more. Jiang Mei was of the same age as Jiang Xiaobai. When they were still studying, she liked comparing herself to Jiang Xiaobai, and she also liked taking Jiang Xiaobai’s things, even though they didn’t belong to her. She just wanted to own everything that Jiang Xiaobai had. All in all, she was very eager to prove herself.
For example, when Jiang Xiaobai was still in high school, one of the male classmates who excelled in everything started courting her. However, Jiang Xiaobai didn’t have the time to deal with him. Apart from going to the canteen to have lunch, she spent the rest of her time reading books, even after school had ended. She even used the few love letters sent by him as bookmarks. Jiang Xiaobai had no idea how Jiang Mei got to know about it, but she started to court the guy as well. It only took little effort for her to conquer him, and she even flaunted in front of Jiang Xiaobai. At that time, Jiang Xiaobai was speechless when she saw that.
After that, during the school annual festival, Jiang Xiaobai was convinced by her class representative to participate in a marathon. Right after that, Jiang Mei joined the marathon as well. No matter what Jiang Xiaobai did, Jiang Mei would definitely be there as well. On top of that, Jiang Mei would always do a better job than Jiang Xiaobai did and flaunt in front of her. Of course, she would also brag in front of Old Madam Jiang. After some time, even Old Madam Jiang thought that Jiang Xiaobai was a good-for-nothing and couldn’t do a single job well. She couldn’t compete against Jiang Mei, who outshone her in every area.
Sometime later, Jiang Xiaobai graduated and stayed at home to write novels, and Jiang Mei finally couldn’t do anything about it. After all, she didn’t like to read. Even if she wanted to imitate Jiang Xiaobai, she didn’t have the capabilities to do so. As for Jiang Xiaobai, she could finally enjoy a few years of peace. However, they met again today.
From afar, Jiang Xiaobai saw Jiang Mei wear a turquoise sleeveless dress and a little cardigan with pearls on it. It was also rather obvious that the bag around her waist was expensive, and she had curled her hair into waves that befitted the current fashion, looking very attractive and beautiful. Well, she does know how to doll herself up, Jiang Xiaobai thought to herself.
When Jiang Mei got closer, she went over to hold Jiang Xiaobai’s hands, pretending to be very close to her. “Xiaobai, I didn’t expect you to be here too! I thought you’d be rotting at home by now!”
Her first sentence to me is already so sharp. Heh. Jiang Xiaobai snorted coldly in her mind. However, she didn’t let any of it show on her face as she greeted Jiang Mei’s mother, “Second Aunt.”
Jiang Xiaobai’s second aunt answered while her gaze swept over Jiang Xiaobai. Upon seeing the clothes Jiang Xiaobai was wearing, contempt was immediately shown on her face as she sighed. “Xiaobai, why did you stay at home all the time after graduation? You don’t even hang out with us, your relatives, anymore. And when you finally came out of your house, why didn’t you buy better clothes for yourself?”
What? Jiang Xiaobai lowered her head to look at the dress she was wearing. Fang Tangtang bought this off an auction some time ago because she thought that the design was quite unique, and this dress showed off her figure extremely well. However, after she bought it, she realized that her waist was too thick and that she couldn’t wear it. Hence, she gave the dress that cost 500,000 to Jiang Xiaobai, who didn’t want to accept it initially. However, Fang Tangtang insisted on giving it to her, saying that it would be a waste if no one ended up wearing it.
As the dress was too expensive, Jiang Xiaobai didn’t have the courage to wear it, but after opening her wardrobe today, she suddenly realized that she had such a dress, so she wore it over. The main point was that Jiang Xiaobai had a slender waist and a pair of long legs, so she looked tall and slim after wearing it. From afar, Jiang Mei was already jealous after seeing Jiang Xiaobai’s figure. After she saw that Jiang Xiaobai was just wearing a normal dress, she looked triumphant.
“Indeed, Xiaobai! We are already working now, so it’s better if we buy branded stuff. You must have bought this dress from those cheap online shops, huh?”
“What?” Jiang Xiaobai exclaimed. “Who set the rule that one must wear branded stuff after they started working?”
Listening to their exchange, Du Xiaoyu frowned in displeasure. Then, she turned around to look at the dress her daughter was wearing. Be it design or material, the dress was of high quality, so it was rather impossible that it was cheap. However, she had never seen the brand before as well.
“Of course it’s not a rule. But you must remember that we are from the Jiang family, and today is Granny’s birthday. Seeing how casually you dress yourself, isn’t that considered disrespecting her?” Jiang Mei covered her mouth as she laughed before she patted Jiang Xiaobai’s shoulders. “Or is it because you aren’t earning much as an online writer? I heard that the salary for online writers is not too high. Sometimes, they can’t even provide for themselves and even have to rely on their family members.” With that, she glanced at Du Xiaoyu. “Aunt Xiaoyu, you must have been having a hard time, seeing that Xiaobai is so unsuccessful.”
Jiang Xiaobai twitched the corners of her lips as she thought, Are you retarded? You’ve always loved to compete with me since we were in school. However, after such a long time of not seeing each other, you still want to compete with me?
Thinking of this, Jiang Xiaobai smiled nonchalantly as she spoke casually, “You’re right indeed. My mom has been having a hard time. But Jiang Mei, you’ve been working for quite some time now, yet you still don’t know how to speak politely. With such conversational skills, how do you manage to survive at your work?”
No one thought that Jiang Xiaobai would suddenly retaliate. On top of that, she did that right in front of Jiang Mei’s mother. The four of them there, except Jiang Xiaobai, were stunned.
