Sun Feiyan raised a brow at her cousin. She still didn’t understand what was running on Lu Xinyi’s mind.

Sun Mingai looked at the box then to her niece who was watching her expectantly. Lu Xinyi wasn’t here for simple chitchat—that she already knew.

“What is this?” She took the box with one hand and glared at her niece.

“Why don’t you open it and see what it is?” Lu Xinyi countered.

There was a hesitation on Sun Mingai’s face before she did what Lu Xinyi asked her to. Inside the velvet box laid a diamond ring. Her mouth opened, but no words came out as she was lost for words.

“Take the ring and see for yourself, to whom does this ring belongs to,” Lu Xinyi continued, her gaze fixated on her aunt.

With trembling fingers, Sun Mingai took out the ring from its confinements and lifted it to her eye level. Her heartbeat started to race. Why did she feel like she found something she’d been looking for a long time? There was something nostalgic about the ring that evoked such mixed feelings inside her that she couldn’t comprehend.

And then she saw it… she couldn’t believe what she was seeing right then.

Sun Mingai felt that she’d been struck with lightning from the heavens above. Her whole body shook, her legs giving up and letting her fall on the cold floor in shock. Tears uncontrollably spilled from her eyes as she stared wide-eyed at what was written on the band.

How could this be? This couldn’t be happening to her!

“Do you understand now why Uncle Jin sought my mother’s help that day?” Lu Xinyi’s voice was wobbly as if she was also about to cry from grief over her mother’s death. “How dare you, Sun Mingai? How dare you kill my mother when all she wanted to do was for you to be happy?”

Sun Feiyan’s eyes widened as it dawned upon her what seemed to be the problem here. As Sun Mingai held the ring on her palm like her life depended on it. She finally understood the gravity of her aunt’s sin.

Shen Jinxiu was planning to marry her? W-what?

Thinking how excited Jin was that day to meet Lus, it now made sense to her.

‘Meixiu…’ No wonder she was looking at her like that…

The world was overly cruel. So cruel. Sun Mingai cried out in desperation and grief. Why was the world so unfair for someone like her?

Since the beginning, she had to fight for love and attention from her father, and while she was growing up, she endured the judgmental and malicious gazes she received from everyone.

Growing up, she and Ruying had been consistently compared to the shy and proper Sun Meixiu. Sun Meixiu was so likable that she always felt like she’d become a backdrop whenever people talked about her sister.

She didn’t ask to be born this way, and certainly, she didn’t choose to become a Sun—an illegitimate child on top of that. Children could never choose their parents in the first place, but why did she have to pay the price for her parents’ sin? Why did she have to face the ridicule of the public by being a mistress’s daughter?

In this judgmental society who looked down on extramarital affairs, who would suffer the most but the child that was born out of wedlock? In everyone’s eyes, the first thing they’d see was her parents’ betrayal to Tang Lingfei. Sun Mingai had already lost count how many times she’d been subjected to prejudice since she was young.

Then, she met the young master of the Shen family, the sole person who’d treated her like she was her own person—not an illegitimate child of the Suns. She’d come to love and cherish this person and was moved when he’d chosen her, and yet…

‘What have I done? Jin, what have I done?’

Yet in the end, she was blinded by her jealousy and grief that she’d killed her own sister. She committed a sin, and her sister’s and Lu Sibai’s blood could never be washed away from her hands.

Meixiu had never said a word about this proposal. Why hadn’t she told her about this?

As an heiress from both the Sun and the Tang families, Meixiu never needed to compete against her half-siblings. In Mingai’s memory, her younger sister would always give way for her and Ruying whenever they wanted something from their father.

Meixiu never mentioned anything about them monopolizing the Sun family’s wealth. She always avoided confrontation, but the first time she did, she ended up a cold corpse. Sun Mingai would never forget the last look her sister had given her. It was akin to pity and helplessness.

Why? Why did it end up this way? How foolish she was to think that it was her sister’s fault that she’d lost her love? She destroyed the lives of the people around her. In this lifetime, only Jin and Meixiu loved her the most. How could she be so despicable to her own sister?

“My mother did nothing against you��� so why?” This time, Lu Xinyi didn’t dare to stop shedding tears for her mother. “You unfairly blamed her for Uncle Jin’s death. It was convenient for you to pin all the blame on her since you’ve hated her from the start. You even let Feiyan’s dad die so you won’t have any competitions for the inheritance.”

Sun Feiyan’s jaws hardened as she glared down at the old woman wailing on the floor. Her father’s death was unexpected. She refused to believe that it wasn’t a premeditated murder.

“I-I didn’t know…” Sun Mingai stuttered as she cried pitifully. “And I didn’t kill Weijun.”

“Still lying? Wasn’t it you who signed the waiver not to operate on my father? You let him die!” Sun Feiyan couldn’t believe that her aunt still had the audacity to claim innocence over her father’s death.

If her father was able to undergo the major surgeries before his death, Sun Feiyan wouldn’t have to endure being alone for a long time. Sun Feiyan was a daddy’s girl. Everything she knew when she was young was nurtured by her father.

Sun Mingai let out a bitter laugh. Of course, Sun Feiyan would never believe her after everything she’d done these years. A person who hated and disliked someone would never give that person a chance to explain themselves.

“You are a capable woman, Feiyan. I’m pretty sure you’ll be able to dig deeper than that.” She wiped her tears with the back of her hand and staggered to lift herself back on her feet.

“Check your father’s travel records and health history, then you’ll know then I’m not lying to you. It was his choice anyway, but if you really believe I killed him so be it,” she told Feiyan before facing Lu Xinyi, “I understand now, Xin’er.” She laughed, “I was envious of what she had, and I was blinded by jealousy.”

It was too late to regret what she’d done because no matter how many times she apologized to her niece, she could never give back the lives of Lu Xinyi’s parents. She originally thought that once she ruined Sun Meixiu’s life they were even, but alas… the nightmares she endured since that night haunted her to this day.