"Mom, I was just thinking about Lin Jiayi and Lin Jia Bao."
Gu Nuan Nuan couldn't possibly tell the truth. She huffed, a look of annoyance on her face. "Those two were always bullying me, and Dad even protected them. I had nowhere to turn to for justice. Once the truth comes out that they're Dad's children too, let's see if they still have the guts to bully me. I can't get justice at home, but at school, I believe the teachers and students have clear eyes."
'Heh, whether the teachers and students have clear eyes or not, I don't know.'
'But I do know that once everyone finds out those two are Gu Lihui's illegitimate children, if I get into a conflict with them, I won't even have to act particularly wronged. The teachers and students will instinctively side with me.'
'Just like what I experienced in my last life.'
'This era is still simple and conservative. Someone as audacious as Lin Jiayi and Lin Jia Bao's mother, daring to do something over a decade ago that most people would still find unacceptable and despicable even decades from now... To so brazenly give birth to another man's children and pass them off as her husband's...'
'Once her actions are exposed, not only will she become a pariah, but her family and everyone associated with her will also be dragged into it, gossiped about and looked down upon.'
'Under those circumstances, how could the children she bore—children born with original sin—expect to remain unscathed?'
'Just like in my last life. Mom was clearly the victim, yet despite having done nothing wrong, she ended up disfigured and divorced. It was already tragic enough.'
'But then Gu Lihui and the others struck first, slinging mud at her, making it so she couldn't clear her name even if she jumped into the Yellow River. The result was that the world looked at us, mother and daughter, with malice. I was even given "special treatment" by the teachers and students at school, whose strange looks taught me the true meaning of this world's naked malevolence.'
'This time, whoever committed the evil will be the one to get a good, long taste of that malevolence.'
"..."
Zhang Minzhen was stunned for a moment, not expecting her daughter to say such things. Her lips moved, and finally, with red-rimmed eyes, she sighed. "Nuannuan, from now on, just live your own life. Don't let these matters between adults affect you. And don't, for their sake, turn into someone you yourself wouldn't like. It's not worth it. Mom just wants you to be well, healthy, happy, and that's enough."
Gu Nuan Nuan's eyes immediately reddened as well, and she felt a lump form in her throat. 'She never knew her mother thought this way?'
'Could it be that this was the real reason Mom was so unwilling to let her go after Gu Lihui and his new family in her past life? It wasn't that Mom didn't feel hatred in her heart; she was just afraid that her only daughter's soul would be twisted by hate at too young an age, eventually turning her into the ugly person she never wanted to see?'
Gu Nuan Nuan suddenly reached out, hugged her mother, and started to cry. "Mom... don't worry. I won't do anything bad or self-destructive because of them. They aren't worth me ruining myself. But I also won't let people walk all over us without fighting back."
'In her past life, she failed to grasp her mother's true meaning. In the end, although she didn't disappoint her mother or let hatred completely blind her into doing something she shouldn't, a strange twist of fate led her to another extreme. Ultimately, she made her mother suffer the pain of a white-haired parent mourning their black-haired child...'
'She wouldn't be so foolish this life. She would live an amazing life, standing at a height so great that those people would struggle just to look up at her, their hearts filled with nothing but regret.'
"Alright... As long as you understand what I mean, that's all that matters. Mom is willing to believe you." Zhang Minzhen had a feeling that her daughter had suddenly grown up.
She couldn't help but smile bitterly. 'After such an ordeal, how could her daughter not grow up in an instant? In the end, it's all because I was too incompetent to protect her.'
"Mhm." Gu Nuan Nuan nodded forcefully.
Zhang Minzhen sighed and continued walking forward, holding her daughter's hand.
Gu Nuan Nuan let her mother lead her, her other hand touching the black stone mark on the inside of her wrist that only she could see.
She had just taken another careful look. Inside the space, aside from that unknown plant, there was a small, sealable storage box she had tossed in to hold things. But it contained nothing valuable—just a few books she often read, two or three pieces of everyday jewelry, and some other miscellaneous trinkets.
'What a pity. If I had known I'd have such a miraculous encounter, I would have stored more valuable things in the space, like gold bars.'
Thinking of the space, Gu Nuan Nuan's thoughts couldn't help but drift back to her grandfather.
Gu Nuan Nuan still clearly remembered the first time she saw her grandmother getting hit. After the initial shock, she had quickly reacted, pretending to be terrified, but in reality, she was secretly ecstatic...
To this day, she could still recall the feeling she had watching her grandmother get beaten—that sense of 'she deserved it,' of schadenfreude, of pure exhilaration. The feeling was so incredibly pleasant, it made every cell in her body want to shout for joy.
'She probably wouldn't forget it even if she lived two more lifetimes.'
It was also after that incident that she came to a profound realization: she was, in essence, a vicious person herself. Whether she was willing to admit it or not, deep in her bones, in the depths of her bloodline, she had inherited the utterly vile, selfish, and vicious parts of the Gu family.
This realization made her instinctively afraid.
She was terrified that her mother would discover this side of her, this resemblance to the Gu family, and be heartbroken and disappointed in her.
She only had her mother left. In the whole world, only her mother still loved her. If her mother became disappointed in her... Gu Nuan Nuan still remembered the fear she felt back then.
During every minute, every second she was forced to be back at the Gu Family's home, Gu Nuan Nuan became more and more certain of one thing: no one in the Gu Family would ever love her, or even care one bit whether she lived or died.
So, back then, the most direct change born from her fear was that she started to act more and more obediently in front of her mother. She no longer resisted any of her mother's requests; in fact, she would harshly demand that she herself do even better.
At that time, she went against her true self, forcing herself to transform into the person she thought her mother wanted her to be—virtuous, even-tempered, and submissive...
For a long time, she even revered the principle of "letting the spit on your face dry on its own," even though it severely went against her true nature.
This was also the biggest reason why, for a long time after getting married, she could tolerate being trampled on by her in-laws, letting them feel superior at her expense. Back then, she loved Luo Hongyi too much. She was too afraid that he would notice that "vicious" side of her and become disgusted.
In the end, her hatred was as deep as her love had been. It was less about punishing him and more about punishing herself through a method that was almost self-torture.
A little voice deep inside Gu Nuan Nuan sneered at her: 'You really deserved it, taking a perfectly good hand and playing it so badly. Truly, you're like trying to plaster a wall with mud—a hopeless case. If you're going to be a meat bun, don't blame the dogs for following you.'
She shook her head. 'If it weren't for the shadow of her childhood, if it weren't for her subconscious belief that showing even a hint of "rebellion" would cause her to lose the affection of the person she loved, she wouldn't have put herself through so much, right?'
But even having found the root cause, Gu Nuan Nuan still couldn't let go of her feelings toward those people. She couldn't forgive them.
'I'm sorry, all you people who bullied me in my past life—are you ready? Even if I was also at fault, I'm still not prepared to forgive you. This life, I'm going to be my truest, most unrestrained self. I'm going to change my mother's destiny. And I'm going to bully every single person who once bullied me.'
Gu Nuan Nuan clenched her fists, making a silent vow to herself.
'This life, she was also going to transform her mother.'
'Since Gu Lihui refused to cherish a mother who was already so good, so gentle and kind, then she would help her mother change. She would help her mother become even more wonderful. The more wonderful her mother became, the more Gu Lihui would look back on the past with endless regret, right?'