One woman on the staircase with her eyes looking down at the other woman who stood on the ground with her eyes directed upwards.

This simple difference in their elevation was already making Mandy feel as though she was below Lina without any effort put in by the other woman.

'Why does she get to look down at me all the time!?' She groaned in her heart as she continued to stare at this annoying cousin of hers.

Lina shook her head while holding the banister to support her body's weight as she glanced down at Mandy.

"The fact that I have said that he can stay upstairs gives him the right to do so." She declared with a confident and stern tone of voice.

These words stunned the mother and daughter pair who had never seen Lina's complacent face until now.

This was because the true daughter of the Yang family was trying to stay on friendly terms with them but that seemed impossible now so she had stopped trying altogether.

Now that she was relieved of this burden, she did not wish to act in a manner which would please them and hence had dropped all friendly notions from their conversation today.

"Let me remind you two once again that this house belongs to the Yangs and neither of your names has the word Yang in it." She announced with a loud voice.

This seemed to hit Lucille and Mandy as a loud slap to their faces as even after many attempts to bring this topic up before Patrick, he refused to let Mandy into their family register.

Without this simple document, she would never be called a true Yang and this was exactly what Lina had pointed out in such a straightforward manner.

Having seen their glaring eyes and their clenched jaws, Lina smiled at them and then went her merry way up the stairs.

'I could not speak up in the afternoon to retaliate against Maxene as many people were there but here… Here I can be carefree with my speech.' She scoffed as she walked upwards.

Benji followed her in silence while holding his laptop and Stephen's notebook which they had carried over to Yang Manor.

While he was stepping behind Lina, Benji felt eyes on his back which made him turn around to take a look at who it was.

'Strange…' He pondered as he stood still for a few seconds.

The gaze on his back had disappeared when he had turned around and he could not find the source of the eyes which he was certain had been on his back.

As he could not figure out the mystery behind this, he decided to check the CCTV footage, later on, to get to the bottom of this matter.

Thus, he once again followed after Lina who had already gone up the stairs.

Mandy watched as the figure disappeared from her sight after he turned the corner around the top of the stairs.

The Ping couple soon left the mother and daughter to their own devices and entered their room to finish the tasks that their Young Miss had assigned them.

Within a few moments, servants were sent to prepare and arrange the guest room on the second floor for Benji's short stay.

Later, Butler Ping called his master to inform him about the arrival of their young miss and her assistant and also about her request for him to come back home.

Patrick had already been worried that these two women might mess with her once again and hence he rushed back home after he had received the information from the butler.

Back in the Main Hall, Mandy bit her lip as she glared at her mother with grievances evident in her eyes.

"Why do we have to take this nonsense from her? Every time she is mad or in a foul mood, she takes it out on us and we have to bear it all in silence?" She interrogated Lucille who remained calm as always.

All Lucille wished for was to keep that secret about her daughter's origin away from her.

As long as she was succeeding in doing that, she had no qualms about how Lina treated her indoors as she could not do the same in front of outsiders.

"Do you wish to sleep on the streets? Sure, go rebel against your father and that Lina and spend your nights on the streets where you will either be murdered or die in the cold." She sneered at her daughter who just could not stay silent at times.

The mother was working in her own way to stabilize her position in the family and all she needed was for her daughter to stay silent on the sidelines.

Sadly, this simple task was impossible for Mandy to do and this was causing an ache in the head for Lucille.

Hearing the cruel words from her mother, Mandy stomped her feet as she knelt down before her.

The younger woman held onto her mother's hands in her palms and looked into her eyes in all sincerity as though she was pleading for something from her.

Lucille had never seen Mandy behave this way even when they used to live alone and this made her concerned about the only child she ever had.

"Mum, all I want is for us to get our rightful place in this family. Me as the heiress of the Yang family and you as the matriarch." She expressed her true desires to the only one she trusted in this house.

'I also trust Richy since he is the only one who can understand how I truly feel.' She smiled as she thought of her trustworthy servant.

Lucille however, had mistaken that smile for the servant as one which was meant for her and stroked her child's head lovingly.

"My baby always thinks of me. How can mum not think of you and your future?" She spoke in an indulging voice when she heard what Mandy had just said.

Everything she had done was to stand beside Patrick Yang as his rightful wife and to secure her daughter's future.

'I cannot trust that man who had a hand in your birth to give you the love of a father and a family to live in but I can make you a phoenix in this house.' She declared in her heart as she helped her sit upon the couch once again.

"So why do we have to live under Lina's tyranny all the time, mum?" She grumbled as she rested her head on Lucille's shoulder.

"All in good time, baby. All in good time." She answered vaguely as she kept her gaze fixed on the entrance of the Main Hall.

'Just because Richy failed once did not mean that he will fail the second time.' She sneered in her heart at the pawn she could exploit at any time.

Mandy noticed her mother's eyes and was sure that she was awaiting her father to return as Lina had also come back home after many days.

'Even if we failed today… I trust Miss Zheng will not fail in her endeavors.' She believed in the power of the Queen of the socialites and closed her eyes.

As her eyes were shut, the vicious glint that had passed through them when she imagined the doom of her cousin was also concealed.