Shen Nian'an said no more, wiped away her tears haphazardly with the back of her hand, turned around and quickly walked out of the study.
She returned to her room, sat down in front of the vanity mirror, and looked at her perfectly made-up self in the mirror. Her thoughts drifted uncontrollably back to six years ago.
Back then, she wasn't the spoiled and willful eldest daughter of the Shen family she is now.
She went from being a beloved young girl to a pitiful child who was unloved by her parents and had to live in constant fear.
After the aloof Madam Shen returned, she seemed to have a natural talent for making people dote on her.
She could always pinch the softest part of the flesh on the inside of her upper arm, twisting and writhing it until it hurt terribly.
But what frightened and saddened her even more than the physical pain was her mother's reaction.
Every time she was pinched until her eyes were filled with tears, she would go to her mother to complain, but her mother would always cover her mouth in a panic, her voice lowered:
"Nian'an, be good, don't cry. If everyone finds out, Daddy will misunderstand and think we are deliberately ruining Madam's reputation."
"You need to be more sensible. It wasn't easy for Mom to be acknowledged by Dad and become Mrs. Shen in the eyes of outsiders. You can't ruin all of this."
"If Dad doesn't love us anymore, Mom won't love you either..."
"Nian'an, did you understand?"
The little girl was startled by those words.
She feared her father's displeasure, and even more so, she feared losing her mother's love.
So she learned to hold back her tears and never dared to complain in front of her classmates.
Later, her brother took her away.
She remembered nestled in her brother's arms, asking with a mix of grievance and confusion, "Brother, why does Auntie pinch people so badly? Why does Mom sometimes love me so much, but other times she just watches me get bullied and doesn't care?"
Her brother remained silent for a long time, and in his ever-smiling peach blossom eyes, a complex emotion she couldn't understand was revealed.
Instead of lying to her like her mother would, he chose to tell her the truth.
He said, "Nian'an, Mom loves us."
"But... Mom's love is because we are Dad's children."
"She loves her father, that's why she loves us."
"So when we put our father's likes and dislikes together, we become unimportant."
That night, her brother told her many things she didn't know before.
He said that his mother was also very outstanding. Forty years ago, in that old era, she was the most outstanding girl in the Shen family's affiliated clan, both intelligent and beautiful.
At that time, everyone thought that she would at least be one of her father's concubines. The two had grown up together, and her mother had long harbored feelings for her father.
But times changed, and her father insisted on marrying the first wife, promising that she would be his only wife.
My mother was heartbroken for a long time, but she didn't marry anyone else. Instead, she studied hard, got into the best university, and gradually became my father's capable secretary.
Later, when the clan wanted to offer her to her father, she did not hesitate and thus she became pregnant.
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