Chapter 19

An ZhiXia's heart was clenched so tightly, her whole body seemed to be dying.

She had heard An JingZhi talk about some children's experiences, but those were all superficial. Private child abuse like this, the Gao family couple would certainly not advertise it. And who could empathize with the victim An ZhiXia?

Zhou Nan cried pitifully, but she had to finish what she wanted to say today.

If after hearing all this, they still wanted to keep An MeiYun, then she had nothing more to say. She would just have to reconsider the two people before her.

An ZhiXia was no longer as agitated as before, instead she had calmed down. She recalled the scene that day, "When I woke up, I saw a disheveled old man who could be my father tearing at my clothes. Of course I didn't want to be bullied so I fought back. He grabbed my hair and hit me, it hurt a lot, so much I almost died..."

In her previous life she did die, and it was a terrible death too. Her body was dismembered and discarded in some corner of the mountain, no one knew where.

"Then I kicked him and barely managed to escape and climb up the mountain, and...I even rolled down from the mountain. It was my determination that allowed me to persist and find the Zhou family, because I was unwilling, unwilling to be bullied for so many years and just die like that in an unknown corner, with even my own parents unaware of my existence, instead treating the ones who harmed me like their own children..."

An ZhiXia deliberately omitted the part about meeting a man on the mountain. That would remain her deepest secret, one no one would ever know in this life.

Zhou Nan was supported out of An ZhiXia's room by An JingZhi, sobbing loudly.

So when they came out, all three An brothers were already waiting in the hallway, along with Liu Ling holding her child, and An MeiYun looking concerned as she stood to the side. Although they didn't hear what was said in the room, seeing Zhou Nan's pitiful sobbing, it probably wasn't pleasant conversation.

An MeiYun wasn't concerned about Zhou Nan's crying. She only worried whether her position in this family would change because of An ZhiXia.

She had to get on An JingZhi and Zhou Nan's good side. With everyone worried about Zhou Nan but not daring to ask, she took the opportunity to perform her concern. She pinched her thigh hard and with red-rimmed eyes, feigned sympathy for Zhou Nan as she went up, "Mom, what's wrong?"

An MeiYun wanted to hold Zhou Nan's arm but she dodged it and said coldly, "It's good you're all here. Your father and I have something to say to you. Let's go to the living room."

An MeiYun suddenly had a bad premonition. She was very anxious but didn't dare make any moves under Zhou Nan's coldness. She could only follow fearfully to the living room.

Zhou Nan sat in the chair supported by An JingZhi, heart aching.

An JingZhi then said, "I asked you all to come because your mother and I have something to announce. Now that ZhiXia has returned, the life that was maliciously taken from her should be returned..."

An MeiYun panicked, "Dad, what do you mean 'returned'? Have you forgotten your promise to me? I'm your daughter too!"

There was no such scene in their previous life.

Even when she was sent back to the Gao family later, it was because the An family was reported for not sending any of their children to the countryside to support national development. Only then did An JingZhi find someone to arrange for her to be sent to the nearby Anle village to stay with the Gao family.

But this life, she had just overheard An ZhiAng telling Liu Jun at the door that her biological parents had already been labeled as bad elements, and a public criticism session was going to be held in town in a few days. At worst, it might even make the newspapers.

She wasn't afraid of the Gao couple being publicly criticized, but if it made the newspapers then everyone would know, and even she might be implicated.

An MeiYun was already worried about this, and hearing An JingZhi's words made her even more anxious. Were they really not going to give her a way out? An JingZhi didn't dare look at An MeiYun's eyes, not because he felt guilty, but because he was afraid he couldn't bear her pleading gaze.

It was true he had raised MeiYun well and felt distress for her, but he had already doted on An MeiYun for 18 years. Right now the one he should feel most distressed for was his own daughter.

Thinking of all the suffering she had endured over the years, and the despair in her eyes, An JingZhi felt a stabbing pain in his heart.

He really regretted not going with An ZhiAng to take revenge on the Gao family, and not personally punishing that vicious couple. An MeiYun's panic made her desperate to find An ZhiXia, "Is it because sister ZhiXia doesn't agree to let me stay? I'll go find her and beg her, I'll kneel before her..."

"You're not my daughter, you're the Gao family's daughter. If it wasn't for the Gao couple's malicious act of switching our daughter, how could I have let my own daughter suffer so much while raising their enemy's daughter as my own?" At this moment Zhou Nan really hated her. Even when facing the girl she had raised for 18 years, she couldn't help feeling some resentment.

Her cold voice also stopped An MeiYun in her tracks.

"MeiYun, if you still remember the grace your father and I showed raising you, then leave. Don't make a scene, and don't say anything to beg us. Out of these years of affection, our family will try our best to find you a job, to fulfill the mother-daughter love between us over the years. As for the future, I also need to take good care of my own daughter. She was born from my womb, and it was my oversight that allowed others to switch her away, causing her to suffer so much over these years. Now that she has finally returned, I can't possibly make her uncomfortable facing her enemy's daughter every day just because I don't have the heart to do it."

An MeiYun finally had nothing left to say. She collapsed crying to the floor, unable to regain the doting love she once had from the two people who cared for her most in this world.

The three An brothers looked at each other. Although no one spoke, they could guess their parents must have been shocked by something in ZhiXia's room.

Otherwise, just yesterday when ZhiXia's identity was confirmed, the family decision was still to let An MeiYun stay. They wouldn't have changed their minds overnight.

Liu Ling held her child and stood to the side. She had no intention of getting involved in this matter.

Having been sisters-in-law with An MeiYun for a few years, she understood this girl well enough. There was something rotten in her core, obedient and sensible in her in-laws eyes but not necessarily so to others.

In the first two years after she married in, the little sister-in-law hadn't bullied her less, almost worse than her mother-in-law Zhou Nan. Even though An MeiYun had changed somewhat these past two years, she had still caught her own son being scorned and pushed to sit on the floor.