Chapter 2

Three men barged in. First, they rummaged through the house and took every valuable item.

Mother’s jewelry, my sister’s designer clothes, the paintings and calligraphy I had collected.

They left nothing behind.

They hurled filthy insults at the three of us.

They said the Su family owed hundreds of billions, and a father’s debt should be paid by his daughters. If we couldn’t pay with money, then we could pay with our bodies. It was only right.

They tore Mother’s sleeve, touched my sister’s face, and pinned me against the wall to search me.

Mother rushed over to protect me, and they shoved her to the floor.

My sister swung a vase at them. They slapped her twice.

Mother shielded us with her life. Her voice trembled, but she kept repeating the same words.

“Don’t cry. Mom is here. I’ll protect you.”

They forced Mother to kneel and write an IOU, saying that if she couldn’t repay the money, plenty of people would be eager to find out what the Su women were like.

Mother had once been such a refined, elegant lady. Now she had to kneel in front of them again and again, begging.

“I’ll pay it back. I promise I’ll pay it back. Just don’t touch my daughters.”

Chapter 4

Seeing us cry only excited the three men more.

They spewed one filthy remark after another.

The worst was when my sister was in the bathroom. They pounded on the door, pretending they were about to break in.

My sister sobbed in terror while they laughed uproariously.

Then Mother cut her own throat.

She traded her life for the creditors’ promise to leave us alone.

She thought that if someone died, someone would come to save us.

But she never expected her death to be called a ploy to win favor, a performance.

The day after Mother died, my sister calmly said she had a way to get money.

She went to the Tang Pavilion.

Someone as proud as she was had to do it in front of everyone.

In front of her friends, her attendants, the people she had once looked down on, and the person she had once considered her rival.

She broke her pride and knelt before the illegitimate son of the Tang family.

After my sister came back, I begged the creditors to call a doctor.

My sister shouted that she didn’t need one.

She stubbornly forced herself to walk back to her room.

Then she lay down and never opened her eyes again.

In the end, I was the only one left.

I wanted to escape, find the people who had once been friends with the Su family, and ask the Pei family for help.

I climbed over the balcony. One of the creditors saw me and shouted. In my panic, I fell.

He came over but couldn’t see me in the bushes. He stood beneath the second-floor window, shouted a few threats, then left.

A week later, Pei Xun and Jiang Chuyue returned from their honeymoon.

He stopped at the jewelry store first to pick up the diamond ring for the wedding.

It was the design he and I had chosen together.

Looking at the sparkling stone, he suddenly hesitated.

“Let’s wait before telling Ranning that we’re married. I’m afraid she won’t be able to accept it and might do something extreme.”

Jiang Chuyue walked beside him with a forced smile.

“I’ll do whatever you think is best, Brother Pei.”

He gripped the ring tightly and hurried toward the Su residence, an inexplicable urge stirring in his heart.

He hadn’t seen me for more than half a month.

He called me first.

No one answered.

Pei Xun smiled helplessly.

“She’s still sulking.”

“When she sees me later, she’ll probably burst into tears.”

Father and my brother had already ordered a cake. It was my sister’s birthday.

The car stopped outside the main Su residence.

Police tape was strung across the entrance, and an ambulance was parked outside. Several officers were taking photographs.

The three men froze.

“What happened?”

A police officer looked up at them.

“Someone reported a strange smell coming from this house.”

A nameless panic suddenly gripped my father. He hurriedly took out his ID.

“I’m the homeowner.”

He and my brother tried to rush inside.

The police stopped them.

“You’ll have to wait until we finish investigating.”

Pei Xun called the creditors.

One, two, three.

None of them answered.

He gripped his phone tightly.

Suddenly, he felt afraid.

He spun around to look at Jiang Chuyue.

“You said those men were your friends. Where did they go? Why can’t I reach any of them?”

Jiang Chuyue looked alarmed, her eyes reddening.

“I—I don’t know.”

“Maybe Sister Ranning is putting on another act…”

As soon as she finished speaking, the forensic doctor carried out three bodies beneath white sheets.

“One slit her own throat. One overdosed. One miscarried and bled to death after a fall.”

In an instant, thunder exploded inside the three men’s heads.

The cake box hit the ground with a thud.

Pei Xun suddenly remembered the last message I had sent him that day.

“I have a surprise I want to tell you.”

His trembling hand lifted the white sheet.

The moment the body was revealed—

Father and my brother collapsed to the ground.

Chapter 5

Beneath the white sheet was Mother.

The forensic doctor said she had died by slitting her own throat.

My father stared at the cut on her neck for a long time.

She had made it herself.

When she brought the knife down, she thought she could trade her life for a chance for us to survive.