“You want me to come home… home where? To that house?” Su Feifei backed away step by step until she reached the wall behind her, then leaned against it weakly. “No! I don’t want to… I don’t want to go back there… I’ve finally found somewhere better, somewhere I’ve longed for… Even if this road is completely wrong, I won’t go back…”
Su Luo’s heart gave a faint tremble. His daughter’s expression, her voice, her eyes in that moment sent a piercing ache lancing through him.
“Dad… I’m your daughter… You care about me, but have you ever really understood me? Do you know what I want, what’s in my heart? When I was nine, my mother died. From that time on, you were the only family I had left… But you had too many deals to negotiate, too many connections to manage, too many people to deal with… You could never stay with me every day the way Mom did. Do you have any idea how I’ve gotten through these ten years since she left? From when I was very small, right up until now, at least twice a week there’s been some kidnapping or assassination attempt aimed at me. I’m afraid during the day, I’m afraid at night, I’m on edge every time I go out — and even at home I’ve never once truly felt safe… That year, Mom died, and I survived because she protected me. But do you know how many times I’ve wished I had died with her back then… died at the hands of the enemies you made!”
Su Feifei’s shoulders shook. The girl who had been so vivacious in front of Ye Tianxie, so imperious before her bodyguards, now huddled against the wall, curled in on herself like a wounded bird. Her voice grew sadder and sadder, until tears blurred her eyes and ran down her cheeks.
The smile vanished from Ye Tianxie’s face. He watched her in silence for a moment, then tilted his head back slightly and let out a soft breath.
“Feifei…” His daughter’s words struck like hammer blows deep into Su Luo’s heart. Looking at her, sobbing beyond speech, his chest ached and shuddered.
His road to success had been walked across the shoulders of countless people, over the heads and even the corpses of countless failures — and so he had enemies beyond counting. Those who coveted his wealth; those bankrupted by his advance who, in despair, had gone mad enough to want his whole family dead; his competitors of every stripe; and no small number of psychopaths who simply hated the rich… far, far too many.
All this he had borne, and long since grown used to. And his daughter had been bearing it right alongside him.
He had truly spent very little time with her. And every time he came home, what he met was that beautiful, sunny, cheerful daughter who seemed never to have a care in the world. Every time he saw her, all his exhaustion and foul moods would vanish — and only now did he understand that he had been wrong, wrong all along. All these years, what he had been seeing was a face his daughter had put on to set his mind at ease, to keep from adding to his burdens. He had never once truly understood what was in her heart.
“…All these years, not one of the people who tried to kidnap me ever truly succeeded. But so many times, it came down to that much… Once. Once would have been enough… Have you ever thought about it? If I had fallen into their hands, how would they have treated me? Would I have died like Mom, or would I have been left wishing I were dead…”
“I’m afraid. I’m afraid every single day… You can’t imagine how many nightmares I have. You can’t imagine how many nights I’ve cried in secret out of fear… And even afraid as I was, there was never anyone who truly stayed with me. Last year, you were home a total of thirteen days. The rest of the time I didn’t even know where you were. So far this year, you’ve stayed home seven days… Apart from those handful of days, I’ve been alone… without even one person I could tell what was in my heart!!”
Su Luo’s body swayed, his hands and feet visibly trembling, his face gone pale and drained of blood. He loved his wife and his daughter deeply, and for their sake he had never taken another wife, even now — because he didn’t want to wrong the wife who had died, and still more because he feared his daughter couldn’t bear it.
He had always tried to give her everything she wanted, to buy her the very best… And only now did he understand what an unfit father he had been.
Su Feifei raised both hands and scrubbed the tears from her face. “But now, I’ve finally found someone who can make me stop being afraid… That day, I was nearly kidnapped, and he saved me. He’s incredible — more incredible than the strongest person I ever imagined could exist in this world. When he lifted me up, I even thought he was the guardian god who only ever appeared in my dreams, the one who would never let me feel afraid again… Because I’ve been afraid for so many years. You’ll never understand how badly I’ve longed for someone like that to appear, and you’ll never understand how much this means to me… From that day on, I couldn’t stop thinking about him, because I told myself — and I believe it — that as long as I can be at his side, I won’t have to be afraid anymore. No one will be able to kidnap me, or kill me… Dad, are you going to take away even the one hope I’ve finally been given?!”
Su Luo: “…”
“I’m not stupid. I’ve never been stupid. And I’m not acting on impulse… I have plenty of friends around me, men and women both, and yet I’ve always felt utterly alone. I hate them. I hate you taking me to those banquets and parties. Why do those women deliberately get close to me? Why can’t those men be driven off, like flies? It isn’t because of me… it’s because of your family, your wealth! Because I’m your only daughter, and marrying me means getting everything you have. And you… you know better than I do how filthy their lives and their steeped-in-it hearts are, beneath those glossy exteriors. More than being kidnapped, what I’m truly afraid of is that one day I’ll become a sacrifice to a marriage of interests… That so-called high-society life is not what I want. I dream of being nothing more than the daughter of an ordinary family. I long to find and pursue my other half according to my own heart. I want to be with someone I like, not to be nothing but a bargaining chip!!”
The world fell silent all at once. Apart from the trembling of his body, Su Luo seemed not even to be breathing, his gaze vacant, his face bloodless… as if his very soul had flown from him to who knew where.
Su Feifei slid down the wall, wrapped her arms around her shoulders, crouched on the floor, and wept.
She had been living too hard, for far too long. And when the one thing she longed for most finally appeared, no one could understand how much it meant to her — or why she would be so desperate, so obstinate, in reaching for it.
The person she longed for was someone who could protect her, who could keep her from living forever in the shadow of fear, someone who could make her heart beat faster and whom she did not despise…
And she had finally found him.
The six bodyguards standing to the side had all fallen silent. Watching their young mistress weep, their own hearts ached in waves. They understood, truly, what this father and daughter faced again and again — and how exhaustingly she had been made to live.
(End of Chapter 73)