Chapter Fifteen: How Desolate Her Heart Once Was

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The next day was Friday. Once afternoon classes ended at half past four, the students were released for the weekend.

They would not return to school until Sunday afternoon.

Xiang Yu did not linger. She quickly packed her things and headed home.

She was still worried about her older sister. She could not let her sister marry into that merciless den of wolves.

She had to hurry home and find out what was going on.

Xiang Yu had no money, so she could only walk home. Ye Nuanxin, meanwhile, rode back in one of the village’s motorized tricycles.

On the road, their eyes met. It was a clash of blades, sparks flying everywhere.

This was not school. Neither of them made the slightest effort to conceal their hatred for the other.

For the time being, Xiang Yu had no intention of taking the initiative to retaliate against Ye Nuanxin. But she had never considered fearing her, yielding to her, or letting her off.

Ye Nuanxin had better not provoke her again. Otherwise, even with the high-school entrance examination just around the corner, Xiang Yu might not be able to suppress the monstrous hatred raging inside her.

The misery of her former life had certainly been partly due to her own blindness and foolishness—her craving for genuine affection and her vanity.

But she could not escape the schemes and exploitation of scum like Ye Nuanxin and Chen Ze: despicable, inhuman people who cared only for profit.

Bouncing along on the tricycle, Ye Nuanxin felt her chest grow tight and stifled. The look in Xiang Yu’s eyes seemed almost capable of flaying the skin from her body.

Why?!

What right did Xiang Yu have to look at her like that?

Was it because her father had never loved her and her mother had never cared for her, so that as a child she could only play with Ye Nuanxin’s discarded junk?

Was it because she was fit only to trail behind Ye Nuanxin?

Xiang Yu had even ruined her life so thoroughly.

If she wanted her graduation certificate, she had no choice but to expose her own shame before everyone. Once word got out, she would become notorious throughout the surrounding villages.

Her reputation would be utterly destroyed.

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Without an apology, she would receive no graduation certificate and have no chance of attending a good technical school or vocational secondary school. What would be ruined was her entire future.

Her eyes reddened with hatred, and her fingernails dug hard into her palms.

Very well, Xiang Yu. You dared to declare war on her? Then just wait.

She would help Li Qiang. She wanted Xiang Yu to fall into the mud at once. She wanted to see her suffer as soon as possible.

So what if she was beautiful? She was still only worthy of someone as disgusting as Li Qiang.

If anything, Xiang Yu was getting the better bargain.

The tricycle disappeared into the distance, and Xiang Yu slowed her steps.

Every time their eyes met like that, the hatred buried deep within her still erupted.

She still wanted to rush over, drag Ye Nuanxin down, and strangle her to death.

She wanted to grip her throat and demand, Why were you so cruel? Why did you drain me of my blood for more than twenty years, and in the end refuse to let me rest even in death?

Had she ever suffered nightmares in the middle of the night? Had she ever felt that she was hideous to the core? Had she ever possessed even the slightest scrap of conscience?!

Xiang Yu returned to the familiar village and followed the narrow path between the fields until she saw the few old red-brick bungalows that made up her home.

Her heart turned unbearably sour.

In her previous life, she too had despised this house. More than half the families in the village had built three- or four-story concrete homes, and one family had even built a villa straight out of a television drama.

She and her parents had all envied them.

Later, the family used her older sister’s savings from working away from home, together with her bride price, to build a new two-and-a-half-story concrete house. It had made quite a spectacle in the village.

Later still, they used the money Xiang Yu earned by becoming a dancing internet celebrity—selling her dignity and enduring endless humiliation—to build the finest five-story mansion in the village.

By then, her parents no longer needed to seek prestige. Wherever they went, excitement and commotion surrounded them. On the surface, they seemed to bask in boundless glory.

But as soon as they walked away, the people who had fawned over them most enthusiastically would change faces the fastest.

“It’s all thanks to that shameless daughter of theirs. Otherwise, with Xiang Fuqiang being such a coward, Li Meilan such a lazy woman, and that idiot son of theirs who can’t tell grain from grass and won’t lift a finger, the two of them would never be able to hold their heads up!”

“Xiang Yu is really shameless in those videos. Who knows whether she sells herself behind the scenes? Just from video tips, she has that much money? Who would believe that?”

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“She’s only good for looking at, not touching. Who in their right mind would shower her with thousands upon thousands of tips?”

Someone else burst out laughing. “Why don’t you ask Xiang Fuqiang how much his daughter charges, and see whether the coins in your pocket are enough?”

...

Ye Fen had told Xiang Yu all these vicious rumors, cursing those people furiously as she recounted them, as though she were fiercely defending her.

She had deceived Xiang Yu into believing that someone truly loved her. Gifts, large and small, were carried in endless piles to Ye Fen’s home. Clothes for every season were bought for her, and during every festival and holiday, her red envelopes never went missing.

Looking back on it all, Xiang Yu’s eyes grew red.

How barren and starved of love her heart had once been. Even poison wrapped in a thin layer of honey had seemed sweet enough to swallow gladly.

She was resentful—and remorseful.

Li Meilan emerged from behind the house and saw her second daughter standing motionless on the path between the fields below the house.

She immediately began to curse. “You good-for-nothing little brat, are you standing there pretending to be dead? There’s a mountain of work at home, and you’re hiding away to be lazy again.”

Xiang Yu looked at her coldly. She did not call her Mother.

She had been barren inside, starved of love and emotional care—and were not these biological parents the true culprits?

They had sucked both daughters dry to support themselves and their son.

They had constantly drilled the same ideas into their daughters: You must support the family. You must spare no effort to help your maternal brothers. You must make money. Make money, make money. Once you have money, you are the master of everything; once you have money, everything will be fine.

These warped beliefs had directly defined the inner sense of worth belonging to Xiang Yu and her sister. If they could not earn money to support the family, if they had no money, or if they failed to look after their brothers, they would feel restless and ill at ease, as though they were no longer themselves—as though their existence had no value or meaning.

Another person emerged from the little kitchen beside the house.

Xiang Yu forgot even to breathe. She stared at the other person with wide eyes.

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