Chapter 6

Chapter 6

She couldn’t stand seeing Liu Hengyu get hit?

Then I would hit him again.

I kicked him in the stomach.

“Ah!”

The man weighed more than a hundred kilos, all of it fat, yet one kick sent him crashing onto his backside, clutching his belly and howling.

My mother went mad with rage. She tore free of Liu Ming and rushed at me with one hand raised.

The slap never landed.

I caught her wrist in an iron grip.

Watching disbelief spread across her face, I bared my teeth in a smile.

“Today is my birthday.”

Her expression shifted from disbelief to guilt, then to self-righteousness.

“I… I’ve been too busy. I forgot.”

Before I could answer, she rushed on. “So what if it’s your birthday? Don’t you know the day you were born was the most painful day of my life? How can you even bring it up?”

My parents’ marriage had been a business alliance. There had never been much affection between them.

Liu Ming was my mother’s first love.

She always said the years she spent with my father were the most painful of her life. She hated him, and she hated me.

I had never considered myself innocent.

I had spent my entire life atoning.

When she wanted to reunite with her first love, I kept my father in check and made him sign an agreement never to bother her again.

When her lover was unhappy at the hospital and wanted a promotion, I—someone allergic to alcohol—drank three glasses of baijiu to build the connections he needed.

Then there was this two-story house.

I poured in money. I poured in resources.

Whatever she asked for, I gave without complaint.

After all I had done, she could still stand before me and speak such disgusting words with righteous conviction.

Lin Jingyi was right.

I needed to strike harder.

I flung away my mother’s wrist.

“If this day is so painful for you, then let every painful thing remain with it.”

Giving her everything had never felt like much. Only when I began taking it back did I realize how much there was.

Money. Cars. Connections. This house.

In front of all three of them, I called the hospital chairman.

“I will make the medical investment we discussed. But I have one condition. Send people to the staff compound now and demolish the house you gave Liu Ming.”

My mother blinked, panic finally breaking across her face.

“What did you say?”

I glanced at the shattered vase in the corner and smiled.

“I said I’m tearing down your home and planting roses in its place.”

It was already past midnight when I left the staff compound.

The hospital moved quickly. The contract and the bulldozer arrived in less than half an hour.

After signing the agreement, I stood quietly and admired my work while my mother sobbed as though her heart had been torn apart.

This was the home she had lovingly built. Her happiness. Her safe harbor.

Strangely, I felt not a trace of heartache. If anything, I felt relieved.

Liu Ming’s dismissal notice would arrive first thing in the morning. There would be severance, but not much.

My mother had never held a job. Naturally, she had no income. Every one of her cards had been frozen.

She loved him, didn’t she?

From now on, they could live on love.

Whatever remained between us as mother and daughter ended here.