Chapter 75 Shocking Revelation of My Own Background
Lin Xili arrived at the forensic department office, her face still flushed.
"Hey, Xili, you look great today, all radiant." Brother Li said with a smile as soon as he saw her.
Brother Wang chimed in, "Yeah, yeah, it really makes a difference to be officially hired! People are so happy about this, shouldn't we treat everyone to a celebratory meal?"
Brother Li immediately chimed in, "Yes, yes, yes! Once the written test results are out and we pass the interview, we'll have to call him Dr. Lin. We absolutely have to treat him to a meal!"
Lin Xili chuckled awkwardly, "Stop teasing me. You're all postdoctoral fellows, and I'm just getting started."
She knew her colleagues were congratulating her on her promotion, but she was overthinking things, thinking about how things had actually progressed naturally between her and Huo Nanchen the night before.
"How about tonight? My treat!"
"Then it's settled!"
After get off work, Lin Xili treated several other colleagues from her department to a meal at the same medicinal cuisine restaurant they had visited before.
Lin Xili booked a large private room.
During the meal, everyone chatted about the case and their lives, creating a harmonious atmosphere.
As the host, Lin Xili was in a good mood, taking good care of everyone.
Midway through, she got up to go to the restroom. As she walked through the antique-style corridor, her gaze inadvertently drifted to the other end of the corridor.
That one glance froze her in place.
At the end of the corridor, the door to a larger private room was ajar, and several people walked out.
It was Huo Nanyu, holding the hand of a pair of adorable twins, each about five years old.
What took her breath away was the kind-looking old lady, Grandma Huo, who was being carefully supported by Lu Qingshu.
grandmother?
Didn't they just talk on the phone a couple of nights ago?
How did she end up here?
Shouldn't she be in the small town of Lixiang, thousands of miles away?
How come she was having dinner with Huo Nanyu and Lu Qingshu?
Judging from their familiar and natural attitude towards each other, they are clearly family members with an extremely close relationship.
Huo Nanyu, Huo Nanchen...
Could they really be brothers?
Could it be that Huo Nanchen wasn't some orphan thyroid doctor from a small rural town at all?
He is a descendant of the Huo family, a powerful and influential family with a thousand-year history in Xiangjiang City.
Is he Huo Nanyu's younger brother?
What exactly happened?
The sheer volume of information and the shock of being kept in the dark caused Lin Xili to turn pale and her hands and feet to go cold instantly.
She rushed into the bathroom, stood in front of the sink, and looked at herself in the mirror with a shocked and bewildered expression, as if the whole world had been turned upside down in front of her.
Lin Xili forced herself to calm down quickly and took a few deep breaths.
She composed herself and quickly retraced her steps back to her private room.
Pushing open the door to the private room, the sounds of laughter and conversation continued inside.
When Brother Wang saw her return, he greeted her with a smile, "Xili, come here quickly, this soup is really good!"
Lin Xili forced a natural smile, sat down in response, and rejoined the lively atmosphere.
For the rest of the meal, she ate without tasting anything.
It turns out that beneath her perceived understanding and sense of security lay such a profound and unfathomable secret.
After the dinner, Lin Xi left her car and returned to the dormitory parking lot without going upstairs.
A person walks slowly back and forth along the street at night.
The early summer night breeze was slightly cool, but when it blew on her, she felt no coolness at all, only a chill that seemed to seep from the bottom of her heart.
The scene I witnessed at the medicinal cuisine restaurant kept replaying in my mind.
He came from the prestigious, thousand-year-old Huo family.
No wonder Huo Nanyu and Lu Qingshu, two big shots who rarely appear in such occasions, personally attended Lin Xuenuo and Xu Yanchi's wedding.
Looking back now, it turns out it was all for Huo Nanchen.
A sense of exclusion and distrust gripped her heart like vines, making it hard for her to breathe.
Once a person falls in love, they will want more.
She wanted to know Huo Nanchen's past and wanted him to have no secrets or deceptions from her.
Why did Huo Nanchen hide his background?
She returned to her dormitory at the Bureau of Justice with a heavy heart. When she opened the door, Huo Nanchen was sitting on the sofa in the living room, seemingly waiting for her.
Hearing the door open, he looked up and his gaze fell on her face, keenly noticing her unusually low voice.
"Back from the dinner party?" He put down the book he was holding.
Lin Xili nodded, changed her shoes, and instead of sitting down as usual, she headed straight for the bedroom. "Hmm, I'm a little tired, I'm going to rest first."
Her avoidance and unusual silence caused Huo Nanchen to frown slightly.
He didn't immediately press her for details, but simply watched her retreating figure as she walked into the bedroom, his eyes deep and thoughtful.
That night, the two lay side by side in bed.
In the darkness, Lin Xili stood with her back to him, her body stiff, wide awake.
Finally, he spoke up, "Did you see Grandma at the dinner party?"
Grandma went back to Hong Kong and called to invite him out for dinner, but he declined because he had a seminar to attend today. Lin Xili was having dinner with his colleagues tonight at the same restaurant.
Lin Xili's body trembled involuntarily.
She didn't turn around; she remained with her back to him.
“Huo Nanchen, I know that we had clear boundaries from the beginning of this marriage. At first, I never thought that I could get love from this marriage.”
Her voice choked up, "I'm selfish, I can't help but fall in love with you."
"I don't just want your kindness to me, I also want your love."
"But when I met Grandma today, I realized that I knew nothing about your past."
She turned around and looked in his direction in the darkness, though she couldn't see his expression. "You come from the Huo family, the Huo family with a thousand-year history. Director Lu is your sister-in-law. Why did you hide these things from me?"
Huo Nanchen listened quietly to her outpouring of complaints and questions in the darkness, without interrupting.
He didn't deny it until she finished speaking. "That's right."
He confessed with a calmness as if a heavy burden had been lifted, yet it also carried a deep-seated pain.
“In the past, my identity was indeed that of a descendant of the Huo family, a family with a thousand-year history. Lu Qingshu was my brother and sister-in-law.”
He emphasized, "However, I have never asked her to give you any special treatment or convenience at work. Your promotion and your achievements are all the result of your own hard work and have nothing to do with the Huo family."
"Ning Yu, you still remember, right?"
“I told you at the time that it was just a marriage arranged by our parents, but actually our two families are old friends.”
Five years ago, she had someone she liked and came to me wanting to break off our engagement, but I didn't agree.
"She became emotional, and as a result..."
His voice lowered, "She jumped from the third-floor coffee shop, covered in blood. She survived, but she never smiled again. I'm the one who ruined her life."
"Later, the engagement was called off."
"But my father soon arranged for me to choose from a new young lady from a prominent family for marriage."
"At that time, I was actually numb. Young men from wealthy families never had any say in their marriages. Maybe they could just accept any marriage and live their lives like that."
"But I think of my mother, I think of Ning Yu. I have harmed my mother and I have also harmed Ning Yu."
His voice trembled slightly, “My mother and father didn’t like each other back then, but she still gave birth to my brother and me as if she were completing a task, and abided by the strict rules of the Huo family.”
“When I was seven years old, I met a freelance artist on the street. I really liked his work and asked my family to invite him back to teach me to paint.”
"Perhaps because of him, my mother's free spirit was released again, and the two of them fell in love."
Lin Xili held her breath.
"At that time, I discovered that my mother's smile had become just like in the photos and videos of her when she was young, bright and sunny."
"She wanted a divorce, but the Huo family rules state that there is no divorce, only widowhood."
"Under the pressure and coercion of the two powerful families, that artist went abroad, but no one knows exactly where he went."
"Not long after, my mother committed suicide. Her suicide note contained only one sentence: 'I can finally find my own love.'"
“Sometimes I wonder if my mother would still be alive now if I hadn’t insisted on bringing that artist back.”
A profound sense of sadness and oppression permeated the dark bedroom like a tidal wave.
Lin Xili's heart was gripped tightly. It turned out that what her grandmother said, "There is no divorce, only widowhood," was true, but what kind of bloody tragedy lay behind it?
“Five years later, because I refused to break off the engagement, Ning Yu jumped off a building to fight against the marriage. I watched her fall into a pool of blood.”
"I think if I had given up my Huo family identity and broken off the engagement earlier, she wouldn't have resorted to such an extreme method."
Huo Nanchen's voice trembled with lingering fear, "I'm afraid the tragedy will repeat itself, and I can no longer accept a marriage arranged by my family."
"The price of not accepting is to give up one's identity with the Huo family, to give up all inheritance rights, power, status and reputation of the Huo family, to leave with nothing, and to completely break away from the family."
"This also includes the fact that Ning Yu later married the person she loved, and she also had to bear these responsibilities. Neither the Huo family nor the Ning family would provide her with any protection anymore."
"According to the Huo family rules, once you give up your identity, you will be removed from the family tree and will never be able to enter the Huo family ancestral graves and ancestral hall, or enjoy anything that the Huo family brings. So I didn't bring it up again because I think it's actually quite good to lose this identity."
Lin Xili was completely shocked.
She had always believed that only so-called wealthy families like the Lin family, to which she belonged, would use their children's marriages as a tool to bind their interests.
Unexpectedly, even a top-tier, thousand-year-old family like the Huo family needs such rules and constraints, which are so strict they are almost cannibalistic.
A thought suddenly popped into her mind, and she blurted it out.
"So, the first time I said I could cooperate in fulfilling marital obligations, you refused."
"The second time you said it would be good if things naturally progressed, you not only knew that I didn't love you at the time, but you were also prepared for it."
"If I meet someone I truly love in the future, or if I want a divorce, will you choose to divorce me and set me free?"
Huo Nanchen replied frankly, "Yes, I often tell you that personal value should take precedence over marriage, and marriage should not be a constraint or a cage."
“You are a very capable and outstanding person. I don’t want you to lose the freedom and courage to pursue your self-worth for any reason, including a marriage.”
It turns out that he, like her, had fled his family to heal his wounds in the small town of Lixiang. If she needed freedom, he would let her go.
Despite being covered in wounds himself, he still opened his arms to her and offered her warmth.
Lin Xili lay in the darkness, tears silently sliding down her cheeks and soaking her pillow.
She turned around and hugged his trembling body tightly in the darkness.
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