Chapter 116: My Dearest Daughter, Mom Will Always Love You.
“Xiao Xing:
When you see this letter, I think you should be 26 years old.
Because according to my understanding of Xuerong, it might take her another ten years to be relatively at ease with this past, and she will definitely follow my instructions and not show you this letter in the middle of it.
Have you been well these past few years? Do you smile often? Are you still playing the violin?
And… do you blame your mom?
Although I hope you don’t blame me, I also understand if you do. After all, I didn’t discuss such an important matter with you and made the decision on my own, leaving you, a little girl, in this world.
Mom apologizes to you, but I will not change my choice no matter what. You probably already know most of the reasons behind it. Xuerong and Ruyu might have told you. For the rest, let Mom tell you in this letter.
Our family and the Chu family used to be family friends. After the Huai family’s business failed, the two families had very little contact, but Lingyi and I grew up together, and our contact was still close. The elders didn’t interfere much with us two juniors. After so many years, I still clearly remember when I realized that I liked her.
It was in April of my seventeenth year, on a drizzly night. We had had a conflict because Xu Zhixun had given me a bouquet of flowers. She came in the rain and stood at my window, giving me a bouquet of begonias with raindrops on them. She asked, “Ah Zhao, can you only accept the flowers I give you?”
I asked her why. She looked at me and did not speak, but on that dim night, I understood our feelings.
After we went to university, we got together as a matter of course. But in the context of the times, love between the same sex was not allowed by the world. Lingyi was also the only daughter of the Chu family, and her uncle and aunt had placed all their hopes on her, cultivating her carefully, hoping that she could inherit the increasingly large family business of the Chu family in the future. Lingyi had never let them down, and she had always done her best in everything.
She said that only when she was with me did she seem to be able to feel the pressure disappear. We were together for four years, from eighteen to twenty-two. In our prediction, we could always be happy like this, until a rumor spread that we were lesbians. In an instant, everything changed. Everyone’s eyes became blades, ruthlessly and cruelly cutting at us, and Lingyi was also grounded by the Chu family.
My brother came to ask me if it was true. I said it was. He told me not to be afraid, that everything would be fine after the rumor passed.
But the pressure that the Chu family put on Lingyi was very heavy. Because of this matter, the Chu family had lost several orders, and her uncle and aunt were very angry and wanted to quell everything as soon as possible.
Xu Zhixun came to us separately at this time. He was our high school classmate, and we were on very good terms. He had once expressed his feelings for me, and I had clearly rejected him, and he had not bothered me in this aspect again. In this incident, he took the initiative to offer to help us solve this trouble.
He said that he had always liked me and had not expected that I and Chu Lingyi were in such a relationship. From a friend’s perspective, he was willing to help us get through this difficult time. He said that he had no other feelings for Chu Lingyi, and that we could rest assured.
The only breakthrough to solve this matter as soon as possible was for Lingyi to marry a man.
So Xu Zhixun proposed a sham marriage with Lingyi. When the storm subsided, they could then propose a divorce for other reasons. He said that he was not helping for free. He just needed to be given some money when they divorced.
With the premise of interests and no love, under the heavy siege, Lingyi had no choice but to agree.
In order to prove that our love was a “rumor,” the Chu family even invited me to watch the wedding together, so that it would be more real. I will never forget the scene of the wedding that day. It pierced me forever. I watched as the person standing beside her was not me, and my heart was like being cut by a knife.
After the marriage, Lingyi and I still met as usual, but after this matter, there was always an indescribable barrier between us.
I was studying law. In a legal sense, Lingyi was already married. She knew my struggle and hesitation and had comforted me several times, saying that when she and Xu Zhixun divorced, everything would be fine.
But I did not wait for their divorce. Instead, I waited for the news of Lingyi’s pregnancy.
When we met again, we had a fight. I asked her why. She said there was no why, that everything was so natural, and that was all. She apologized to me, but I did not accept it. I knew that there must be another reason behind it, but her words also deeply hurt me.
The begonias of that night had long since withered. We both knew that.
So, my brother and sister-in-law took me away from the sad place of Jingcheng and came to Yuncheng. Xuerong followed. She told me the truth of the rumor. This matter had something to do with her and Xu Zhixun, but when I thought of Lingyi’s attitude, I cowardly chose not to face it. We had already drifted apart and were no longer in the same world.
The first few years of settling in Yuncheng were very difficult. The weather here was more humid than in Jingcheng, and I was not used to it at first. But the law firm I opened gradually stabilized, and after a few years of hard work, my brother and sister-in-law were also preparing to have a child.
My sister-in-law was pregnant. I stayed by her side every day, happy for her, and looking forward to your arrival.
Xiao Xing, you already know that you are not my biological child, right? Your mother’s name is Lu Ling, and your father’s name is Huai Zhang.
It’s not that I wanted to hide it from you. Not long after you were born, your brother and sister-in-law had an accident. I rushed to the hospital, and my sister-in-law was on her last breath. She asked me to hide this fact.
Because she was an orphan and had been wandering all her life. Only after she had met my brother and me did she feel the warmth of a home. She said that she didn’t want you to look like a child who had lost both parents since you were a child. Otherwise, it would be too hard. She had walked this path and didn’t want you to walk it again. She believed that I would teach you well and asked me to raise you well.
My brother also agreed with her idea and asked you to call me Mom in the future.
From then on, I strictly forbade anyone around me to mention this fact in front of you. I had to keep my promise, but I couldn’t find a father for you, no matter how outstanding the other party was.
I felt that it was enough for me to raise you alone, but I still clearly remember when you were in kindergarten, those classmates in your class would laugh at you for not having a father when the teachers were not around. You hid it from me and didn’t tell me. It was the teachers who found out and told me, and only then did I know about this.
I went to the kindergarten and gave everyone a lesson. You also knew that what I said was right. From then on, we, mother and daughter, trusted and relied on each other.
Mom is happy and proud to have you as a daughter.
I often wonder if I have fulfilled what I promised my brother and sister-in-law, but watching you grow up day by day, with a bright and dazzling smile, I know that I don’t need to struggle with the answer.
But there was one thing that made me very conflicted. When you were a little over one, a little girl who looked to be seven or eight came to the law firm’s entrance. She came up and asked for your name. I looked at her features and heard her accent, and I told her your birthday and name. This little girl was Chu Wantang. Her features were too similar to Lingyi’s. At a glance, you could tell that she was Lingyi’s child.
But Lingyi did not come out to see me, and I did not go to find her.
After so many years, the barrier between her and me had also become deeper and deeper. It was not hatred, but helplessness.
I never saw Chu Wantang again after that. I don’t know if they had come to Yuncheng after that, but I still stubbornly brought you to the law firm’s entrance, wanting to let Lingyi know that I seemed to be doing very well, and wanting her to think that I had long since let go of this past.
Even though I had never let go.
Even letting you learn the violin was because this was an instrument that Lingyi could play. When you were learning the violin and your fingers hurt, you came to me and cried, and I selfishly asked you to continue to learn.
In your increasingly mature violin sound, I would still think of the past when I had listened to her play.
Before I received that call from Lingyi, I had thought that it would be good for me to muddle through this life like this. I had a few good friends, a lovely daughter, and a stable career.
But it was that call that made me know that I could not just muddle through like this.
That was on August 19th, 2013, half a year before I wrote this letter.
After so many years, when I heard her voice again, I was in a daze for a long time. Her voice was as if it were stuck with a thorny bramble, and I could even smell the blood in her throat from here.
She said that she might not live for long and wanted to tell me today to get my forgiveness.
After she had married Xu Zhixun, her uncle and aunt had wanted her to slowly manage the company, so her business banquets had increased. Once, she had accidentally drunk too much, and Xu Zhixun had come to pick her up and take her back to the Chu family as her husband, and he had taken advantage of her drunkenness to have sex with her.
When she woke up, Xu Zhixun had cried in front of her, saying that last night was an accident. He had always liked me, but he had had feelings for her last night. He had asked her to take this as an accident, and that when the rumor subsided, the marriage would be dissolved.
She had cried until her voice was hoarse, and her mental stress was too great. She also felt that she had betrayed me, but after that night, she no longer drank, and she still maintained a superficial husband-and-wife relationship with Xu Zhixun.
But before long, she began to have difficulty eating and would vomit frequently. The matter of her pregnancy could not be hidden from her elders. After her uncle and aunt had learned that she was pregnant, they were very happy, thinking that she was finally normal and no longer a lesbian. When she was three months pregnant and stable, the Chu family had widely announced it. This child could even more so shatter the “rumor.”
At this time, Xu Zhixun had also shown his true colors. Compared to love, the Chu family’s business was more tempting to him.
Lingyi had wanted to confess everything to me, and had even wanted to abort this child, but she had been threatened by her own parents and Xu Zhixun.
If she dared to do so, the only three remaining members of the Huai family would disappear from this world without a sound. To cruelly cut off all contact would also just make the Huai family move to another city.
I was devastated to hear it. The rumor was also related to the Chu family. Xu Zhixun had first gone to the Chu family with the news, wanting money.
They couldn’t accept their daughter being in love with me, so they deliberately had him release the news to force a marriage. They had used such an extreme method to persecute her, and they had also tacitly approved of Xu Zhixun’s actions.
At the end of that call, she asked me if we could love each other again in the next life.
I promised her, not just in the next life, but for all eternity.
In the end, she called my name “Ah Zhao” over and over again. She had lived a more painful life than I had, and she was always crying.
Later, I never heard her voice again, but I did hear Wantang calling her “Mom.” I was in a panic, holding the phone, and I heard Wantang ask me in a choked voice why I had answered that call.
That was the first and last call between me and Lingyi in all these years.
Xiao Xing, as I write this letter, my tears still can’t help but gush out. I have not lived as well as I seemed, and she has lived in a hellish state.
We were forever trapped in this past. No matter how many years passed, I could not let it go.
The bouquet of begonias I received when I was seventeen had indeed withered, but it was also permanently engraved in my heart, making it hard for me to forget.
After learning the whole truth, I sent an invitation to Xu Zhixun to remarry. Even if he wouldn’t agree to remarry me, he would still come to Yuncheng.
I must make him die!!!
His disguise has deceived everyone. Why should we live in such pain while he can be so carefree? He must die!!!
My thoughts had wavered. Did I want to leave you alone in this world?
Xiao Xing, Mom has watched you grow up, watched you grow from so small to almost sixteen. Am I really willing to give all this up? But the result of me deliberately killing someone is not much different from dying with him, and I can no longer bear such a life.
In the end, I firmed up my thoughts. Please forgive Mom’s selfishness.
But, you didn’t choose to become a family with Ruyu and the others, did you?
Ruyu has Xiao Wei and Ah Yi, and they grew up with you, but you wouldn’t agree to Ruyu’s invitation, would you?
Did you become a family with Wantang? Are you very puzzled how Mom guessed? It’s very obvious. Everything is hidden in your eyes. You have a pair of talking eyes, very similar to your aunt’s, agile and beautiful. On the first day you met Wantang, I saw everything. Otherwise, do you think I raised you for so many years for nothing? I am the famous great lawyer Huai.
You were always peeking at her, your gaze not very bold, a little timid and shy.
I let you stay with her, and your usually generous nature was a rare bit of coyness, feeling very embarrassed, very much like when you were little and you met her for the first time. You hid behind me and called her Jiejie, but when you weren’t around, Wantang had actually told me that you were very cute, and that she was looking forward to becoming a family with you.
This path is very difficult. How have you walked it now, Xiao Xing?
Did you get hurt in the end from liking Wantang? Mom doesn’t know the answer, but Mom hopes that you are living well, not just looking well, but that your heart is also as bright as spring.
You are kind, warm, and delicate. You are the best child in this world, the pride of our Huai family.
At the same time, you are also a little timid, overly cautious, and overly self-protective. What Mom is most worried about is your heart, which may be more fragile and more afraid of being hurt after I’m gone.
So Mom wants to tell you in this letter, don’t be afraid, Xiao Xing. Time is not the best painkiller. Some pain cannot be healed by time. It is like a piece of broken glass embedded in the bone. Even if it is carefully removed, it will leave an eternal shadow in the bone.
Only by facing it bravely can you do it, Xiao Xing. If you are hurt, then let us learn to breathe with the scars. In the cycle of scabbing, you will grow a tougher skin, and you will become a stronger self.
Whether the road ahead is full of flowers or thorns, Mom believes in you.
Falling down is never scary. What is scary is to be forever curled up in place for fear of falling. If sometimes you feel that making a decision is betraying yourself, you should change your thinking. That is not betraying yourself, but believing that you can more bravely handle all known and unknown situations.
Mom’s story has already turned to the last page, but you are still young. Your story is still waiting for your sincerity and courage to write. Love boldly, passionately, and without reservation. It’s okay to slow down when you’re tired.
Unconsciously, this letter has been written for so long.
Let’s stop here, Xiao Xing.
My dearest daughter, Mom will always love you.
May you be happy, joyful, healthy, and safe. All the good things in this world are worthy of you.
You must remember that Mom is always here. In the past sixteen years, because of you, Mom has been very happy.
I want to be your mom again in the next life.
-February 19, 2014
-Huai Zhao.」
As Huai Xing read the end, her tears were streaming down.
She then thought of herself at the age of five, falling on the trampoline and unable to get up.
That day, after Huai Zhao had finished her call, she had seen her fall and had pulled her up, patting her on the back.
She had then said gently to her, “Xiao Xing, don’t be afraid. Mom will always be here.”
