A ragged, breathless wail escaped him.
"Twenty-three years I lived on that isolated island! Every year on your birthday, I set a bowl of sweet longevity noodles by the window and burned incense for a ghost! While my child... my poor, living baby... was left in the hands of that monster Xue Deyong, starved, beaten, and raised like a stray dog!"
The words landed like sledgehammers against the quiet room. Guiying's breath caught in his throat.
A cold bundle?
A fraudulent urn of ashes?
An empty grave?
Every jagged piece of the past snapped together with horrifying clarity.
Xue Mingzhan. That sanctimonious, vile old patriarch!
