Chapter 7

Song Yanyan's POV:

I could tell that sly snake Song Yangyao and her lackeys were up to something. Even as I passed them, I saw the scheming looks on their faces. Good, that's exactly what I wanted - to really get under her skin with my comebacks. I aimed to push her to the limit and then expose her true colors.

After school, I said to my driver, "Can you please take me into the city?" He frowned slightly, but what choice did he have? He was the servant; I was the master. No matter how much the staff resented me, thanks to Song Yangyao's poisonous influence. 

He drove straight into the city, and I instructed him, "I'll only be a few minutes, wait here." The man nodded as I exited the car, heading for the mall area. But the mall wasn't my real destination - it was merely a convenient cover, close to Wuhan Public Hospital. I couldn't use the private hospital; as major donors, the Song family would surely get wind of any inquiries I made there. For now, I couldn't trust anyone.

As soon as I was out of the driver's sight, I hurried my heavy body through a side exit facing the public hospital. After waiting about thirty minutes for my turn, an old, grey-haired doctor called me in. 

"How can I help you, miss?" he asked.

I cleared my throat, retrieving a bottle from my bag. "I'm not actually sick, but I need you to run some tests on this for me. I think someone may be poisoning me."

The doctor frowned. "You should take that to the police."

"I need proof first. Can you help me?" I pressed.

He paused, considering, then nodded. "Alright, but the tests will take two to three days - you know how public hospitals are."

"That's fine. Can you also draw some blood?"

"What exactly are we looking for here?"

I met his gaze steadily. "Prozac."

The doctor started, eyes widening. "What vile creature would want you to gain weight unknowingly?"

"I don't know, doc. But I was never this...big before. The weight gain was so sudden, I think something must be wrong."

He nodded grimly. "Okay, please fill out this form. The results will be sent to your email."

I quickly completed the paperwork, letting him draw vials of my blood. As soon as I was finished, I hurried back out to the mall area. Since my driver thought I was shopping, I needed to buy something to keep up appearances. I hit a plus-size clothing store, selecting a few outfits - but in smaller sizes, a reminder of my aim to lose this extra weight. No more of the loud, garish clothes my host favored.

Bags in hand, I returned to the waiting car. The driver's annoyance was clear as he whisked us home without a word. As expected, Song Yangyao and my mother Chen Xinyi were waiting in the living room.

"Where the hell have you been?" my mother demanded upon seeing me.

I lifted the shopping bags. "You can't tell?"

Song Yangyao sneered, "Why would you even go shopping? Do they make clothes to fit that fat body of yours?"

"Yes, and I'm gaining more weight, so I needed some new outfits."

My mother shook her head in disgust. "You're just a fat pig. Go do your homework."

"Okay," I replied evenly, heading upstairs to my room and locking the door behind me. I could hardly wait for the test results - to confirm my suspicions or not. But for now, I had school to focus on, with monthly exams fast approaching.

I spent a few hours hitting the books before my rumbling stomach signaled it was dinner time. Steeling myself, I headed downstairs to the dining room.

As expected, my lowlife uncle Song Hao and his pack of hyenas were already present - his trophy wife Zhao Yujie looking like a bedraggled buzzard, their stuck-up brat daughter Song Fangfang who could stop traffic with her horse face, and that arrogant prick son Song Dong whose head was shrinking to match his microscopic penis. Just my damn luck.

"Well, well, if it isn't Tubbylard Yan!" Song Dong brayed as soon as I appeared, his donkey laugh grating on my ears. "Finally waddled your way to the trough, did ya? Surprised you could smell the food through all that lard clogging your nostrils."

Song Fangfang cackled beside the doofus, her shrill voice stabbing into my brain. "Oink oink, Yanyan! Don't park that giant ass too close, or you'll break another chair with that beached whale body!" 

I barely stifled an eye-roll as Uncle Jackass piled on next in that nasally voice of his. "There's my not-so-little butterball niece! Damn, you just keep outgrowing those muumuus, don't you? They're gonna need a forklift to get you outta here by summer!"

Auntie Skank's exhausted face twisted into a smirk. "Now dear, be nice. The poor dear can't help her...circumstances." Her judgmental gaze raked over my face with disdain. "Both unfortunate appearances and traits do run in her peasant stock family."

I met her haughty sneer with a unbothered look. These pathetic attempts to rile me up were so stale and toothless, it was almost sad. Still, I couldn't resist knocking the hyena pack down a few pegs.

"Well aren't you all just a gaggle of inbred trash hobgoblins," I drawled, voice dripping with exaggerated boredom. "I'm amazed the stench of your cringe desperation doesn't overpower the meal and make everyone puke."

Song Yangyao, who'd been silently watching the shit show with an amused look, finally chimed in with a fake pout. "My, such foul language, Yanyan! One would think you were raised by illiterate swine."

I leveled her with a withering look. "Yeah, like you'd know the first thing about class or manners. I'd ask about basic human decency, but that's clearly a foreign concept to your soulless ass."

Her eyes narrowed into slits, readying some childish retort, but just then Mother swooped in looking stern.

"That is quite enough out of all of you!" she snapped, mustache twitching furiously. "We will have a pleasant family dinner as befits our status, or there will be severe consequences!"

An uneasy silence fell over the table as the servants hurriedly served plate after plate of gourmet dishes. I couldn't even muster enthusiasm for the mouthwatering aromas wafting up - my appetite was utterly ruined by the barrage of infantile insults and underhanded remarks.

Unfortunately, there was no avoiding this pack of malicious hyenas. They were shackled to me through blood and obscene wealth, no matter how repulsively low-rent their souls. I'd never be free of their toxicity until I broke the chains binding me to their foul existence.

As I picked sullenly at my food, my eyes drifted over each petty, miserable face surrounding me. Song Yangyao's perpetual sneer, Fangfang mindlessly shoveling food into her horse mouth, Song Dong's bloated face flushed from excess alcohol, Uncle and Auntie whispering furiously to each other with hateful glances in my direction.

These nattering bores all believed their wealth immunized them against consequences for their relentless cruelty. That smugness wouldn't last. One way or another, I'd make each simpering bastard pay for their transgressions against me tenfold. They were going to reap a Category 5 shitstorm of my making - and I wouldn't stop until their smugly secure lives were upended and left in ruins.

After taking their last cheap shots at me over dessert, the miserable crew finally departed for the evening. I immediately retreated to my room, slamming and locking the door against any further harassment. 

Alone at last, I could finally expel the turmoil of repressed rage in a primal scream, unleashing all the hurt and hatred that had been simmering throughout that torturous evening. Flopping back on my bed, I stared up at the ceiling and formed a vow:

No more casting pearls before these contemptible swine. From now on, they would be met by the fiercest, most indomitable version of my true self. If they insisted on treating me like a savage, then a savage is precisely what they would get.

I would make them dread every vicious insult, every sadistic taunt that spilled from their forked tongues. Their pathetic attempts to demean me would only embolden my petty fairy tale of vengeance into an all-consuming firestorm of justified retribution. 

They believed their family status shielded them? I would raze that delusional ivory tower of privilege to its rotten foundation. One by one, they would understand the consequences of their unchecked cruelty as I rained down an unrelenting tempest upon their worthless existences.