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"If you won’t agree, then why did you ask me to come back? Lin Yuan, don’t push your luck! I’m telling you, even if I take this to the Yamen, I won’t let you get away with it! Hmph!"

Lin Yuan sighed. Why couldn’t Meng Chunyan let her finish speaking before leaving?

"Miss Meng, listen to me finish my words before you go, can you?"

Meng Chunyan bit her lip, "Speak."

Lin Yuan pointed at the luxurious yet understated carriage, then pointed at the one Xia Zheng had given her, and said, "Miss Meng, the carriage that bumped into you is not mine at all. That one with the bells hanging on it, that’s my carriage.

So, if you want compensation, you’ve found the wrong person.

It shouldn’t be me you’re looking for, but the owner of that carriage. "

Meng Chunyan was taken aback and stared blankly, her gaze sweeping back and forth between the two carriages.

The one with the bells was indeed Lin Yuan’s, because she had personally seen her ride in it.

But, shouldn’t this carriage also belong to her?

Wasn’t the woman who claimed to be Xiao Linshuang’s maid sitting inside?

Since she was her maid, then wasn’t it obvious that the carriage has to belong to her as well?

"Lin Yuan, don’t try to fool me! I saw with my own eyes your maid in this carriage!"

Lin Yuan spread her hands and said to Meng Chunyan and the owners of several nearby shops, "I, Lin Yuan, am just a country girl. How could I afford to have maids? All the shop owners here can vouch for me."

The shop owners nodded in agreement, and Mo Sanniang even said with a smile, "Miss Meng, did you hit your own head when the carriage collided, and turned fool? Have you mistaken the person?"

At this point, Meng Chunyan was no longer in the mood to care about Mo Sanniang’s rudeness. She knocked on her head vehemently. Indeed, she had hit her head earlier. Could she have actually mistaken the person?

"No, I need to take a look in your shop!"

Lin Yuan spread her hands, "Miss Meng, it’s not that I won’t let you look, but, the coachman in question is right here. Why not ask him instead?"

Right, ask the coachman.

Everyone’s gaze focused on the coachman driving for Princess Anle. He was someone who had seen the world and wouldn’t have been nervous to the point of being speechless if someone else looked at him this way.

The coachman glanced coldly at Meng Chunyan, ignoring her, and pointed at her coachman, saying, "He ran into me first, I certainly didn’t bump into him."

With a simple sentence, all the blame was shifted back onto Meng Chunyan.

Her coachman, upon hearing this, immediately turned red and hung his head in silence. To everyone else, this seemed like an admission of what the other coachman had said.

Meng Chunyan was still stubborn, "No! We were just trying to drive through!"

The other coachman stopped talking and turned his head away to continue staring vacantly, as if the events around him had nothing to do with him at all.

Lin Yuan quietly admired the coachman’s composure and breadth of mind. No wonder he came from the General Mansion—he was exceptional indeed.

As for Meng Chunyan’s coachman, he had already turned pale with guilt, breaking out in a cold sweat. Because the other coachman was right—indeed it was they who had bumped into the other first.

Lin Yuan smiled and said, "Miss Meng, people are saying that it was your carriage that hit theirs first. It’s just that your carriage is not as sturdy as theirs, so it ended up damaged."

Meng Chunyan would not admit that her carriage was not sturdy, stubbornly huffing, "What do you mean not sturdy? This is a new carriage I bought from Yecheng, how could it not be sturdy?"

Meng Chunyan didn’t understand, but her coachmen saw all too clearly. This carriage was indeed not sturdy—it was obviously an old one that had been refurbished.

Suddenly, one of the coachmen casually remarked, "One is a refurbished carriage that’s been used for five years, and the other is made of sandalwood and is only one year old. Which one do you think is sturdy?"

This time, without the need for Meng Chunyan to speak, onlookers began to burst into laughter, "Of course, the sandalwood one is sturdier. Even after five years, that sandalwood carriage would still be stronger than her five-year-old one!"

Meng Chunyan’s face turned pale, "What do you mean a five-year-old carriage that’s been refurbished? Mine is new, it is new! It was my elder brother who bought it for me from Yecheng for fifty taels of silver!"

Meng Chunyan was about to argue further when suddenly, there was a loud clank. The wheel that had been so difficult for the coachmen to put back on fell off again.

The falling of the wheel wasn’t the main issue, it was that the carriage leaned to one side, and the carriage cabin tilted along with it.

The items inside the cabin tumbled out, some of them rolling to Lin Yuan’s feet.

The old carriage cabin, which had been refurbished with new paint, couldn’t withstand this second collision and cracked open, revealing the somewhat rotten old wood inside.

Meng Chunyan saw for herself the true state of her carriage without anyone else pointing it out.

At that moment, she had lost all face.

The spectators all laughed, and a few who had followed from the main street raised their voices, "I told you just now, it was this useless carriage that hit the other person first, and now it’s even trying to bite back, how shameless."

The Meng family merely sold liquor and could not match the wealth of Fuman Building or Jin Mansion, nor the power of Li Chang. Naturally, no one would be intimidated by her now, and as Meng Chunyan was already in such a miserable and embarrassing state, they spoke even more insolently.

Now that the truth had come out, even her own coachmen and maid felt guilty, their faces red as they tried to sneak away. But Meng Chunyan, unmoving, clung shamelessly to her position.

However, Lin Yuan wasn’t watching her; her eyes were fixed on the food box that had rolled to her feet.

A red paper stuck to the food box bore the words "Century-old Cake Shop.

" Although she had never bought pastries from the Century-Old Cake Shop, she was very familiar with the packaging; many people on the streets carried such boxes when her Rice Flower Fragrance was falsely accused.

A thought crossed her mind. If Meng Chunyan was delivering herself into the trap, she wouldn’t hold back.

Her small hand squeezed the medicine pouch concealed in her sleeve, and the powder of Five Stones Powder gathered in her palm.

"Miss Meng, you are behaving rather strangely today," Lin Yuan said, looking at her with some confusion.

"What’s strange? I’m fine!" Meng Chunyan snorted, wishing she could kick this despicable girl away.

Lin Yuan shook her head and turned to Meng’s maid, "Isn’t your miss acting a bit odd today? Usually, she’s so attentive to her image, yet today she appears here in such a manner. Isn’t that a bit strange?"

Lin Yuan’s words seemed to partly excuse Meng Chunyan’s behavior.

Meng might be foolish, but that didn’t mean the people around her were.

The maid hurriedly nodded, "Yes, yes, the young lady is right. My miss is never like this on normal days. She’s exceptionally gentle and treats people kindly.

She has never been as pressing and agitated as today. "