Chapter 4

Su Tao had always been a good child.

Even before I adopted her.

She’d been thirteen then. There was fear in her eyes, but she’d viciously bitten a chunk from the arm of the father who had her by the hair.

She’d been a good child after the adoption, too.

I’d brought her out of that impoverished mountain hollow. She liked looking at me with damp, trusting eyes, telling me softly that her teacher had praised her improvement again that day.

I refused to believe that pride and stubbornness had faded with time.

The heavy door closed behind us.

“Sit.”

I didn’t launch into accusations. Instead, I studied her face.

At eighteen, with luminous skin and delicate features, she was a flower I’d carefully tended.

Only those eyes I’d once thought so clear seemed veiled now by a complexity I couldn’t understand.

“Taotao,” I began, using her nickname. I kept my voice soft, deliberately gentle. “Mommy wants to have a serious talk with you.”

I sat beside her and slipped an arm around her, drawing her gently into my embrace.

“You’re an adult now. If someone ever ignores what you want… even if you give in and go along with him, you’ve still been coerced. You’re the victim. You’re innocent. The person who knows how inexperienced you are and still half-seduces, half-forces you is the one to blame.”

“Mommy will always be on your side.”

I stroked her soft hair gently.

“Now it’s just you and Mommy. Tell me… what really happened that night?”

A barely visible tremor passed through her. Her long eyelashes fluttered rapidly, like a startled butterfly’s wings.

Su Tao had always been clever. I thought she understood what I was implying.

I was giving her a chance.

But she lowered her head.

“Nothing happened that night… I just had a fever, and Daddy happened to come downstairs.”

Her answer was watertight.

In a flash, an even more frightening possibility struck me.

If the plot imposed limits even on a supporting character like me, could Su Tao, the female lead, be under its control as well?

I looked at her bowed head, at the exposed curve of that fragile neck. She resembled a swan offering itself for slaughter.

Just then, the comments began fanning the flames.

[This wife is unbelievable. Doesn’t she know the leads are in love?]

[Seriously, she’s like one of those bitter wives who catches her husband cheating and can only lecture the other woman. So low!]

[Aren’t they just a cheating man and his side piece? What the fuck are these comments? You don’t sound like men or women. You sound like things pretending to be human.]

[Uh, who needs morals or ethics in erotica? If it’s not dirty and taboo, I don’t read it. Don’t like it? Leave.]

…

That surprised me.

One sane comment had squeezed into the crowd of human impersonators.

A knock came at that moment.

I opened the door.

Xie Ting stood outside, those perpetually unreadable eyes resting on Su Tao and me.

I gave him a cool glance and turned to leave.

But he caught my wrist.

His voice was low and languid.

“Pei Xue, I want to send Su Tao away. Her thoughts aren’t innocent.”