Back to the Past: The Rise of the False Heiress Marrying the True Tycoon
Chapter 1188: Lin Miao's Acting Weird

Chapter 1188: Lin Miao’s Acting Weird

After the three men left, An Yun remained seated, her expression clouded with unease.

A tight knot had begun to form in her chest. Even Gu Zi had said this wasn’t an easy situation to resolve—what chance did they really have? Could it be that the small shop her daughter and daughter-in-law had painstakingly built from the ground up was about to collapse under a single blow?

“Gu Zi,” she said, her voice trembling slightly, “this is all our fault. We were careless. We never should’ve sold that cup of white fungus soup to the Gu family.”

Gu Zi gently reached out and clasped her mother’s hand, her gaze steady. “You can’t blame yourselves for this, Mom. I have a feeling that if one of our own had drunk that soup, there would have been no problem at all. But of all people, it had to be someone from the Gu family—and suddenly there’s vomiting and diarrhea? No, this seems like something else entirely. I think the Gu family was after compensation from the very beginning. And I’m almost certain Lin Miao had a hand in this. Do you really think Gu Shan and Zhang Mei could’ve come up with something this precise and calculated on their own? Not only did they leave behind no evidence, but their story was neat, convenient, and just plausible enough.”

An Yun’s eyes widened in disbelief. “You mean to say this entire thing… was a setup from the beginning? That the Gu family laid a trap for us?”

Gu Zi nodded slowly. “That’s what I suspect. It’s still just a theory, but I’m convinced I’m not wrong. Mom, think carefully—has Lin Miao been around lately? Did she show up near the shop in the past few days?”

An Yun’s eyes lit up as memory stirred. “Yes! Now that you mention it, the day before everything happened, Lin Miao returned to the countryside. It was your Aunt Yang who told me—she said she’d spotted Lin Miao in town, but she didn’t come into the shop. Just passed by on the street.”

She paused, then added with a tinge of guilt, “And there’s something else… That day your brother had his accident—it all happened so suddenly. Your sister-in-law and I had just arrived at the hospital, and we were still reeling from the news. The medical bills were going to be huge, and your sister-in-law was furious with herself for investing all our profits into the third shop expansion. She said she had no money to cover the expenses. And then, out of nowhere, Lin Miao showed up with a thousand yuan in cash, saying she wanted to help cover the hospital fees.”

An Yun looked down, shame written across her face. “I was desperate. You were far away, pregnant, and we didn’t want to worry you. I almost took the money—just for the moment, you know? I thought we could pay her back later. But your sister-in-law flat-out refused. She wouldn’t take a cent from Lin Miao.”

The memory clearly weighed heavily on An Yun. Even now, it haunted her—the thought that in her desperation, she had nearly reopened the door to Lin Miao.

At the time, she knew she shouldn’t get involved with Lin Miao again, but she had been so close to caving. Looking back now, thank goodness Li Hua had been firm. If the Gu couple ever found out that their biological daughter had tried to help her adoptive parents with money, who knew what sort of storm they’d stir up?

Gu Zi narrowed her eyes, something clicking into place. “Wait—you said Lin Miao showed up at the hospital almost immediately? Did you tell her my brother was in an accident?”

An Yun blinked. “No. None of us did. Not even Jin Long knew until much later.”

That was it. That was the missing piece.

Lin Miao’s behavior had always been strange, but this was different. The last time it happened was during that mysterious case in Jiangjia Village. Somehow, Lin Miao had known all the details about the case before the police even made any real progress.

She’d arrived on the scene claiming she could help crack it wide open. And somehow, she had known exactly who the murderer was. She’d marched the police straight to the suspect’s home, and lo and behold—the evidence had all been there.

People had brushed it off, saying she was desperate to make a name for herself. But Gu Zi had never bought that. There was no way Lin Miao had pieced that puzzle together through any normal means. If she hadn’t investigated it herself… then there was only one other possibility:

She already knew what was going to happen.

And now, she was investing in businesses in the capital? Getting ahead of the curve like she had a crystal ball? Even during Lin Cheng’s car accident, she had shown up at the hospital with funds ready before the Lin family themselves could even react. How was that even possible?

No, this wasn’t a coincidence. None of it was.

Gu Zi’s scalp prickled with an eerie chill. An impossible theory had begun to form in her mind—one that made her heart beat faster with every second. What if Lin Miao wasn’t the Lin Miao they had known? What if, like herself… Lin Miao had somehow changed?

Was it possible Lin Miao also knew the future?

The thought was absurd, terrifying—and oddly logical.

After all, Gu Zi herself had come into this world through a book. If something so bizarre could happen to her, why couldn’t it happen to someone else?

Another memory surfaced—one she hadn’t paid attention to before. When Lin Miao had first come to the Gu family to “reunite” with her biological parents, she had walked in as though she knew Gu Zi didn’t belong to the Lin family.

But how? She’d grown up in the countryside, isolated from the world. How had she discovered her real parents were part of the powerful Gu clan living in the city’s elite courtyard estates?

An Yun, watching her daughter, had initially been confused by the barrage of questions. But as she replayed those moments in her mind, she too began to realize something was very wrong.

The accident had happened so suddenly. No one from the family—or the hospital—had called anyone outside the immediate circle.

So how had Lin Miao known?

She looked at Gu Zi with a troubled expression and said quietly, “We didn’t tell anyone, Gu Zi. Not even Jin Long. Lin Miao just… showed up.”