Chapter 7: The Truth Thirteen Years Ago
"Let's go in and talk, Xiaocha. We'll leave this to… to the men."
Pei Anran wanted to say "Dad", but she was afraid that Lu Xiaocha would think that they had abandoned her. She was worried that Xiaocha would be unwilling to accept him as her dad before they told her the truth, so she changed the words that came out of her mouth.
Lu Xiaocha nodded and went into the orphanage with the director and Pei Anran. freewe(b)novel.com
"Chen, why are you standing there? Come here."
Pei Anran called out to her awkward son.
"Oh."
Lu Beichen glanced at the young lady who looked exactly like him a few times. His expression alternated between disbelief, and confusion.
His expression was terribly complicated. This was the downside of not being able to manage his own expressions. Almost everything he thought showed on his face.
After Lu Zhan saw his family and the children from the orphanage leave, his expression turned completely cold. He was like a tiger whose territory had been violated. He walked towards the thugs with oppressive steps.
The group of bruised and battered thugs huddled together and looked up at the terrifying man walking towards them. There was only one thought in their minds.
Their lives were over!
No one cared about the fate of the thugs outside, let alone the director. If the Lu family had not come today, who knew what would have happened to her and the children?
"Director, do you still have Cha's clothes from when she was young?" Pei Anran asked expectantly.
The director nodded vigorously. "Yes, yes. I'll get them for you now."
As soon as she left, only Pei Anran, Lu Beichen, and Lu Xiaocha were left in the room.
The atmosphere was quiet for a while. Pei Anran cupped a glass of water with both hands and looked at the little girl opposite her helplessly.
"Cha… Cha, I'm sorry."
Whatever the reason, it was a fact that they had lost Lu Xiaocha for thirteen years.
Lu Beichen said, "This isn't your fault. If you want to blame someone, blame those who stole her!"
Lu Xiaocha took out an orange from her pocket, her expression serious and her eyes glistened.
"Go ahead. I'm listening."
She also wanted to know how she had been lost in the first place. She wanted to give them a chance to explain.
The young woman's face showed neither the excitement of meeting her family nor the anger of being lost for thirteen years.
Instead, her calm appearance deeply pierced Pei Anran's heart.
She must have been disappointed in them. That was why she wasn't excited or angry.
Pei Anran took a deep breath and slowly recounted what had happened thirteen years ago.
Thirteen years ago was when the Lu family's internal strife was at its worst.
The source of all this was Lu Zhan's father.
Lu Zhan's father was a very irresponsible person. Casanova was the most suitable word to describe him.
He and Lu Zhan's mother were wed through an arranged marriage. Lu Zhan's father didn't like his legal wife, so he often fooled around outside. Even after he had a child, he didn't restrain himself at all.
To be precise, after he had a child, he became even more outrageous. Lu Zhan's mother faced ridicule every day. She had to put up with the coercion and flaunting of those women, as well as Lu Zhans father's cold violence. Gradually, she developed mental problems.
She committed suicide after giving birth to her second child. Lu Zhan's father wasn't sad at all. Less than a month after her death, he brought his favorite mistress and her child home.
Lu Zhan's life had been chaotic and unstable ever since he was young. Moreover, not only did he have to survive in such a terrible environment, he also had to take care of his younger brother.
Later on, Lu Zhan relied on his own efforts to get into the best university. He also relied on his talent and hard work to secure a marriage alliance with the Pei family. Only then did he barely escape the clutches of that mistress and his father.
Unlike his promiscuous and incompetent father, Lu Zhan was really devoted to his wife after the marriage with the Pei family. In the end, their relationship became deeper and deeper as the days went by.
As an adult, he gradually began to show his ability as a business genius and suppressed the illegitimate children back at home.
However, how could those people let the matter rest? They had always been targeting him, be it openly and secretly.
When Pei Anran was pregnant with the twins, Lu Zhan's younger brother and his wife had an accident. At that time, Pei Anran was almost eight months pregnant.
Lu Zhan's only brother and sister-in-law died in the car accident, leaving behind their two children, Lu Beiqing and Lu Beilin.
At that time, Pei Anran also had to give birth to the twins prematurely, and Lu Xiaocha was stolen by a nurse from the hospital, who had teamed up with the rest of the Lu family, amidst the chaos.
When she explained, Pei Anran's eyes flashed with hatred and ruthlessness.
This was the first time Lu Beichen had heard of these things too. He clenched his fists and his eyes turned red.
Lu Xiaocha looked at her mother's expression and suddenly felt a pain in her heart. She touched her chest in confusion, not knowing what was going on.
Pei Anran calmed herself down and continued, "Your father lost his younger brother and his only daughter at that time. Both of us were devastated. I blamed myself, but I didn't dare to show it in front of your father. He had already suffered a lot. I couldn't add to his burden."
"Back then, we sent many people to look for you, but we encountered many obstacles. Our manpower was also greatly restricted. In the end, your father had no choice but to deal with everyone in the Lu family before looking for you again."
Pei Anran sneered. "We got your grandfather to be disabled and sent him to a hospital. Then, we either sent some of those illegitimate children to prisons and mental hospitals, and others overseas so that they could never return. None of those people were left behind. As for that woman, she also went to prison with her son."
It was also because of this that all those outsiders all stood on the moral high ground and accused the couple of being too ruthless and vicious, as if they were God themselves.
What the hell did they know? They had never experienced the despair and pain they felt at the time. No one had the right to call them vicious!
No one knew how the couple had supported each other to get to where they were today. Outsiders only knew that the Lu family was now a wealthy family and that they were one of the richest people in the world. However, they did not know how much they had sacrificed and lost behind the scenes.
"But when we cleared all the obstacles and went to look for you, we couldn't find any leads at all. In fact, when we caught the nurse and the people who kidnapped you, they said that you were already dead. However, Zhan and I didn't believe them. We've actually been looking for you in secret all these years."
"But the world is a big place. It's as hard as looking for a needle in a haystack for us to find someone. At first, we looked for you out in the open."
"However, some malicious people brought children who looked like Beichen to us. Some of them just happened to look like him, while others underwent plastic surgery to look like Beichen." freewebnove(l)
"Your father and I immediately recognized that those children were fake. None of them was our daughter. After that, we had no choice but to conduct our search in secret."
"However, it's a completely different story now. The moment we saw you, we knew that you must be our daughter. Beichen must have felt the same way. Otherwise, he wouldn't have had you on his mind ever since the first time he saw you."
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