Chapter 2

Chapter 2

There are three children in my family.

My older sister was the crystallization of my parents’ love, born when their relationship was at its best.

My younger brother was the glory they fought for, the one who carried the hopes of the entire clan on his shoulders.

Only I was an accident.

When my mother was pregnant with me, she didn’t even know she was expecting again.

One day, she went out with my grandmother. The whole way, my grandmother nagged in her ear, saying she had to have a boy.

If she couldn’t give birth to a boy, then the Old Chen Family bloodline would be cut off because of her. When that happened, she would be the culprit who caused my father, the only son for three generations, to have no one to carry on the family line.

My mother was furious, but she didn’t dare say a word.

In a moment of distraction, she ran a red light and was hit head-on by a van. She was knocked flat and broke several ribs.

But when she got to the hospital for an examination, they discovered she was pregnant again.

And the baby was completely fine.

My grandmother went to a village fortune-teller to have it calculated. The fortune-teller said this child had a hard fate, but would always turn misfortune into blessing.

The child would suffer many disasters and hardships in youth, but as long as they survived, they were destined for great things.

My grandmother came back and declared with absolute certainty, “This one is definitely a boy.”

“If it wasn’t a boy, how could it have such a tenacious life? And the master said this child is bound to accomplish something!”

From that day on, my grandmother stewed chicken and fish for my mother every single day.

Whenever she had free time, she would stroke my mother’s belly, smiling as she murmured,

“My precious grandson is so strong. Not like other babies who barely move at all. You can tell at a glance he’s extraordinary. In the future, our Old Chen Family is going to produce a great military officer, a great entrepreneur, a great politician.”

Eight months later, my mother went into premature labor, and I came crying into the world.

My grandmother couldn’t wait to take me from the nurse. The moment she did, she lifted the towel wrapped around me.

When she saw I was missing that little bit of flesh, she was so angry that she let go, turned around, and walked out.

Not only did she take back all the rice and oil she had brought,

but throughout my mother’s postpartum confinement, she stood outside the window every day, cursing her for bringing this girl into the world just to cheat food and drink out of them.

As it happened, around that time, because my mother was pregnant and my father was starved for sex, he had an affair with the widow next door.

My mother caught them in bed. In her rage, she started bleeding and went into premature labor.

But because she had given birth to a daughter, even if my mother wanted to make a scene and demand a divorce, she no longer had the moral ground to stand on.

Every time she complained, my father and grandmother would say coldly, “Isn’t it because you’re useless? You can’t keep a man, and you can’t even give birth to a boy.”

My mother was full of resentment and hatred, but she had nowhere to vent it.

So she could only transfer all her loathing for them onto me.

As she nursed me, she slapped my back hard again and again, until I bit her viciously.

My mother cried out in pain and threw me onto the concrete floor.

“Go die! Go die!”

My father heard the commotion and came into the room. When he asked what had happened, my mother just kept crying.

“Look at this child. She keeps staring straight at me. She’s staring so much it’s scaring me!”