Chapter 47: A Scumbag Matched with a Cheap Whore
A palm-sized box made of purple sandalwood—this was the last keepsake her mother left her.
As a child, she was curious and always wanted to open it to see what treasures it held inside, but her mother only smiled and shook her head, saying the time hadn’t come.
Now, she understood—the so-called right moment was now.
It was when she was utterly broken and hopeless toward this family.
The box was locked, but not with an ordinary lock.
Engraved around the keyhole were intricate esoteric symbols, through which faint strands of spiritual energy flowed, sealing the box tightly.
Ye Qingyan took a deep breath, recalling the mystical incantation her mother once taught her.
At that time, she thought it was just a bedtime story. She never imagined it was her mother’s last key left for her.
She removed a silver hairpin from her bun, pricked her fingertip hard.
“Hiss…”
A drop of crimson blood welled up, warm from her body, falling onto the arcane lock’s runes.
“With my blood, I bear your will, break!”
She softly chanted the spell.
The blood was instantly absorbed by the runes, and the wooden box emitted a faint glow.
“Click.”
A light sound, and the mystical lock opened.
Slowly, she lifted the lid. Inside lay a thick, yellowed letter.
On the envelope was her mother’s elegant handwriting—“To my daughter Qingyan, open personally.”
Her hand trembled as she carefully withdrew the letter.
The familiar scent of ink mixed with the dust of years hit her like a wave, and her eyes instantly reddened.
“My dear Yan’er, my daughter, by the time you read this letter, your mother may have long since turned to dust. Forgive my selfishness for leaving you to face this cruel truth alone, for I could not bear to die misunderstood, nor could I bear you being deceived by that beast all your life…”
Those opening words caught Ye Qingyan’s breath.
Beast?
She read on.
In the letter, her mother wrote plainly of her life after marrying into the Ye family—from the initial happiness, to growing doubts, to the ultimate horrifying secret that would overturn everything.
“The Ye family’s rise from a mediocre clan to the city’s new elite was not due to Ye Chengzong’s wise management, but because they sold out the Chen family.”
“Back then, the Chen and Ye families were longtime friends. My grandfather even regarded Ye Chengzong as his own son, entrusting him with the Chen family’s closely guarded business secrets. But he was raising a white-eyed wolf!”
“He abused my grandfather’s trust, stealing all the Chen family’s trade secrets, secretly colluding with external enemies to set a trap that destroyed the Chen family overnight—ruining a century-old legacy in an instant!”
The handwriting on the paper became messy here, as if her mother’s grief and anger poured out with every stroke.
Ye Qingyan’s fingertips grew icy cold.
So all her suspicions were true.
Behind the Ye family’s glamorous facade lay the shattered bones of her mother’s grandfather’s family.
Her father—the refined, righteous Ye Chengzong admired by outsiders—was nothing but a despicable hypocrite.
“God damn it…”
Ye Qingyan couldn’t help but curse under her breath.
This plot was more twisted than any melodrama she had ever watched at prime time.
She thought this was the worst, but what followed shattered her worldview completely.
“I accidentally discovered his affair with Wang Feifei. That wretched woman was already carrying his illegitimate child—Ye Qinglian. They… they were even plotting how to poison me so I would ‘die peacefully’ and make room for that harlot…”
Wang Feifei! Ye Qinglian!
Her mind buzzed fiercely.
Unbelievable!
A scumbag with a mistress, a child already born, yet still playing the role of devoted husband?
“I confronted him, asking why he treated me and the Chen family this way…”
“What I got in return was not repentance, but a brutal beating and endless imprisonment.”
“He locked me in the courtyard, telling outsiders I was fragile and needed rest. Yan’er, my child, it is your mother’s failure that you never saw her growing up, that you suffered so much…”
At this point, Ye Qingyan’s tears broke free, large drops splattering the letter, blurring the ink.
So her mother had not stopped loving her.
She had been imprisoned—her wings broken by that man’s own hands, locked in a cage.
Her heart ached so fiercely she could hardly breathe, veins bulging on her hands clutching the letter.
But the most shattering part was the final paragraphs.
The handwriting was crooked and weak.
“My health deteriorated day by day. The ‘ghost doctor’ he summoned did not prescribe medicine to heal, but poison to kill.”
“Desperate, I entrusted a confidant to bring a life-saving remedy, but he personally replaced it.”
“Yan’er, I watched with my own eyes as he poured the medicine that could have saved me into a flowerpot, then smilingly forced me to drink the poison given by the ghost doctor…”
“He even whispered in my ear, ‘Madam, rest assured, only when you are dead can I shamelessly ingratiate myself with the powerful, and the Ye family will rise even higher’…”
Boom!
Ye Qingyan felt her entire world collapse.
The last shred of warmth she had held for her father was ground to dust in that instant.
“Filial love?”
“Blood is thicker than water?”
“All lies!”
That man not only refused to save her—he had murdered her mother with his own hands!
For power and wealth, he had no hesitation in poisoning his own wife.
“A tiger may be fierce but does not eat its own cubs; Ye Chengzong, you are less than a beast!”
Endless grief turned into piercing cold that spread from her heart to every limb.
She no longer felt tears, only a blood-red haze before her eyes.
The letter was not finished.
At the bottom was a line written in blood, chilling to see.
“…The Chen family’s bloodline still survives, hidden within the estate under the name Huai’an, a distant relative of the Ye family. Yan’er, if one day you learn the truth, you must protect him at all costs. This is the blood debt the Ye family owes the Chen family…”
Huai’an?
That timid, insignificant young master in the household…
Was he truly a descendant of the Chen family?
Her cousin’s son? Her cousin?!
Damn it!
So Chen Huai’an had been telling the truth.
What a shocking twist!
What explosive information!
Ye Qingyan’s mind went blank for three seconds.
She had always wondered why Ye Chengzong, so obsessed with profit, would keep a useless outsider around like a burden.
Now she knew—it was to keep him close.
Raising the son of an enemy under her roof, subjecting him to scorn and abuse, controlling him…
Ye Chengzong, you really are cunning beyond measure!
A hypocrite with a heart of shrimp and pig!
“Pfft…”
Unable to hold back, a bitter taste rose in Ye Qingyan’s throat, but she forced it down.
No, she couldn’t spit it out.
This blood would be saved—to spit in the face of her enemies!
All the sorrow, all the shock, boiled into an overwhelming fury.
She stared at the blood-written final words from her mother, her tears dried, her heart utterly dead.
That man called “father” held no affection for her anymore—only a deep blood feud!
Ye Qingyan slowly refolded the letter and placed it reverently back into the sandalwood box.
She rose, walked to the dressing table, and looked into the mirror at the pale face with red-rimmed eyes staring back.
She raised her hand and wiped the tear tracks fiercely.
When she lifted her gaze again, all the fragility and sorrow were gone from those beautiful apricot-colored eyes.
Only a dead silence of ice-cold resolve and the blazing fire of revenge remained.
“Mother, rest assured.”
“The debt the Ye family owes the Chen family, and the life Ye Chengzong stole from you—I will collect it all, piece by piece.”
“Ye Chengzong, Wang Feifei, Ye Qinglian…”
She spoke to her reflection, word by word.
“None of you will escape.”
She would make every one of those who hurt her and her mother pay in full.
And the first thing she must do…
It was time to meet her so-called “good father” for one last, final act of ‘filial piety.’
“Then, let’s say a proper goodbye.”