She knew she couldn’t escape.
Lu Chen had once been the person closest to her, the one she trusted most. Now, he was also the person she despised most, the one she least wanted to face.
Rather than face Lu Chen, she would settle for the next best thing—going with Lin Yanshu.
At least Lin Yanshu had despised her from the very beginning.
On her first day at the Lin family home, Lin Yanshu had warned her, “Even if we share blood, in my heart, my only sister is Wan’er. You’d better behave yourself. If I ever find out you’ve bullied Wan’er, I won’t let you off.”
He never gave her any hope, so she could never be too disappointed. In front of Lin Yanshu, the psychological damage she suffered could be kept to a minimum.
Far better than being wounded beyond recognition by the person closest to her.
Prison had taught her one lesson.
When you have no power, no influence, and no one to rely on, the only way to survive relatively safely is to minimize the harm done to you by any means possible.
So when her fellow inmates tormented her, forcing her to choose between having her face disfigured or being slapped, she chose the slaps.
When forced to choose between being beaten or kneeling, she knelt.
When forced to choose between drinking toilet water or barking like a dog, she barked.
She had fought back desperately at first, but the more she resisted, the worse the beatings became. To survive, she set aside her dignity and let herself be used.
See? Even when thrown among the most vicious criminals, she had still managed to scrape by, surviving on her instinct to avoid harm and seek advantage.
Lin Qian walked toward Lin Yanshu’s black Bentley.
As she brushed past Lu Chen, her expression remained indifferent, not even sparing him a single glance.
Her oversized T-shirt swept across Lu Chen’s fingertips. The hollow, empty sensation felt less like touching a person and more like brushing against a clothes hanger.
Lu Chen’s hand froze in midair. In that instant, it felt as though the air around him had solidified, leaving only the cold, empty touch at his fingertips.
Pain and desolation flashed through his eyes. His heart felt as if an invisible hand were squeezing it tight, every beat accompanied by a dull ache.
Once, her gaze had always followed him, filled with trust and dependence.
The two of them had grown up supporting each other in the orphanage. Whenever he called out “Qianqian,” she would turn to him with a bright smile and answer, “Lu-gege, I’m over here!”
Times had changed. Now, she looked right through him as if he were nothing, too stingy to give him even a single meeting of the eyes.
Lu Chen’s lips trembled slightly. He wanted to speak, but his throat felt blocked by something, and not a single sound came out.
Lin Qian got into the car and sat in the back seat. Everywhere she looked, she saw traces of another woman.
The passenger seat was covered with a fluffy pink cushion. An entire row of adorable Lotso bears lined the dashboard. The woman in the charm hanging from the rearview mirror looked more mature than five years ago, and more alluring too.
She smiled radiantly—the very picture of a pampered heiress of a wealthy family, cherished and raised in the palm of everyone’s hand.
That blissful expression seemed to mock Lin Qian as the fake heiress.
She had thought she could face all of this without caring, but seeing it with her own eyes still stung with the bitterness of the unfair treatment she had endured.
Lin Qian looked away, but her gaze inadvertently landed on the handbag beside her.
Inside was a pure white gown. Even without seeing it in full, the abundance of feather embellishments alone made it clear that the dress must be stunning.
Her fingers unconsciously rubbed against her rough jeans.
Every detail inside the car reminded her that she didn’t belong here.
From head to toe, everything she wore combined wasn’t worth as much as the garment bag holding the dress.
She looked out the car window as the scenery rushed backward.
Lin Yanshu, behind the wheel, didn’t forget to warn her. “Mom and Dad have missed you so much these past five years. They cried every day over you and worried their hair white. When we get back, put away that spoiled-princess attitude of yours. I don’t want to see you scheming against Wan’er again or competing with her over men, doing things that put Mom and Dad in a difficult position. As long as you behave yourself, the Lin family won’t treat you unfairly.”
When he finished, a long silence followed.
Getting no response, Lin Yanshu frowned in displeasure and looked at Lin Qian through the rearview mirror.
“Lin Qian, I’m talking to you. Did you hear me?”
Lin Qian finally turned to look at him and spoke the longest string of words she’d said since getting out of prison.
“According to Article 48 of the Prison Law of the People’s Republic of China, during their term of imprisonment, convicts may, in accordance with regulations, receive visits from relatives and guardians.”
“Visits are generally allowed once a month, for half an hour to an hour each time.”
“I served five years in prison—sixty months in total. With one family visit per month, I could have had sixty visits. But I didn’t get a single one.”
“You say your parents missed me so much. Then why did they never come to visit me in prison? Were they too busy to spare even half an hour a month?”
Her voice was flat and calm, but every word was like a sharp blade, piercing straight through his lies.
A flicker of panic and guilt crossed Lin Yanshu’s eyes, and the scolding he’d been about to continue was abruptly stuck in his throat.
His gaze instinctively dodged Lin Qian’s calm yet piercing stare, and his hands unconsciously tightened on the steering wheel, knuckles turning faintly white from the force.
“That’s… that’s because you were so difficult to discipline. Mom and Dad didn’t visit you because they wanted you to focus on reforming your bad habits in there. It was for your own good.”
For her own good, was it?
For her own good meant making her take the blame for Lin Wan’er and suffer endless torment in prison.
Such kindness—she truly couldn’t bear it.
Lin Qian found it all utterly tiresome. She didn’t want to spare Lin Yanshu another glance and turned back to the window.
Soon, the car pulled into the garage of the Lin family villa.
Lin Yanshu looked pleased. He grabbed the garment bag from the back seat and hurriedly turned to leave.
He hadn’t gone far when he seemed to suddenly remember Lin Qian. His body stiffened, and when he turned around, the awkwardness hadn’t fully faded from his face.
“Go change into a proper dress and come to the banquet hall.”
With that, he walked off without looking back.
After five years, this home was still just as foreign to Lin Qian.
She had never felt even a trace of the warmth of family here. Life here was worse than the orphanage.
At the orphanage, she hadn’t had a private room, but she’d had a sunny shared dormitory.
When the sun rose, sunlight would flood the entire room—it was incredibly cozy.
Back then, she especially loved the smell of sun-dried blankets. It gave her a sense of the warmth of home.
Only after she truly came back to this family did she realize that her home didn’t smell of sun-dried blankets, but of the damp, moldy odor of places the sun could never reach.
She pushed open the door.
The small room had no windows and was piled with clutter.
The only two pieces of furniture in the entire room were a single folding bed and an old desk.
This was the storage room—cold in winter, warm in summer—and it had also been her bedroom for the entire three years she had lived in the Lin family home.
Lin Yanshu had told her to wear a proper evening gown.
But when had she ever owned a gown?
Year-round, all she had was a single high school uniform. Even the T-shirt and jeans she was wearing now were bought with money she’d earned working part-time during holidays, ordered from Pinxixi—the two items together cost just thirty-nine ninety.
She remembered how, when she had happily put on those new clothes and asked Lin Yanshu’s opinion, his brow had merely knitted into a frown.
“What on earth are you wearing? Can’t you learn from Wan’er and dress a little more gracefully? Take it off and throw it away right now. Don’t go out wearing that and embarrass the Lin family.”