Chapter 12
Edward Quan ·
It was her lifelong favoritism that had made him believe the whole world should give way to him.
After the funeral, I stood alone before her grave.
The photograph on the stone showed her still young.
She had once been a daughter too.
Grandma had told me that Mom wasn’t valued as a child. The family’s money went to her elder brother’s education. She had to leave school early and work.
She had suffered enough from the preference for sons over daughters.
Yet she never chose to end it with herself.
Instead, she desperately bore a son, imagining that through him she could become the favored one.
In the end, she poured every humiliation she had endured onto her own daughter.
I placed flowers before the grave.
“Mom, I don’t forgive you.”
“But I don’t want to hate you anymore.”
“From now on, I’ll live my own life.”
At the foot of the hill, Chen Zheng and our son waited.
Our son took my bag.
Chen Zheng opened the car door. He didn’t ask whether I had cried or urge me to let go.
They only stayed beside me and went home with me.
A year later, the project I led officially launched.
The company appointed me head of the department.
Our son was admitted to the school he had always wanted.
The day his acceptance letter arrived, the three of us went out to celebrate.
At the table, he kept stealing glances at me.
When I noticed, he scratched his head shyly.
After a long hesitation, he gathered his courage.
“Mom, are you happy now?”
I looked beside me.
Chen Zheng was serving me soup.
Our son’s acceptance letter lay at the corner of the table.
No one was forcing me to sell a house.
No one was waiting for me to repay their debts.
No one assumed that, because I was a daughter, my life could always be sacrificed.
I nodded.
“Happy.”
In my previous life, I spent a lifetime proving daughters were no less worthy than sons.
Only at the end did I understand: I had never needed to prove my worth to Mom.
Whether she loved me couldn’t decide who I was.
Whether my brother lived comfortably was even less my responsibility.
She valued her son more. I supported her choice to give him all the property.
When she grew old, I respected the decisions her favored child made for her too.
My love would go only to those who truly loved me.
From now on, my life needed no permission from my mother.
And no one else’s approval either.
**The End**
**Enjoyed this story?**
Discover more completed short romance stories at **NovelPotato.asia**.