A Real Heiress Quits (GL) - Chapter 10

The person at the door was Aunt Xu. She was carrying a glass of warm milk, urging Yu Xinyue to get to bed early.

After drinking the milk, Yu Xinyue felt a comforting warmth in her stomach. “You should go rest first, I’m going to do a few practice problems,” she fibbed without blinking.

Aunt Xu took the empty glass but didn’t leave. She looked at the girl, hesitating as if she had something on her mind.

Yu Xinyue smiled. “Is there something else?”

Aunt Xu asked in a low voice, “Xinyue, are you still mad at your uncle? He’s doing it for your own good.”

For her own good?

The smile on Yu Xinyue’s face stiffened. She didn’t need this kind of “good.”

Aunt Xu continued, “You’re too young to understand. You’ll see when you grow up. He’s your biological uncle; he would never harm you. The piano? That kind of thing is fine as a hobby, but how can you make it a career? Think about it—when you grow up, other people will be bosses, and you? You’ll just be playing a ragtag piano. What use is that? It doesn’t make money.”

The elder spoke with earnest concern, but her words were incredibly hurtful.

Yu Xinyue couldn’t help but argue, “It’s not a ‘ragtag piano.’ This is a career I love.” It’s my dream.

Aunt Xu sighed. “How long can ‘love’ last? Once you stop liking it later in life, it’ll be too late for regrets. The Yin family is rich, but they can’t support you forever. You still have to rely on yourself.”

Yet Yu Xinyue remembered clearly that the Yin family had supported Yin Jianghan for her entire life.

People are often like this—they don’t fear scarcity, but they fear inequality. If Yin Jianghan had also been forced to study business, perhaps Xinyue wouldn’t have felt so much unfairness in her heart.

The girl pursed her lips. “Aunt Xu, I’m tired. I want to sleep.”

Sensing the resistance in her tone, Aunt Xu shook her head as if frustrated by the girl’s stubbornness.

Once the elderly woman left, Yu Xinyue lowered her gaze to the sheet music in her hand. After a long silence, her lips quirked up into a smile.

Of course, she remembered this song. It was Yin Jianghan’s “claim to fame” in her previous life: Youth.

Yu Xinyue had been obsessed with music since childhood and began trying her hand at composing in junior high. She had been constantly distracted, focused only on creating her own music, which naturally caused her grades to plummet. Fortunately, she finally finished this song and even wrote the lyrics. She had shared it with Yin Jianghan with great excitement—

She had been naive to the point of stupidity.

How could a ten-year-old child understand the complexities of deceit? At least, the Yu Xinyue of that time didn’t.

Not long after, Yin Jianghan participated in a talent show called Sound of Music. Her performance wasn’t particularly outstanding, but she stunned the audience with a song called Youth. She successfully signed a contract with Tianyu and became a rising star in the music scene.

But she could only rise that high. After all, it was stolen goods; she had no real substance inside. In the following years, Yin Jianghan never produced another song that could rival Youth, leading people to say she had “run out of talent.”

But no one knew that the song never belonged to her in the first place. Jiang Lang never had talent to begin with.

As for Yu Xinyue, at fourteen, she had been isolated and helpless, not knowing how to prove that Youth was her own creation. Talent is only called talent when it is seen; otherwise, it’s just “residue in the gut.”

In this life…

Yu Xinyue propped the score against the wall. Looking at the notes, her fingers slowly pressed down. A pleasant melody seemed to ring in her ears—faintly melancholic, slightly sad, just like youth itself. She closed her eyes and performed silently. There were no black and white keys before her, but there was a clear, ringing piano sound in her heart.

Aunt Xu was wrong. In the days to come, she never once regretted her obsession with music.

Living it all over again, she was finally certain that her feeling for music wasn’t just “liking”—it was passion. And that passion was enough to withstand the long passage of time.

At exactly five o’clock, Yu Xinyue woke up naturally. Thanks to the hard work of her later years, she had developed an excellent internal clock.

She turned on the desk lamp and flipped through her books. Junior high knowledge was incredibly simple; she only needed to go over the points that required memorization once. After a quick scan, she had a general idea of things. She packed her bags and then turned on the computer in the small study.

The blue screen lit up the dark room. Yu Xinyue tapped on the keyboard. After a flurry of clicking, the screen filled with dense rows of code. Dazzling numbers and letters jumped rapidly.

In her previous life, during a period when she was unable to touch a piano, she had learned a bit of everything to vent her frustration—including computer science. She was naturally perceptive and quickly mastered Python and C. It wasn’t long before most security systems looked like wet paper to her. Many companies’ backend servers were like her own backyard, where she could come and go as she pleased. And no one ever noticed.

She didn’t deign to use this for profit; she viewed it purely as a challenge. Like her own backyard, she would take a stroll and leave, never attacking anyone’s system. Later, she found it boring and moved on to other interests, leaving the skill dormant.

As for now, in the year 2000, cybersecurity awareness hadn’t even been popularized yet. Most corporate systems only had a single password. To call them “made of paper” would be an insult to paper.

In a moment, the logo for Xingjue appeared on the screen.

Yu Xinyue propped her chin in her hand and flipped through the company’s accounts. Hundreds of pages of records were impossible to finish in a short time. Regardless, she had plenty of time ahead. She remembered that in her previous life, Xingjue had been exposed for tax evasion and fraudulent accounting. If she could find the evidence and report it early, perhaps Qin Qing wouldn’t have to marry that scumbag.

However, setting aside the fact that these books were cleverly cooked, even if she found evidence, tax evasion alone wouldn’t be enough to completely topple Xingjue. They would just pay the back taxes and fines, or at worst, find a scapegoat to take the fall. Given Xingjue’s foundations and connections, that would be easy to pull off.

Xinyue copied the files. She would keep a close eye on Xingjue.

Before the progress bar on the computer finished loading, the door behind her was pushed open with a clatter. The room was pitch black, and the girl was curled up in the computer chair, looking small.

Aunt Xu saw her and jumped in fright. “Why didn’t you turn on the light?”

Yu Xinyue knit her brows in irritation. She remembered locking the door last night; Aunt Xu must have used a spare key to walk straight in. This was how it always was—these people felt they could enter her room whenever they pleased.

“Next time you enter my room, please knock.”

Aunt Xu rubbed her hands together. “It was so early, I was afraid I’d wake you.”

The girl had never made such a request before. Hearing it suddenly, Aunt Xu felt a bit displeased. We aren’t outsiders you need to guard against, so why do I need to knock to enter the room? But since the request was perfectly reasonable, she couldn’t say much.

Yu Xinyue said, “I wake up at five. You don’t need to come in to wake me up anymore.”

Aunt Xu nodded repeatedly. “Fine, fine. I wanted to help you pack your books, I was afraid you’d forget them later.”

Xinyue smiled. “I can handle that myself. You should rest more and not overwork yourself.”

Aunt Xu replied, “You child, why are you being so formal? I’ll go make breakfast then. We’re having noodles today.”

“Auntie,” Yu Xinyue called out suddenly.

“Yes?”

Yu Xinyue said with a smile, “I like my poached eggs with a runny yolk, thank you.”

Aunt Xu paused. This was the second time the girl had voiced her own preferences.

“Hm?” Aunt Xu snapped out of it. “Alright, alright.”

Yu Xinyue smiled faintly. In her past life, she had lowered herself so much to please the Yins that no one even remembered her birthday or respected her wishes. Looking back at those twenty years, she realized the person she should have least disappointed was herself.

So what if no one loved her? She loved herself.

As for how others viewed her, she only needed to remember the golden rule: None of my business, and none of yours.