The speaker means no harm, but the listener takes it to heart.
An employee nearby, having heard Lin Yue's remarks, immediately thought of something. One of them whispered to another, who then hurried outside as if to relay a message to someone.
He Ximei had originally thought that Lin Yue had just come to look at the factory. It took her a while to realize that Lin Yue was insinuating something negative about Xiaofeng and the factory.
"It's Lin Yue, right?" He Ximei looked at her. She was young and spoke softly, but the words that came out of her mouth were hardly flattering.
Lin Yue just smiled slightly, without responding.
The woman was merely Xiaofeng's stepmother, whom Lin Yue could choose to acknowledge or ignore.