It happened so fast that Song Yu Han was quickly overwhelmed with denying the reality after the shock he received. He stared at the figure hanging on the beam expressionlessly.
However, if one were to touch his hands, they would find it as cold as ice.
This was not what he wanted to see when he came rushing to see his mother finally. He carried all his gold medals and achievements that wrote his honors as proof that he had become the victor. But what was the point of it all? When the person he wanted to show it all of it to could only hang lifelessly in front of him.
The smile he yearned for…
The warmth he missed…
And the voice that called out to him so gently and tenderly…
All of it was replaced by a pale-faced and thin woman that did not even look better than a ghost.
At first Song Yu Han looked and laughed mockingly at himself. How could his mother be the woman hanging in front of him? That was what he thought. He tried to calm his beating heart and look for his mother again. Perhaps, he got into the wrong house.
But the house and password matched with the information he received. Even the lifeless woman before him, despite her eerie and deathly appearance, still resembled the mother that had stood beside him and protected him from all bad things.
Someone pulled him back. Calls and screams of help or calling an ambulance soon echoed behind him where the door was pulled open by his grandfather's assistant who had come to find him since he had stayed a bit longer than what the boy promised.
A loud commotion soon followed by the ambulance.
However, they didn't come to save people. They arrived to take a corpse away.
His mother had died.
Song Yu Han was too numb to listen to what everyone was saying. Of course, it was not because he had suddenly turned deaf out of a sudden, but because he refused to listen. It was as if his world had completely shut off everyone.
But even if he refused to listen to them, the voices still rang around him.
Some people said their condolences, some expressed their sympathy, and some told him to hold back his grief for the sake of his dead mother. They were so considerate and gentle with him. But it was unfortunate that the person they were pouring out all of their comforting words to had his eyes glued towards the stretcher where a figure covered in a white blanket was lying on.
That day concluded with his mother committing suicide. Or so, what the autopsy report had said.
The funeral was done grandly by the Song family. A lot of people came, but no one dared to talk to the son of the deceased woman.
And Song Yu Han, who had been sitting on the corner with a framed picture of his mother smiling innocently to the camera in his arms, didn't want anyone to come close to him.
At such a young age, his aura had already spoken a lot of volumes. Once glance and everyone could tell that he didn't want anyone to even stand in his sights.
Soon, the funeral ended. His mother died tragically, but also quite reasonably. A lot of people said that his mother couldn't take the loneliness anymore after being filled with guilt of abandoning her son. The Lu family was quickly tagged as a cursed family.
As for Song Yu Han, the half Lu and half Song… He never left his room after the funeral ended.
Surprisingly, the Old Patriarch Song, who had been praising him so much after receiving all kinds of achievements and medals and made a bargain with him, let him be. No one knows whether he no longer cared about this grandson of his that had just lost his mother or he was feeling guilty after separating the mother and son and decided to give his grandson some peace for the time being until he was relieved of his grief.
The young man who had become everyone's envy and admiration soon disappeared into the background. Song Yu Han's name was never uttered or heard for a year.
But the Song family knew that he had locked himself up in his room. They wanted to rejoice for getting this dark horse finally off the field. They no longer worried that this outstanding young man who had been raised personally by the Old Patriarch Song would become a hindrance when the fight for the inheritance arrived since he was a strong contender.
A lot of people benefited from Lu Tingting's death.
Only Song Yu Han truly felt that the world around him had quaked and fallen under him.
But who would have thought that Song Yu Han wouldn't stay like this forever, he suddenly emerged from his room after a year of his mother's passing. Though his body was extremely thin and sickly pale with a sunken and dark curled under his eyes, he didn't cower or look away when people looked and laughed at him as if he was possessed.
He was sent away by the Old Patriarch Song to recuperate and recover from the traumatic event that darkened his heart and life, fearing that it would ruin his development and waste the old man's effort to make such an outstanding man.
And as if Heaven had followed his intentions and decreed it to be… Song Yu Han actually made a comeback. He ruthlessly climbed up to the top and even surpassed his limits.
He soon became the irreplaceable Young Master Song of the Song family.
The Song family has tons of young masters and young misses, but only Song Yu Han was recognized by others and admired by all. His existence was an anomaly that nobody could ever expect!
"... The truth is that when my mother died, I didn't think I had a reason to live. I did blame her for leaving me behind. But I thought it would have been better to follow her to where she was than to stay and live with the strangers who forcefully entered my world."
Song Yu Han looked at Ran Xueyi who no longer had her head on his lap but sitting beside him, saying, "But I couldn't do it."
He meant he couldn't throw away the life his mother gave to him.
"And most importantly, I can't forgive them for what they did to her."
Ran Xueyi had never thought that Song Yu Han was hiding such deep pain inside of him. He appeared so strong and valiant that one would think nothing could bend or hurt him. But the painful past he carried in his back was too shocking and painful to hear.
She didn't know what to say to him. Her tears had already run down her cheeks in the beginning of his story. And it still hasn't ceased to fall down.
Even though she was only listening to him, it feels like she had witnessed what happened to him herself.
Her heart felt like it had been wrapped around somebody's hands and they were crushing it between their fingers without mercy.
"How could you…" Ran Xueyi sobbed and bit her lips to hold back the tears but she just couldn't stop it. Her voice sounded broken and hoarse as she repeated the words, "How could you keep all of these and not break?"
She wasn't merely asking him. She just couldn't accept that Song Yu Han had to carry on this burden by himself even though he had already lived all of years in despair, suffering because the world didn't want to be nice to him at all.
Others would have at least broken down already or even gone insane. Worst, kill themselves so that they wouldn't feel hurt anymore.
She realized that Song Yu Han had probably built iron fences around his heart so he wouldn't break. But that was what hurt her more. Not breaking down would only make things worse. The pain will only accumulate when it blows up… Not anyone, or even her, could imagine what would happen after.
She herself experienced some hardships and was antagonized by her own family. She was betrayed and tricked. And at that time, she was already thinking that life wasn't worth living.
If not for the baby inside her womb and Song Yu Han appearing in front of her, Ran Xueyi would have probably given up after retaliating against her family and Yang Baihua.
But Song Yu Han lived under the same roof of the people who made him suffer and separated him from his mother, indirectly killing his mother of loneliness for several years.
"Old…Old Patriarch Song… is he really–" Ran Xueyi couldn't say the words. She was in disbelief not because she didn't believe him, but because she couldn't believe that someone whom she had thought was the only person who stood beside her husband could be someone so cruel.
Not to mention, Song Yu Han stayed by his side and laughed with him. The two looked so harmonious and treated each other tenderly like true grandfather and grandson. But could it be that it was all just a ruse to trick everyone?
But then… Song Yu Han's words, smiles, and actions towards Old Patriarch Song were too genuine and sincere. Besides, when she saw the two of them, it didn't feel like he was pretending.
Song Yu Han guessed what she was talking about without hearing half of her question and slowly nodded, answering coldly, "During that year I locked myself in my room… I practiced hard to pretend and what I truly felt. And since the day my mother left my side, I had planned on how to deceive and make Song Yichen lay down his guards and trust me completely."
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