The misfortune occurred when Xu Lan was four years old. The woman passed after the God of Death finally summoned her over to the underworld. She wrote a letter to the old man, but she herself did not know whether it was written out of good conscience, for apologetic reasons, or for something else entirely.

At the beginning of the letter, she revealed how he forced her to surrender herself to him. He may have loved her, but she was not happy at all. She carried out a plot to seduce a random man – one whose identity remained unknown – and eventually gave birth to Xu Lan. When she saw him holding Xu Lan in his arms every single day and pampering the boy from the bottom of his heart, she silently revelled. She enjoyed the delight that revenge brought her thoroughly.

When she neared the end of her life, she decided to disclose everything to him. She was determined to let him suffer even after her death and hoped that his suffering would continue until the day he died.

The old man nearly went insane. He was admitted to the hospital countless times because of what happened. After he recovered from it and completed a paternity test, he began to torment Xu Lan.

Even though Xu Lan had not seen his old man for a long time, he remembered vividly how the tragedy of his life began.

Xu Lan was at the garden playing in the water when his old man came home. Happily, he threw himself at his old man and asked for a hug.

With a thump, Xu Lan got kicked in the chest. As he fell, the outer end of his eyebrow hit the edge of the pond and both his eyes turned red.

“Daddy?” Xu Lan burst into tears.

“Lock him up!” With clenched teeth, the fuming old man looked at Xu Lan with rage. Without so much as another look, he left.

Xu Lan was promptly locked up in a little black house. Food was delivered at a specific time each day. His old man drank a lot during that period of time, and whenever he got drunk, he would beat Xu Lan up and have the boy sent to the hospital. Such was Xu Lan’s life for the next two years. It may have been more or less than two years, Xu Lan could no longer remember clearly.

His old man had other women – many, in fact – and he fathered more children. Xu Lan was finally allowed to come out again to see how well his old man treated the other children while he was subjected to the complete opposite.

Xu Lan was also allowed to go to school with them, though it was mainly to be a source of their amusement. He was a punching bag and a dog to them, amongst many other things. That was his life until he turned fifteen. Xu Lan was not keen on talking too much about the things that happened during that period of time. It was nothing but verbal abuse and hospital trips – Xu family was rich anyway.

When Xu Lan was fifteen, Su Mei came into the picture and became the second woman that his old man truly loved. She could not tolerate Xu Lan’s existence and proximity, as she saw him as the illegitimate son borne by the woman he loved most prior to her.

By virtue of that, their father-son tie was cut off. For the first time, Xu Lan no longer had to deal with verbal and physical abuse. He no longer needed to hear others call him a b*stard, and he was finally happy.

As he recounted everything to Bai Wu, Xu Lan felt at peace. Bai Wu, however, felt engulfed in sorrow.

“Papa, I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t be here.” Bai Wu was unable to be as level as Xu Lan; he could only hug Xu Lan and let his tears flow freely. Bubbles even started to form from the mucus in his nose.

“Don’t cry. If the people outside hear you, they’ll restrain you again,” Xu Lan replied expressionlessly.

Xu Lan relived many of those bad memories when he first took Bai Wu in. First, there was Bai Wu’s heart-wrenching denunciation, then there was his old man’s unrivaled scheming.

“Is that where Papa got that scar? Is that why Papa’s body always twitches when someone criticizes you?” Bai Wu reached to kiss Xu Lan’s eyebrow.

Xu Lan pushed Bai Wu away and avoided his questions. Instead, he simply said, “Don’t call me Papa anymore.”

He spoke those words monotonously.

Bai Wu froze immediately. His heart sunk together with Xu Lan’s.