Transmigrated as a Spoiled Girl and Stuck with the Villain - Chapter 12

Chapter 12

I hadn’t expected this group to be gossiping so vibrantly behind my back, only to start stammering in terror the moment they actually saw me.

“Ah, i-isn’t this Xie Huaiyan’s…”

“Oh my! Little sister, you really shouldn’t have come in so quietly.”

“Exactly, hahaha! Look at us older sisters, we were just talking about you when you showed up. What a coincidence…”

A group of wealthy socialites approached me with forced smiles, feigning intimacy as they hooked their arms through mine.

I let them crowd around me, my tone remaining gentle.

“It’s fine. It wasn’t that much of a coincidence, really. I was listening for ten minutes before I came out.”

“I was a bit of a spendthrift today and bought a ton of things, so I’m quite tired. I rested in the dressing room a bit longer than usual. You sisters don’t mind, do you?”

At that, their faces turned a colorful array of shades-it was quite a sight.

“We’re so sorry, little sister. We’ve had a bit too much to drink and were just talking nonsense. Please don’t take it to heart… I’ll be taking my leave now!”

“I should head out too.”

“See you next time!”

They moved like the wind, scurrying away in their high heels so fast that the room was empty in the blink of an eye.

It looked like they didn’t want to see me again for the rest of their lives.

I slowly let my smile fade.

Then, I tapped the System. “System, you mentioned before that you investigated Xie Huaiyan’s background. Can you tell me more about it?”

“Of course, but…” The System sounded a bit puzzled. “Why the sudden interest?”

I wasn’t sure myself.

When I first transmigrated into this book, I only wanted to complete the System’s tasks as quickly as possible. I didn’t care about the specific targets; I felt it would be the same no matter who they were.

That was why I had managed to mix up the protagonist and the villain in the end.

But things were different now.

For some reason, I felt a desperate urge to understand Xie Huaiyan deeply.

I wanted to know his joys and sorrows, his past experiences, and exactly what kind of person he was.

I wanted to know the side of him I had never seen.

…

Xie Huaiyan’s father was the head of the wealthy Lu Family.

A dissolute man by nature, he had once forced himself upon Xie Huaiyan’s mother while drunk.

The next morning, he had walked away without a shred of remorse.

Though devastated and driven to despair, his mother was a strong woman at heart.

She quickly pulled herself together and raised Xie Huaiyan alone by running a street stall.

In their quiet moments, she would hold the child and repeat softly, over and over:

“Baby, your name is Xie Huaiyan.”

“‘Yan’ means peace and leisure. We won’t look back at the past; I only hope your future is safe and peaceful.”

She was true to her word.

In the years that followed, no matter how hard life was for a single mother and her son, she never once went to find Xie Huaiyan’s father.

Xie Huaiyan grew up surrounded by that love.

But when he was twelve, that love was destroyed in the most brutal fashion.

His father suddenly showed up with a group of men and took Xie Huaiyan away by force.

He looked down at the mother, who had collapsed on the ground, and sneered, “Regardless of anything else, this is a son of my Lu Family. You want him to take the surname Xie like some outsider? In your dreams!”

As it turned out, the Madam of the Lu Family was infertile. His father had been worried for a long time until he finally remembered he had an illegitimate son out there.

And so, he snatched Xie Huaiyan back immediately, announcing to the world that he was the Madam’s child.

The father was happy, the Madam was happy, and the entire Lu Family was overjoyed.

But from that moment on, the mother’s life was ruined for a second time.

She spent her days washed in tears, causing scenes at the Lu Family estate countless times, only to be dragged out heartlessly every single time.

She never saw Xie Huaiyan again.

On the other side of those gates, Xie Huaiyan’s name was changed to Lu Huaiyan the moment he entered.

He silently endured the cold glares of his biological father and stepmother, as well as the high-society training that was so strict it bordered on cruel.

He did it all for one purpose: so that one day, he could escape and find his mother.

On the day he ran, he had made every possible preparation and finally managed to slip out of the house as he had hoped.

But the young Xie Huaiyan didn’t realize how vast this complex cage truly was.

He lost his way within the sprawling layers of the estate and was eventually discovered by a servant and dragged back.

After the incident, the Lu Family was incensed.

The Madam considered Xie Huaiyan an ungrateful brat who needed to be bled-to drain the filthy blood of an illegitimate child out of him.

Thus, Xie Huaiyan began to suffer all kinds of abuse, covered in wounds every day.

But he never gave up.

Escape, get caught, then face even tighter surveillance and harsher punishment…

After an unknown number of cycles, Xie Huaiyan finally managed to escape successfully.

With a heart full of joy and trepidation, he limped back home.

But what greeted him were dilapidated, dust-covered furniture and a neighbor’s pitying sigh.

“That poor woman. She was only in her early thirties, yet she passed away so young from illness…”

From that moment on, Xie Huaiyan’s descent into darkness was absolute.

When the System reached this point, I couldn’t listen anymore. I made a gesture for it to stop.

The System obligingly went silent.

I closed my eyes, trying to soothe the overwhelming bitterness in my chest.

Yet, I couldn’t suppress it at all.

In the chaos of my emotions, my thoughts suddenly drifted back to the night Xie Huaiyan accompanied me to the escape room-

I had run around that old estate for a full half-hour, and before I could even see the exit, my body had collapsed from exhaustion.

At the time, I hadn’t realized that Xie Huaiyan had once been just like me.

Dragging a heavily injured, young body, he had set out on that path to escape his cage time and time again.

And time and time again, he could never find the end.

However, he and I were fundamentally different.

It didn’t matter if I couldn’t escape; I had a lover who would come to pick me up and wrap a warm coat around my shoulders.

But when the twelve-year-old Xie Huaiyan couldn’t escape, all that awaited him were cold abuse and furious curses.

Followed by the next wave of despair, over and over again.