Chapter 24: All I Was Doing Was Helping Them, Not Myself!

The woman’s body stiffened slightly, and at once she heard again Lu Sinian’s cold, cutting voice: “Do you know what kind of life your son has led all these years?”

In an instant, the woman lifted her head, staring straight at him. “They treated you badly?!”

Her voice now carried a sharp, piercing edge.

Fu Sinian could tell at a glance that something was wrong. He also knew his guess was probably right.

He let out a cold laugh. “If there was no other heir, what do you think I was to them?”

Before the woman, he no longer bothered to feign gentleness, reverting instead to his natural indifference.

Her face paled even further, two large tears rolling down her cheeks. Lu Sinian grasped her wrist and led her to the sofa, his voice cool and detached: “Sit down first.”

With Lu Sinian there, it was impossible for her to leave now; besides, she no longer intended to. She sat obediently, saying nothing.

Lu Sinian gazed at her, and finally spoke, his tone slow and heavy: “Ten days before you left, the family told me you’d gone traveling with friends. I believed them.”

A shadow crossed her face; guilt welled up in her eyes, even deeper than before.

Tears slid down once more. Her lips parted, but no words would come.

Lu Sinian wasn’t finished. “Twenty days before you left, I asked why you hadn’t returned. They said you were feeling down, that you’d gone away to clear your mind. They said a friend of yours had died, and you didn’t want to talk to the family for a while. I didn’t believe that. I checked on all your friends—every single one of them was still alive.”

Again, she tried to speak, but the tears just kept coming, streaming down in heavy drops without end.

Lu Sinian looked at the woman before him and continued, “A month after you left, the family was still making excuses. But by then I couldn’t control my emotions. I questioned them, demanded to know why they were lying to me, asked where you’d gone. Grandmother saw there was no longer any way to hide it. She told me you were heartless, that you’d found another man, divorced my father, and abandoned us.”

The woman turned away in deep anguish, covering her mouth with one hand to stifle her sobs.

To have grievances too bitter to voice—perhaps this was what it looked like.

“I didn’t believe them, you know? Not a word. Even though I was young then, I knew you loved me. There’s no way you would have left me for no reason.”

She was on the verge of breaking down completely.

Lu Sinian’s gaze never left her. “So I kept searching for you. From the tenth day after you left, I started looking. I couldn’t get used to life without you. You always made me breakfast, but after you left, the family’s cook took over. Nothing ever tasted the same.”

Suddenly, the woman bent forward, unable to stop herself from burying her face in her hands and weeping.

“I’m sorry, son. I’m so sorry.”

She had never wanted to abandon her son—her only child. How could she bear to leave him?

But…

She had no choice. At that time, she truly had no way out.

“At first, I was obsessed with finding you. Every day, they kept poisoning my mind, painting you as a villain, telling me not to look for you, calling you ungrateful. But I didn’t believe them. I kept searching. My father beat me many times for it, just to make me give up.”

She didn’t know what to say anymore; all she could do was cry. But she heard every word that Lu Sinian spoke.

He swallowed and continued, his voice lower and more somber. “At first I rebelled stubbornly, insisting it couldn’t be true, th