The weather was cold now, and the pavilion was drafty. Elaine Hughes shivered, rubbing her hands together helplessly.
Her expensive fur coats had all been sold for cash during the heatwave last year, and she had no money to buy new ones.
The coat she wore now wasn’t warm, feeling flimsy in the sub-zero temperatures.
Recalling the expensive furs Grace Sutton and Winnie Sumrs had been wearing just monts ago, Elaine’s gaze toward lody Sumrs filled with a sense of grievance.
’The Sumrs Family are just country folk,’ she thought, ’yet they’re dressed in top-quality fur. lody must have bought those for them.’
’lody has money to buy things for her adoptive family, but she won’t spare a thought for , her own biological mother...’
Elaine couldn’t help but feel a pang of disappointnt.
The mory of the dream where lody had been so gentle and considerate toward her made Elaine’s heart ache even more.
Seeing Elaine remain silent, lody cut straight to the chase. "You ca today because you want that apartnt you bought in Building 4 back, don’t you?"
Then, lody shook her head and stated bluntly, "Then you can forget it. I will absolutely not give up the apartnt. I’ve already moved my family in."
At her words, Elaine rembered the purpose of her visit.
She looked at lody with a complicated expression and began tentatively, "But... Sylvia said a massive blizzard is coming. When it does, we won’t be able to live in our villa..."
Before Elaine could finish, lody cut her off, a look of confusion on her face. "Can’t live in it? Why not? It’s just snow. You have so many people in your family—can’t you shovel snow?"
In her past life, lody had lived in the Lancaster Villa. During the months of heavy blizzards, the first thing she did every day after waking up was go outside to shovel snow.
The Lancaster Villa was huge. She had to climb onto the roof first to clear the snow off, then pile up all the snow in the courtyard and shovel it out.
lody had to repeat this snow-clearing process at least four or five tis a day.
For a while, the blizzard was so intense that a thick layer would accumulate in just half an hour. lody had to go out and clear it every thirty minutes. During that period, even her sleep was fragnted.
’In my last life, I could shovel all that snow by myself,’ lody thought. ’How is it that in this life, with so many people in the Lancaster family, they can’t do it?’
Hearing lody’s words, Elaine struggled to defend herself. "The villa is so big, shoveling the snow is too hard... lody, I’m your biological mother, after all. Can you really bear to see live through such hardship? For the sake of the ten months I carried you, just give us that high-rise apartnt..."
lody stared fixedly at Elaine upon hearing this.
It was true that Elaine was the one who had carried her for ten months and given birth to her.
Childbirth was a walk through the gates of hell for any woman, rich or poor. No matter how much lody hated Elaine, this was a fact she couldn’t deny.
She didn’t want this to beco a thorn in her side.
lody took a deep breath and forced herself to recall the events of her past life.
In her past life, she had already given her life back to Elaine. Therefore, Elaine shouldn’t be able to use this to guilt-trip her in this life.
So lody raised her head, looked at Elaine coldly, and asked, "Just because you gave birth to , you think I owe you? You won’t be satisfied until you’ve taken a pound of flesh from , is that it?"
Amid Elaine’s slightly stunned expression, lody sneered, "You keep saying you live in a villa and can’t stay there when the blizzard cos. Do you think my family doesn’t live in a villa? There are so many empty apartnts in this complex, yet you don’t buy one. Why must you insist I give you my high-rise apartnt?"
Hearing lody say this, Elaine lowered her head, looking guilty.
Seeing Elaine’s reaction, lody snorted inwardly and continued, "I will not give you the apartnt. If it were possible, I would wish you had never given birth to . But as you know, one cannot control the circumstances of their birth... so I find it quite unfortunate myself."
Elaine’s head snapped up at her words.
Looking at lody’s cold expression, Elaine felt her own heart grow as cold as the night wind.
Her eyes filled with sorrow, she asked lody, "How can you say that? I am your mother. You are my own flesh and blood; that’s an unchangeable fact... You treat your adoptive family so well, moving them into a villa, buying them furs. Why can’t you show even a shred of basic filial piety..."
Hearing this, lody revealed a look of confusion.
She looked at Elaine and asked earnestly, "Shouldn’t I be the one asking you that? At the end of the day, I’m your biological daughter too. Why do you hate so much?"
The resentful accusations in Elaine’s heart had yet to be spoken when she heard lody’s question, and for a mont, she was stunned.
While Elaine was still dazed, lody continued, "Is your mory that bad? Do you need to help you recall the events of the past year or so?"
"Do you rember? Just days after we were reunited, I hadn’t even done anything, yet you suddenly sent a text, tearing into for being thoughtless, saying I had hurt Sylvia Lancaster, and demanding I apologize to her?"
"I simply refused to attend Sylvia Lancaster’s engagent party, and you sent hundreds of texts telling how disappointed you were in , how I was so much worse than Sylvia, how much you regretted giving birth to , and telling to never return to the Lancaster family for the rest of my life. You don’t rember any of that?"
"Later, for money, you all tried to force into an arranged marriage with an imbecile. You tell , is that sothing a human being would do?"
"Then after that, you and Robert Lancaster brought Silas Lancaster to my ho, insisting on having a reunion dinner. Silas pulled a knife and tried to kill . You didn’t stop him, and when I acted in self-defense, you scread for the police to shoot dead!"
"You haven’t forgotten all these things, have you?!"
"Elaine Hughes, I really don’t understand. Am I your daughter, or the man who murdered your father? Even if you were dealing with your father’s murderer, you could hardly treat them any worse!"
"Just now, you kept saying that because you gave birth to , I have to give you the apartnt. But have you ever stopped to think where I’m supposed to live?"
"You know perfectly well that my family also lives in a villa. We moved into 1606 precisely because of the coming blizzard, yet you still insist on demanding the apartnt from . Isn’t that the sa as forcing to die?! Is my life not a life in your eyes?!"
"As a mother, you are filled with hostility and prejudice toward , your own daughter."
"You misunderstand , humiliate , hurt , and plot against . You wish you could suck the very marrow from my bones. Just how much do you hate to treat so viciously?"
"And what about ? In the face of your vicious behavior, I haven’t even tried to get revenge! I can still sit here calmly and listen to you speak! And you have the audacity to say I’m not filial? Could you find a more filial person than in this entire world?"
Recalling her experiences from two lifetis, lody unleashed all the grievances she had buried deep in her heart at Elaine in one breath.
After she finished, she felt an imnse sense of catharsis.
Elaine’s face turned deathly pale as lody spoke. She just stared blankly at her, listening as lody listed her sins one by one.
With every sentence, her heart sank a little deeper.
She never expected lody to rember every single thing so clearly!
Now, hearing lody dredge up the past, Elaine felt a baseless panic rise in her heart.
It was as if she was only now realizing that she was truly going to lose this daughter forever...
lody looked at Elaine’s pale, stunned face and suddenly found the whole situation rather boring.
Before Elaine could snap out of her stupor, lody gave a light laugh. With a sense of release, she said to Elaine, "I understand now. Not every mother loves her child unconditionally. You simply hate ."
Why?
’Perhaps,’ lody thought, ’it’s because my existence shattered Elaine’s perfect, happy family.’
’Perhaps my existence is a constant reminder that she lost her daughter all those years ago.’
But none of that mattered anymore.
When lody thought about how desperately she had tried to please Elaine in her past life, she found it utterly laughable.
Love and kinship are actually the sa thing; they can’t be obtained simply through effort and sacrifice.
Believing that effort and sacrifice will earn you love and kinship is nothing more than self-deception.
lody looked at Elaine’s pale face and said calmly, "Elaine Hughes, I used to have a hard ti accepting that you hate . But now, I can accept it completely."
"All I can say is, I am indeed the daughter you bore. Genetics are a hard thing to change. Perhaps I’ve completely inherited your coldness and selfishness."
"Just as you don’t value the blood ties between us and unconditionally favor Sylvia Lancaster, I no longer care that you’re my birth mother."
"So, you don’t need to say anything else. You hate , and I don’t love you. That’s fair, isn’t it?"
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