Chu Family Village.
"Cough cough cough..."
In a dark, damp room, Chu Ling, dressed in tattered clothes, was in such pain that her face twisted as she coughed nonstop.
In the center of the room stood a small bed.
Aside from the small bed, every other spot in the room was piled high with firewood.
It was obvious....
This was a wood shed—visibly dirty, messy, and shabby.
Yet this was where Chu Ling had lived since childhood.
Next to the shed, a little to the right, was the pigsty, where more than a dozen piglets were penned, now squealing desperately, clearly long since starving.
But the girl with stomach cancer who usually fed them and carried them on her back to the city to sell was still lying on the small bed inside, coughing without stop and too weak to get up.
"Cough cough cough.... splurt—"
In an instant, Chu Ling felt her stomach churn, the agony worse than death.
When she removed the handkerchief again, it was already soaked with fresh blood....
"Heh heh...."
Staring at the terrifying bloodstains on the handkerchief, Chu Ling, for some reason, felt no fear at all.
Instead, she bared blood-stained teeth..... and let out a wretched laugh....
As the saying goes: 'Nothing is more grievous than a dead heart!'
Chu Ling felt that right now... she was somewhat in that state....
She had thought that after learning she had stomach cancer, her parents would at least care about her... a little more than before....
But things turned out otherwise; ever since Chu Xiong brought her home yesterday....
Not only did he show no concern, he vented all the frustration he'd suffered at the hospital onto her, beating and kicking her.
And her so-called mother, Tao Yan, crossed her arms and stood by watching with a cold sneer.
If a neighbor hadn't heard her screams and hurried over to stop it, she might have been beaten to death yesterday.....
"So... the inner voice of that 'cousin' at the hospital was real?"
Even now, Chu Ling's mind kept echoing....
Lin Xuan's heart-voice that she'd overheard after awakening a superpower at the hospital not long ago.
Her biological parents were someone else?!
At first Chu Ling had been half in doubt, not daring to completely rule out the possibility that she was mishearing.
But the actions of Chu Xiong and his wife not only chilled her to the core, they also made her believe Lin Xuan's heart-voice all the more.
After all, what parents... upon learning their daughter has stomach cancer... far from treating and saving her, would even look as if they can't wait for her to die.
When something is abnormal, there must be something monstrous behind it!!!
Chu Ling wasn't a fool.
She could clearly feel that her "parents" truly wanted her dead, as if to remove an obstacle for their own biological daughter....
"I need a piece of evidence to confirm my suspicion."
Just as Chu Ling wiped the blood from the corner of her mouth, her gaze gradually turning cold....
Bang!!!
The shed door was kicked open with an earth-shaking crash.
The intruder was a rural woman of about forty-something with a shrewish, mean look.
Tao Yan, Chu Ling's mother in name.
She stormed in aggressively, cursing under her breath.
"You wretched girl, are you dead in bed? It's one thing not to carry the pigs to the city to sell today—now you won't even feed them?"
"Are you deaf? Don't you hear the piglets howling with hunger? What if they starve and get sick? This family is counting on raising these pigs and slaughtering them for the New Year!"
"You money-losing wretch! Not even worth a pig—how did I ever give birth to such a lowborn brat as you?"
"....."
Tao Yan rolled up her sleeves and glared viciously at Chu Ling, looking as if she were about to come strangle her.
Yet in her eyes a glint of smug excitement flashed.
No one knew Chu Ling's origin better than she did—this was the little princess of the Tang family in Magic City....
The Tang family—now that was a super-clan worth hundreds of billions!!!
To be blunt....
A behemoth like that was something she could only look up to her whole life—unreachable, without even the qualification to see such people once....
But now... the daughter of such a great family could only be beaten, scolded, and humiliated at her whim.....
This feeling of the low insulting the high was just too exhilarating!!!!!
Tao Yan grinned, her face full of petty triumph.
Especially when she thought of her own biological daughter, who was enjoying wealth and luxury in the big city in this little wench's place, and being carefully raised as a real daughter by that high-status couple.....
The smugness in Tao Yan's heart surged all the more.
Heh heh....
What big shots with power and influence? Weren't they being led by the nose by a peasant woman like her?!
At this moment, Tao Yan was immensely grateful that eighteen years ago she had risked it all to stage a grand opera of "swapping the princess with a civet cat"!!!
....
"I have stomach cancer! It hurts; I don't have the strength to work!"
"And I haven't eaten since last night; I need to eat first."
"I'm coughing blood, Mom! Can you buy me some painkillers? I feel awful!"
"...."
Chu Ling raised the handkerchief stained with fresh blood, clinging to a last shred of hope as she looked pleadingly at her mother.
Even if the two might not be related by blood, they had at least lived together for eighteen years; to put it harshly...
Even if you raised a dog, eighteen years would be enough for it to become the closest of family.
What drove Chu Ling to despair, however, was...
Seeing her in this dying state, Tao Yan didn't feel the least pity—there was even an unconscious trace of delight on her face.
In an instant, Chu Ling's heart went ice-cold and sank to rock bottom.
As for Tao Yan...
After she caught herself, she immediately restrained her smile and turned fierce again.
....
"So, what if you've got stomach cancer? You're not dead yet, are you? If you're not dead, you have to work—otherwise how's the whole family supposed to live on air?"
"Besides, I've raised you, a money-loser, for so many years! You've eaten my food and drunk my drink—this debt of upbringing hasn't been repaid yet!"
"Before you die, you still have to earn me another hundred thousand! Come to think of it, you're not faking illness to be lazy, are you? You still look pretty spirited to me!"
"Buy what painkillers? Do they cost nothing? What's there to buy?"
"Can't even stand this little bit of pain—sure enough, you're trash! You might as well hurry up and die!"
"I don't care—if you aren't dead, then get up! Get out there and feed the pigs right now!!!"
"..."
As Tao Yan's vicious curses poured out one after another, Chu Ling's despair turned instead into....
Rage!!!
Hatred!!!