Ye Nan, cornered, was speechless, his handsome face darkening.
Sensing the atmosphere turning sour, Lin Shen's eyes flickered. He quickly stepped forward to smooth things over, taking responsibility, and asked Tang Sui not to blame his daughter.
Tang Sui felt like an outsider, watching them perform a ridiculous play before her. Under the guidance of those with ulterior motives, they all stood against her, accusing her.
She knew that anything she said would be wrong, and that she was powerless to resist or change what was about to happen.
Finally, Tang Sui concluded with, "Then wait until Father acknowledges this hat before coming to find me," and the meeting ended on a sour note.
Madame Tang, with a grim expression, watched her disobedient daughter turn and return to the second floor the way she came. In front of Lin Shen's family, she began to enumerate Tang Sui's misdeeds.
As Madame Tang's devoted "little padded jacket," Lin An Nian naturally went from being dissatisfied with Tang Sui to defending her.
However, Lin An Nian's persuasion only fanned the flames of Madame Tang's anger.
Finally, Lin An Nian, looking helpless, awkwardly changed the subject.
"By the way, Mother, why does my sister call you 'Mother' so formally?"
She asked as if she didn't understand.
Madame Tang's expression faltered for a moment. When her daughter had first learned to say "Mama," she had disliked it and told the nanny not to teach her those words, preferring the term "Mother."
Over the years, even when Tang Sui, as she grew up, occasionally said "Mama," Madame Tang would correct her. In time, the mother-daughter pair's form of address remained distant.
"Don't mind it. Call me what you like. The Tang family is rather old-fashioned; that's how we've always taught our children," she said vaguely.
"So, does the title 'Mama' belong only to me? Can I always call you 'Mama'?" Lin An Nian's eyes lit up as she asked tentatively.
Madame Tang paused for a moment, then nodded. "Of course, you are my daughter too."
"Is that so? That's wonderful!" Lin An Nian's face broke into a happy smile. Madame Tang felt a pang of awkwardness but was won over by her daughter's joyful expression and tacitly agreed.
Back in her room, Tang Sui locked the door and collapsed onto the soft bed. Closing her eyes, a drop of hot water slid from the corner of her eye, dampening the pillowcase.
With her full empathy, her heart was filled with grievance and sadness, but she had no outlet for it.
Another, more rational part of her watched coldly as she cried her heart out internally, calmly telling the empathetic her that the nightmare had only just begun.
...
The rational self was right.
After the Lin family left, the Tang family head returned and, upon learning of the events, had a huge argument with Madame Tang. However, two days later, the couple, who had seemed like sworn enemies just moments before, reached some mutually beneficial agreement. On the third day, the Tang family head brought a little boy around seven or eight years old to the Tang residence, asking Madame Tang to come down and meet him, calling him brother, stating he was their adopted son.
Tang Sui watched the scene of filial piety and familial harmony with silence. Her heart felt as if it had been encased in a layer of frost, freezing the blood that flowed within. A bone-chilling cold seeped into her limbs, eroding her soul.
She gradually became estranged from this family.
In the eyes of the Tang family head and Madame Tang, their children were someone else. She was merely a puppet pushed forward to fulfill the lineage and "friendly relations" between two families.
The daily "harmonious gatherings" were like icy arrows, piercing her and pushing her into a dark abyss, making her an anomaly in this family walking hand-in-hand in the sunlight.
The Tang family head said, "Be magnanimous, don't mind your brother's presence so much. Although he's a boy, you are the heir with the pure bloodline of the Tang and Bai families. Your brother won't compete with you in the future; he might even rely on you for support."
Madame Tang said, "Your sister just wants more love from me, her mother. She won't be the heir to the Bai family and won't have such abundant material resources. You already have so much. Be sensible, don't compete with your sister. If you were as worry-free as she is, I could be less angry and love you a bit more."
The Tang patriarch, who had the most say, was also persuaded by the Tang family head. He stepped in to advise Tang Sui not to be so petty, assuring her that they wouldn't fight over anything and that what was hers would remain hers.
Alone and without support, Tang Sui listened silently to her maternal grandfather's words. She thought of the restless gazes of her half-siblings. Under her grandfather's helpless and slightly reproachful eyes, she swallowed her words.
She wanted to tell her grandfather that her two "cheap" siblings were not as well-behaved as her father and mother claimed.
Indeed, at a gathering hosted by another prominent family from the imperial capital, she and her "cheap" sister, Lin An Nian, now renamed Bai An Nian, were kidnapped by ruthless bandits after she excused herself temporarily.
They demanded a ransom of fifty million yuan but could only take one person.
In the dimly lit abandoned warehouse, rats covered in dirt scurried among fallen debris, making rustling sounds. Occasionally, they let out "squeaks" that sent a chill down one's spine, their eyes in the darkness seeming to emit an eerie red glow.
Bai An Nian, whose hands and feet were tightly bound with tape and secured to a wooden pillar with a thick, sturdy rope, let out small whimpers, her cries gradually growing louder.
"Creak—"
The dilapidated wooden door was roughly pushed open from the outside. The silhouette of a person standing against the light gradually deepened...
---
Author's notes:
Sui Sui's past is a very important foreshadowing, don't mind Mo Li being long-winded.
There's one more chapter coming, dropping after midnight.