Chapter 8
Edward Quan ·
Even after saying it, she saw nothing wrong.
At last, I understood completely.
It wasn’t that she had never known my brother was unreliable.
Precisely because she knew, she left him every benefit and bound her daughter with duty and reputation.
She wasn’t confused.
She had counted on my soft heart.
Seeing I wouldn’t yield, he stopped pretending too.
“Mom is old. Even if she exaggerates a little, people will believe her.”
Chen Zheng came from the corridor and stood beside me.
My brother instinctively stepped back.
Seeing my husband, Mom raised her voice.
“This is our family’s business. Outsiders have no place interfering!”
He had been restraining his anger.
At “outsiders,” he grew calm instead.
“She’s my wife.”
“You spend our money, hurt our child, and want her to shoulder her brother’s responsibility.”
“You’re the ones with no right to interfere in her life.”
Mom shook with rage.
She flung the document bag at me.
Papers scattered.
On top was a declaration severing our relationship, almost identical to the will from my previous life.
She wanted to disown me and demanded repayment of pension money she claimed I had taken.
When I looked down at it, she thought I was afraid.
She took out a pen and gripped it.
“Withdraw your case, or I’ll sign right now!”
I picked up the paper and placed an ink pad on her wheelchair’s armrest.
“Sign.”
She stared.
She must have imagined arguing, crying, even kneeling pleas.
Agreement was the one thing she hadn’t expected.
I put the pen back into her hand.
“Don’t you want to cut ties?”
“Sign it. Add your fingerprint.”
Her hand hovered.
After a long time, she still hadn’t lowered the pen.
She could ruin my reputation. She couldn’t bear to release a daughter who might provide her care.
While we stood there, her phone rang.
As she answered, her strained face slowly brightened.
Dad’s second house had been included in a redevelopment plan.
Compensation would be 3.8 million yuan, plus eligibility to buy a resettlement home.
That house had been transferred to my brother two years earlier.
He forgot all about cutting ties and immediately called the redevelopment office to confirm.
After receiving an affirmative answer, he crouched before her again.
His impatience vanished.
“Mom, once the money arrives, I’ll buy a big house.”
“You’ll have the largest room. I’ll hire two maids. We won’t need to beg anyone.”
Her confidence returned.
She put the declaration back into her bag and looked at me with triumph.
“I knew Qingwei was blessed.”
“Even if you kneel and beg, I won’t enter your home again.”
A month later, the compensation was paid.
He drove to the care home to collect her.
She deliberately sent me a video.
In it, she wore the new clothes he bought and praised his devotion endlessly.
He sat in the driver’s seat, taking a call.
His words came intermittently through the recording.
“The house goes in Xiaoya’s name.”
“Transfer the money too, so the court can’t seize it.”
Xiaoya was my sister-in-law.
Mom hadn’t heard clearly. She kept smiling at me.
Two days later, she was back in the care home.
His wife disliked her smell and didn’t want the children living with a bedridden old woman.
He let Mom stay in the new house for only one night.
This time, he stopped paying her care-home fees too.
08
She waited a whole month.
Whenever anyone passed, she asked whether her son had come.
Gradually, people stopped answering.
She explained to everyone that he was finding a maid. Once the house was ready, he would fetch her.
He never appeared.
His phone stayed switched off.
Finally, an aide called me.
When I arrived, Mom had crumpled a sheet of paper in her hand.
She pushed it toward me.
His new address.
“Find Qingwei.”
“Tell him to take me home.”
I put it back beside her bed.
“This is between you and your son.”
She pounded the bed in desperation.
“He has all 3.8 million! How can he refuse to care for me?”
“You chose to give him the money and houses.”
She stared at me for a long time.
Her anger gradually faded, leaving only panic.
Only now did she realize she had given away more than assets.
She had given away her last refuge.
That evening, my sister-in-law posted on her social-media feed.
She and my brother sat in their new house, a purchase contract on the table.
The caption was one sentence.