Chapter 356: Your love destroyed everything
The moment the word left his mouth, Hua Jing froze.
Then she laughed.
It wasn’t a light laugh, nor was it amused. It was sharp, broken, and edged with madness, as though something inside her had finally snapped. Her laughter echoed through the room, drawing startled looks from the officers nearby.
"Father?" she repeated, her eyes red-rimmed as she stared straight at him. "You’re my father?"
Her laughter abruptly cut off, replaced by a shout that seemed to tear straight out of her chest. "You dare call yourself my father?!"
Years of suppressed pain surged forward like a flood that had finally broken through a dam.
"Where were you when I was locked in that house like an unwanted stray?" Hua Jing demanded, her voice shaking but loud, every word drenched in bitterness. "Where were you when Chen Li humiliated me every single day, when Hua Ling smiled sweetly to your face and turned around to torment me behind your back?"
She took a step closer, her gaze piercing. "You knew. Don’t pretend you didn’t. You knew I was being mistreated. You knew I was beaten, starved, insulted, and treated worse than a servant. I cried. I begged. I tried to tell you. And what did you do?"
Her lips curled into a cold, mocking smile. "Nothing."
Hua Mingrong opened his mouth, but no sound came out.
"You chose to look away," Hua Jing continued, her voice rising with every sentence. "You chose your peaceful life, your reputation, your perfect wife and daughter over me. You let them trample me because acknowledging my suffering would have been inconvenient for you."
Her chest heaved as she spoke, years of emotional suffocation finally finding release. "You watched me grow up in fear. You watched me shrink myself just to survive. And even when I was sent into a coma, even when my life was hanging by a thread, you still didn’t protect me."
Her eyes burned as she stared at him. "So tell me—what kind of father does that make you?"
Hua Mingrong’s face twisted in pain. "I... I didn’t know it was that bad—"
"You knew," Hua Jing interrupted sharply. "You just didn’t care enough."
The words hit him harder than any blow.
"You want to talk about love?" she scoffed. "If you truly loved my mother, you would have protected her. If you truly loved me, you would have stood up for me even once. But you didn’t. Your so-called love only brought disaster."
Her voice dropped, cold and final. "My mother died because of your weakness. And I suffered because of your silence."
Hua Mingrong stood there, trembling, his lips pale, his eyes filled with regret that came far too late. For the first time, he truly understood that the daughter standing before him was no longer someone he could control, dismiss, or silence.
And more painfully still—
He realized that he had already lost her!
Everyone inside the police station was completely stunned.
The air seemed to freeze as Hua Jing’s words lingered, heavy and unescapable. The officers who had been handling routine cases, the civilians waiting to file reports, even the clerks behind the counter—all of them stood rooted in place. Many had recognized her the moment she spoke. She was Hua Jing, the glamorous, untouchable star who always appeared poised and distant on screens. Yet the woman standing here now was stripped of all polish, exposing scars no one had imagined she carried.
The disbelief quickly turned into something else—sympathy. Raw, aching sympathy.
No one spoke, but someone had already lifted a phone. The recording began quietly, almost instinctively, right when Hua Jing’s restrained fury had broken loose moments earlier. By the time the clip was uploaded, it spread like wildfire. Within minutes, it was everywhere. Views multiplied, shares exploded, and the comments surged faster than they could be deleted.
Outside the police station, the internet was in chaos.
Hua Jing’s social media page was flooded with messages—comforting words, apologies from fans who had once misunderstood her, long paragraphs filled with anger on her behalf. People who had admired her talent now admired her resilience. Meanwhile, Hua Ling’s account became a battlefield. Blue Entertainment tried desperately to stabilize it, but it was useless. Hate comments poured in faster than moderators could react. Accusations, curses, sarcasm, and disbelief stacked endlessly until the platform stepped in and froze the account entirely.
Millions of followers vanished in an instant.
The same fans who had once lifted Hua Ling onto a pedestal were now the ones tearing it apart, merciless and unforgiving. The contrast was brutal.
But none of that had reached the people inside the station yet.
Chen Li, who had heard every word Hua Jing spoke, suddenly shrieked, her composure shattering completely. "How dare you speak to your father like that!" she screamed, pointing at Hua Jing with trembling fingers. "No wonder you turned out this way—you were raised without discipline, without morals! You’re unfilial, disrespectful—"
Her voice echoed sharply, hysteria dripping from every syllable.
Before she could continue, Hua Jing calmly reached into her bag.
The motion was simple, unhurried, yet it drew every eye in the room. She pulled out a sealed evidence bag and walked straight to the police captain, placing it firmly into his hands.
"This is the remaining evidence," Hua Jing said, her voice steady but cold. "I want the maximum sentence for Chen Li for the murder of my mother."
The room fell deathly silent.
The captain opened the bag, his expression tightening the moment he saw what was inside. A dress—old, carefully preserved, and soaked with dark, unmistakable stains. Despite the passage of time, the fabric had been protected meticulously, almost reverently.
Blood.
Chen Li’s knees buckled the instant she saw it.
She collapsed onto the floor with a dull thud, her face drained of all color, her lips quivering uncontrollably. This—this was the one thing she had never intended to see the light of day. A twisted trophy she had hidden away, proof of her victory over Ling Mu, kept not out of necessity but obsession. She had believed no one would ever find it.
She had been wrong.
Forensic confirmation followed swiftly. The blood belonged to Ling Mu. The condition of the dress was so well-preserved that there was no room for doubt. Gasps rippled quietly through the room as the implications sank in.
Hua Mingrong stood frozen.
