Published at 18th of August 2024 2:04 pm

Chapter 440: Pei Yuan's past

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Nana reached the address that Pei Yuan texted her an hour later. It was a small home a little distant from the city life. The surrounding was quite pleasant with trees and gardens around it.

She stepped inside. On the walls, she saw photo frames hung on the wall. There was a boy and his mother in it, smiling and laughing. The boy was a baby who grew up to be a year old, then two years until Nana thought he was around nine years. Then there were no pictures with his mother.

“Pei Yuan?” Nana called out.

“Nana.”

Startled, Nana looked behind her. Pei Yuan was smiling at her as he walked towards her.

“You came.”

Nana nodded. “Yes. Now can you tell me what important thing you were going to say?”

Pei Yuan didn’t respond. Instead, he looked sideways at the walls where Nana was gazing at just a moment ago.

“She is beautiful, isn’t she?”

Nana said, “Yes, she is.” She took a pause. “She is your mother, right?”

“Was. She is no more.”

Nana slightly widened her eyes. “Oh…I am sorry.”

He shook his head. “No need to be. She was a gentle woman. She loved me very much. I loved her too. We were the only family for each other. We used to celebrate all festivals together. She used to drop and pick me up from school, no matter how busy she was with her job. She single-handedly raised me for nine years, and she did a fine job.”

“Oh…” Nana gently nodded. “That’s lovely and strong of her.”

A dangerous glint flashed past his eyes. “Yes. We were happy with our lives. But, unfortunately, she left me one day by hanging herself to death.”

Nana was shocked. She didn’t expect that such a loving woman would end her life and leave her nine-year-old son alone.

Pei Yuan smiled. “She committed suicide. She loved me so much, more than her life, yet she left me alone. Shocking, right? Do you know why?”

Nana kept silent.

“Because there was someone else in her life too that she loved just as much. My father. He died. When my mother came to know about it, she tried hard to come out of that grief, but she lost in the end. Her love for him won over mine.”

Nana pursed her lips. “I am sorry to hear that…”

Pei Yuan’s gaze was distant, as if he remembered something long back in the past. “She really tried her best, Nana. I saw that with my own eyes. She used to cry alone in the kitchen, or after I pretended to sleep, I heard her sniffling silently.”

Nana slowly asked, “Your father…he didn’t live with you?”

Pei Yuan’s gaze turned clouded. “No. My mother was a mistress. There was no hope of a happy family in our lives anyway.”

A mistress…

“Please don’t misunderstand my mother. She was not a homewrecker. She wanted to stay away from Dad, but Dad wouldn’t let her go. He was married, but he fell in love with her. He refused to let her go. Then one mistake happened between them that destroyed everything for Mom. She was ostracized, she was criticized when she learned that she was pregnant, but she couldn’t do anything. My Dad was in an influential position, but he couldn’t do anything either because he couldn’t leave his wife for Mom.”

Nana said, “That’s plain hypocrisy. On the one hand, he refused to let her go, but he did it anyway when the truth came out.”

Pei Yuan sadly chuckled. “Yes. Looks like Dad didn’t love her much after all. But Mom didn’t understand it. She was too gentle and, unfortunately, gullible to recognize that. She kept on loving Dad even when he never once showed his face all these years. But I didn’t mind it as long as she was happy. I was a child, but I understood from what I heard that Dad didn’t love her as much as he claimed. But my mom was happy in that misunderstanding. So, I didn’t say anything. Her sad face is what I hated the most.”

Nana said nothing. Love was truly blind, sometimes. She could only feel pitiful for his mother for holding onto, no, wasting her precious feelings on a hypocritical man like him.

“But that imaginary happiness also vanished one day when he died. I didn’t feel much for him because I knew the truth. But, Mom…Mom was a different case. She couldn’t handle his death. Maybe she was hoping that one day, they would be together again. Maybe, a miracle will happen, and he would accept her. But that hope burnt into ashes. My mom had to suffer so much. She cried till her eyes turned red and sore until she couldn’t do anything else but to kill herself to free herself from that pain.”

Nana silently kept on listening.

Pei Yuan narrowed his eyes. “And that made me loathe the man who killed my father.”

She blinked her eyes in confusion.

“He was murdered?”

His jaw tightened as fury surged inside him like a raging volcano. “Yes. Somebody killed him. And because he died, my mom killed herself too in that grief! I hated my father for sure for using my mom and then throwing her like trash, but I didn’t want him to die because his life was important for my mom. My mom was happy because he was alive and breathing. My mom was hopeful for a change because he was still there. But everything got destroyed by his death. Everything broke apart. And do you know because of whom? Do you know who killed my father?”

Nana stared at him. “Who?”

Pei Yuan chuckled. “Are you sure you can listen to the truth?”

Nana frowned. “Truth? What truth? How is your mother related to me?”

“Not you. Your in-laws.”

Nana widened her eyes in shock. “My in-laws? Liu family?”

“Yes.” Pei Yuan smiled. “I said right that my father was an influential figure. Who could kill him other than an influential person just like him?”

Nana straightened up. “Just say it straightaway whatever you have to. “

Pei Yuan took a step forward. “My father, Hua Bolin, was killed by none other than your father-in-law, Liu Hai.”

She looked at him, stunned.

Dad?

She shook her head. “How is this…”

“Possible? Why not? Isn’t Liu family a part of Underworld too?” Pei Yuan smiled. “How difficult is it to kill a man who belongs to the dark side? Of course, you know about that side, too, right?”

Nana stayed quiet.

Pei Yuan took a photo frame in his hand in which his mother was smiling brightly. His heart ached to see that smile now because he missed it like crazy. It made him suffocated now.

He gritted his teeth. “Liu Hai not only killed Huo Bolin. But he killed my mother too! If he had not murdered him, then my mother would have been alive! She wouldn’t…wouldn’t have taken her life! He stole the only light that shone my life.”

Nana was shocked by his outburst. She didn’t realize that he blamed Liu Hai for his mother’s death too.

“It was years later that I came to know the truth. When I searched for his so-called family with his wife, I realized that nobody was alive. Liu Hai annihilated him along with his entire family. My grandparents, his wife, and her unborn child. He killed them all.”

Nana knitted her brows as she thought about it.

Why do I feel like I have heard this before? Killed the man and his wife, who was pregnant.

She looked back at him. “Pei Yuan. What you said might be true. Maybe Dad really killed your father, Hua Bolin. But trust me. Dad would never kill anybody without any reason. Even if he and Jinhai are from the Underworld, they wouldn’t kill anybody if that person didn’t try to threaten them somehow.”

“And my mom? What was her fault? Why did she have to die?” His eyes teared up. “She was nothing but a kind and gentle woman just like you, Nana. Why did she have to suffer? Why did she have to die!?”

Nana sighed. “Pei Yuan…I feel sad for your mother’s death. It was unfortunate. But, in the end, that was a decision she made herself. I can understand her pain she must have gone through. It must be terrible to feel that pain of losing the one you love…even though that man didn’t love her back. But suicide is a decision where its responsibility lies solely with that person who made it. Dad has got nothing to do with it.”

“No! Liu Hai could have left him alive! Maybe he could have punished him even if Dad did something wrong, but why kill him? His one decision ruined everything. And that’s why I swore revenge from the Liu family,” His gaze darkened.

Nana stiffened.

“I wanted Liu Hai to see his family suffer and get destroyed, too, just like how I saw my family…my only family killed herself. And also…to free the woman I love from those monster’s clutches.”

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