Chapter 3

Chapter 3

Outside, the wind howled and the snow fell thick.

My mother held my little sister in her arms, her gaze fixed on that exquisite carriage. The corners of her mouth lifted slightly, curving in a smile so faint it was almost impossible to notice.

A maidservant brought over a magnificent cloak embroidered with gold thread and draped it over my mother’s shoulders.

She closed her eyes and let out a satisfied sigh.

I grabbed her hand, my lips trembling. “Mother…”

My mother did not turn back to look at me. She only left me with one sentence. “Don’t blame me. Your sister is still so young. I simply can’t bear to part with her.”

With that, she shook off my hand and boarded the carriage without looking back.

Before Cao Wenyuan climbed into the carriage, he glanced at me, and that gentle look in his eyes suddenly dimmed.

The group departed in grand procession through the wind and snow.

Leaving only me behind.

And the tall, thin man standing before me.

At a glance, I noticed his sunken cheeks and the dark circles beneath his eyes.

And the dagger in his hand.

The blade was unsheathed.

Crystal snowflakes wrapped around the cold glint of steel as it came swiftly toward me.

I dodged.

The man stared in surprise as I rolled once across the ground, quickly scrambled up, and assumed a defensive stance. “You…”

My entire body was shaking, but I did not dare cry.

The instinct to survive told me that tears would blur my vision and keep me from seeing the next stab coming.

But the man put the dagger away. His eyes were as defeated and gloomy as his face.

“Don’t look at me like that. Since you don’t want to die, then you won’t.”

Like what?

I did not know.

All of a sudden, I remembered something that had happened a few months ago.

My father loved gambling and owed my eldest uncle’s family a great deal of money. My eldest uncle brought people and barged into our home to collect the debt.

My father knew he was coming, so he instructed me beforehand, “When your eldest uncle gets here, throw yourself at him, hug his leg, and cry. The more pitiful you look, the better. That way, your eldest uncle will soften.”

But when my eldest uncle came, I could not cry at all.

Back then, I thought that if I could not cry, hugging his leg would be useless anyway.

So I did nothing.

After a round of arguing, my eldest uncle beat my father up.

The moment he left, my father swiftly took out the beating he had received on me. “You really are a useless little thing. What was the point of having you? You don’t have a shred of cleverness… You’d be better off dead, stupid brat.”

Even then, I still did not shed a tear.

It was not until the corner of my eye caught sight of my mother, completely unmoved as I was beaten, that my tears finally burst free.

Thinking of this, I gritted my teeth, lunged forward, hugged the leg of the man before me, and began to wail. “Uncle, please don’t kill me…”

I was very sad inside, so right now, I had plenty of tears.

If there were tears, then he would soften, wouldn’t he?

He sighed, and the gloom hanging over his already sullen face seemed to deepen.

In the next instant, that sharp dagger was unsheathed once more, and blinding pain followed.