Unlike the Wei parents, mine had a business marriage.

Growing up, I never heard my parents argue. I thought as a child that they were loving, harmonious, and respectful to each other. Later, when I met the Wei parents, I found that this was not the case.

They were either not affectionate, or their feelings were very weak.

My mother was elegant and gentle, putting her husband and children first. Family was her career. And my father was a typical high-ranking male in control of a large family. He looked calm, kind, and polite, but was actually arrogant, cold, and contemptuous.

As a teenager, I understood that, in his eyes, his wife and children were not his equals.

He and his wife had married young for the benefits of each other’s families. She received a ladylike education from an early age and was proficient in social etiquette, taking care of family affairs and caring for her husband and children. She was a very useful tool to him, and his children were his essential assets.

Such a household could be polite and harmonious, but there was no touch of tender fatherly love.

So when I learned that he had come to me from Yuhua, I knew it could not be anything good.

Without telling A-Zhen, I went to see him myself.

And once he told me the meeting place, I understood his purpose.

Because the hotel was the one where A-Zhen and I had stayed, and it was even the same room.

However, this also puzzled me.

There were countless things to do each day regarding the Wen family property, and it was clear that we would be returning home in a few days. Could he bear it so little that he came to see me overnight from Yuhua, which was thousands of miles away?

Did this conform to common sense?

Did he value this marriage so much?

In fact, I had always been puzzled by such a marriage, because the Wen family had been a business family for generations, while the Wei family was a scholarly family. Their industry was art and literature, and a marriage between our two families may not bring much benefit to one another.

And from a practical benefits perspective, because Uncle Wei was obsessed with putting art before money, this resulted in the Wei family’s development being too modest, its assets and scale being far inferior to that of the Wen family. If anyone was really going to benefit from this marriage, it would be the Wei family. This was not in line with my father’s style.

Not only was I puzzled, but I heard my mother secretly talking with him as well.

But my father was determined to make A-Zhen his son-in-law.

I knew that Uncle Wei was his favorite calligrapher, but I didn’t think this could be the reason for the marriage. And although he was not very affectionate toward his own children, he was kind and tender to A-Zhen, someone else’s child. When he was little, my father loved holding and lifting him so much.

If not for the fact that A-Zhen looked nothing like him, I would have thought that there was some unknown secret involved.

When I opened the door, I saw him standing in front of the windows with his back turned to me. He had reached middle age, and some gray had appeared on his head over the years, which looked particularly stark among the black.

When he heard the sound of my entrance, he turned around to look at me, his temperament cold and brooding from head to foot. I raised my eyes toward him and called out: “Dad.”

He cared about image very much and was always particular about what he said and did, but this time, he was probably truly angry. He walked a few steps over, grabbed my throat, and pressed me against the door while cursing at me like he couldn’t control himself.

His anger puzzled me.

I used the back of my hand to wipe away the blood from a cut at the corner of my mouth and sincerely voice my doubts: “You can still be in-laws with your beloved calligrapher. Your favorite A-Zhen will also call you Dad. You haven’t lost anything, have you?”

He punched me. His expression was furious, his eyes burning with rage, and the muscles in his face were tense. It was a very profound anger. “You are just a monster. How can you understand human emotions? How can you understand me?”

His fists impacted my chest and stomach. Even at this time, he knew not to let outsiders see my wounds. After beating me, he wandered around the room, looking like a trapped animal.

He swept everything on the table onto the floor, then threw the broken vase on the floor onto the bed, as if he had a deep hatred for that bed. He tore up the quilt and pillows there, without a thought for his image.

The feathers from the quilt flew everywhere. It was as if the snow outside the window had fallen all over him, coating him with the vicissitudes of life, covering him in anger and embarrassment.

He had probably been catered to by too many people. Being in a high position and having received flattery for so long, once he was angry, it was intolerable and difficult to control. 

I listened to him complain about his own investment.

His tone was passionate, his hands shook as he spoke, and his expression was extremely aggrieved.

It was like a ridiculous drama.

“He is my carefully chosen child. I watched him grow up, I held him in my arms when he was little, I spent more time holding him than his biological father. How could you understand my feelings for him?”

“I watched him grow up with worry and fear, afraid that he would encounter difficulties that left him with scars, afraid that he would imitate other boys and have a bad character. With great difficulty, I watched him grow up and turn into such a beautiful and kind-hearted young man. How could you know how much effort I put into him?”

I heard what he said, but I didn’t understand the reason.

A-Zhen was not his child. Did he deserve all that hard work?

I carefully looked at him from his head to his feet, and from his feet to his head, carefully analyzing his expression and tone. I tried to decipher the emotions corresponding to his state from the psychology books and materials I had read in order to guess his motives.

So I went back to the original conjecture I had denied. “Is he your illegitimate son?”

This didn’t seem right. If he was an illegitimate child, there shouldn’t be a marriage.

As soon as I said this, my father abruptly became even angrier. He came forward and pulled my hair, slamming my head against the door.

“Sure enough, aren’t you a monster that doesn’t understand emotions? What is a bloodline, really. How could my feelings be based on something so shallow?”

What was this about?

Great philanthropism?

My scalp was bruised, and blood flowed from my forehead. It trickled into the corners of my eyes, but I looked directly at his expression, trying to obtain answers from it.

In fact, at that time, I felt that my “good father” was mentally ill. I went to see him out of curiosity, but when I looked into his eyes, I unintentionally caught an emotion.

I received an unexpected answer.

This answer almost instantly threw me into an unspeakably filthy garbage dump. The disgusting, viscous, dirty water soaked into my clothes and my pores, nearly making me sick.

“You desire. A child.”

I wasn’t wrong.

If it was according to what he said, and A-Zhen was his carefully chosen partner, then he must have had this sort of mentality back then.

At that time…..how old were we?

There was a strange emotion rising in my heart. Although this was the first time I had felt it, I knew that it was hatred.

There was surprise in his eyes for an instant, as if he hadn’t expected me to notice, but he soon calmed down again.

He picked up a bundle of papers that had been knocked to the ground and handed them to me. His tone was much more collected: “I am not as extreme as you think. I am not interested in children, I just like to watch the child grow up and keep him by my side.”

“My liking is appreciation, not indulging in vulgar desires. See, it was you who ruined him.”

This twisted, disgusting concept and perverted feelings subverted my understanding of normal peoples’ emotions.

I didn’t read the papers he handed over. The blood flowing from my head had likely stained my eyes, because the world I saw was the color of blood. He was also bloody, ugly, and twisted.

I stared straight at him, looking into his eyes for a moment. “Why did the Wei family agree to the marriage? Do they know?”

I remembered the first time we met. The docile and well-behaved child held in his arms resisted asking his own father for help, and was urged to address that person.

If they knew but agreed, then what was A-Zhen, and what were we children?

If this was human emotion, then I would rather remain an inhuman monster.

When he heard my words, his eyes suddenly turned cold. “Why? Do you intend to tell them?”

“My good son, I admit that you have gotten better in the past two years. But do you think they will believe you, a person with an emotional disorder and a suspected antisocial personality, or will they believe me?”

He threatened me, but I breathed a huge sigh of relief.

This showed that the Wei family were unaware. They were innocent.

The feeling in my heart was indescribable, almost as if I had escaped death.

Wiping the blood from my face, I raised my head to look at him. Years of disguise were carved into my bones. My heart was flooded with dirty human emotions, which had long been like turbulent waves, but my tone of voice was still calm. “Aren’t you afraid that they will find out one day?”

Perhaps it was my superficial calmness that caused him to relax his vigilance. He smiled at me and said with arrogance and a bit of taunting: “Their feelings are very ordinary, and ordinary people will be unable to understand my feelings, so of course they won’t find out. There is no use in you telling them. No one will believe you, not even your mother.”

“I came here today to tell you that you are my biological son, so I will tolerate you this time. Solve this matter well and do not let conflicts arise at home.”

He patted me on the shoulder: “Your mother thinks you’re a monster, but your improvement these past two years has made her very happy. Do not let her down.”

If I’m a monster, then what are you?

Are you qualified to call me a monster?

I grabbed his wrist and punched him as hard as I could.

On the road of my life, the first thing I learned was to cherish life. Then I learned to have feelings like normal people. I learned love first, and based on this, I had many kinds of emotions and feelings without studying.

Shyness, excitement, longing, anger, jealousy, possessiveness. And later, I also experienced fear and loss. 

Now, there was heartache and hatred.

These two negative emotions impacted my brain and took over my body, filling me with vicious and terrifying fury.

I was still a teenager at that time, and he was a grown man, but I fought violently to the point of recklessness. I didn’t feel pain, and got up quickly when I was knocked down.

Finally, I grabbed his neck and pushed him to the floor, watching his blood vessels burst as he fought to breathe.

His body struggled. His eyes were red and he gasped for breath like the fish I once killed.

Death?

This word suddenly reminded me of something.

If he died, I would pay for it with my life, and I would die too.

I abruptly let him go.

I didn’t want to die. I wanted to live.

I couldn’t bear to leave A-Zhen. I wanted to go back to him.

I missed him, and wanted to see him.

That day, I rightfully left my father there and went back by myself. 

But after I went back, there was no way to indulge in my love like I had done before.

I became worried about personal gains and losses, sometimes anxious and sometimes angry.

I didn’t know what my father would do to me when he went back, but I had to do something to protect A-Zhen and myself.

I couldn’t let him get his wish.

I considered many people those days, and finally placed my target on my maternal uncle. He had inherited the family business and always had a good relationship with my mother. He owned a large share of the Wen family and if he would help me, he would be very capable.

But I didn’t have any evidence, and he knew I wasn’t a normal child. Just like my father said, he wouldn’t believe me.

At least one piece of evidence was necessary to convince others to believe me.

If a person had filthy desires and enough money to support them, then I didn’t think he had targeted only one person. I thought he must have done other shameful things.

Once something was done, there would be traces. Someone would know about it.

I tried to find them, but couldn’t do so in such a short time.

For more than ten years, I had rarely experienced strong mood swings. In recent days, all sorts of negativity suddenly flooded my heart, causing me to fall into strong, strange emotions that I couldn’t extricate myself from.

I became very anxious, and had to keep an eye on A-Zhen at all times to feel at ease.

He was unaware of his situation, happily preparing gifts to return home.

Whenever he had time each day, he took me shopping to prepare things. When he was tired, he would secretly avoid everyone and take the initiative to hug me. Then he would raise his eyes against my chest and signal that I should hug him back.

We embraced in corners, as if this could relieve our fatigue.

At that time, he could enjoy short-term happiness, but I knew that he was very fragile and that our happiness was also very precarious.

Every day, I worried that my devil-like father would confuse the Wei family, break us up, and hurt A-Zhen.

Under this mental torture, I became extreme, unscrupulous, and desperate……

The method didn’t matter, as long as it gave me time to resist first.

“……I misjudged you.”

“All of you, get out of here!”

“Mom, Dad, I was wrong…..”

I succeeded. Uncle Wei would never agree to the marriage with Mingyi again.

But why…..

Why did my heart hurt so much?

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Chapter 31 << Table of Contents >> Chapter 33