Chapter 6
Her eyes were red from crying, clear and sorrowful as a rain-washed sky.
My moral compass might not have been much, but I did have one.
I knew Su Tao’s behavior was outrageous, appalling, and disgusting.
A normal person would probably want to divorce Xie Ting, then give up her adopted daughter.
Unfortunately, I wasn’t normal.
Right now, I couldn’t get proof that Xie Ting was cheating. A divorce by mutual agreement would mean no compensation—and I’d have to watch him and Su Tao get their happily-ever-after.
If that happened… I’d truly be the ultimate prop: carefully raising Su Tao only to deliver her into Xie Ting’s hands myself.
Yes. The plot was treating me very badly indeed.
So I curved my lips and spoke to Su Tao in a voice so gentle it could have melted.
“Of course I won’t.”
At last, she smiled through her tears. She wiped them away and looked at me shyly.
We talked a little more. Then she went off for her piano lesson with the private tutor, turning back bashfully with every step.
Once she was out of sight, the smile left my lips.
I sighed helplessly.
When Su Tao had first transferred to the prestigious secondary school in City J, she’d been too afraid to tell me she was being bullied.
After realizing something was wrong, I’d taken her to school to confront them.
Confrontation was one word for it. Really, I’d used my usual method: a smiling, relentless, one-sided interrogation that left the other parents unable to get a word out. In the end, they’d made their children apologize.
Su Tao had huddled silently beside me like a faint shadow. When I turned to look, I found her staring at me without blinking.
Later, her grades improved rapidly. Although I gave her plenty of pocket money, she’d quietly tutored other students and copied notes for them.
She’d spent all the money she saved on ninety-nine purple moth orchids.
For me.
The orchids looked so light and graceful, like butterflies about to take flight.
Her eyes had been astonishingly bright.
“Mommy, they’re elegant and beautiful, just like… just like your eyes.”
My mother was an Italian opera singer. When those smoky violet eyes glanced sideways at you, their beauty seemed almost unreal, yet breathtaking.
My father had fallen in love with her at first sight because of them.
After marriage, however, they’d both found new lovers.
More than one each.
Their hearts had room for a favorite on every spike of a durian.
My brother and I had both inherited her violet eyes.
His were deep; mine were pale.
As though they reflected the difference between our parents’ promiscuity, my brother’s devotion, and my own indifference to love.
I knew my true nature wasn’t particularly noble.
Still, I’d smiled and accepted the purple moth orchids, transplanting them all into the garden.
For five years, Su Tao had been a sweet, thoughtful daughter, always noticing details others missed.
Apart from the ten-year age gap and the fact that we shared no blood, I’d thought we were no different from a real mother and daughter.
I’d never expected her to stab me in the back with Xie Ting in the garden.
I looked toward the patch planted with purple moth orchids.
My brows drew together involuntarily.