Chapter 225: Chapter 226: Malicious
Translator: 549690339
After taking Lingyue back to the Gu Family, Gu Junzhu had someone investigate Lingyue’s family background.
Lingyue’s father, named Ling Fangzhou, was a national research scientist.
Both Ling Fangzhou and Lingyue’s mother were college classmates, deeply in love, and soon got married after they graduated. They had a quiet and happy life as a married couple.
Unfortunately, that happiness didn’t last long. Shortly after Lingyue was born, her mother died unexpectedly.
When Lingyue was one year old, Ling Fangzhou married Xie Wennan, who had secretly loved him for many years.
Xie Wennan’s father, named Xie Yanbo, was Ling Fangzhou’s mentor in graduate school. Xie Yanbo admired Ling Fangzhou greatly and treated him like his own son.
After Lingyue’s mother died, Ling Fangzhou, being busy with work, left Lingyue in the care of her maternal grandmother.
It was said that before Ling Fangzhou and Xie Wennan started dating, he made it clear that he loved his wife and son, and once they married, he would definitely bring Lingyue back to live with them. If Xie Wennan agreed to this, then he would try dating her.
If Xie Wennan couldn’t accept Lingyue, then he suggested they shouldn’t see each other at all.
Xie Wennan had adored Ling Fangzhou for years, and now that she finally had the chance to marry him, she quickly accepted his terms.
However, after they got married and Ling Fangzhou proposed bringing Lingyue to live with them, Xie Wennan refused, claiming she felt unwell due to her pregnancy.
Ye Xingbei had no idea what Ling Fangzhou was thinking at the time.
The information obtained by Gu Junzhu’s people only stated that Ling Fangzhou didn’t keep his promise to bring Lingyue back right after marriage. Instead, he waited until Lingyue was six years old before finally going back to the small town himself to fetch Lingyue, who was staying with her grandmother, to go to elementary school in Jiang City.
But Lingyue had only lived in Jiang City for a little over a month before she ran away back to her grandmother’s in the small town.
No one knew how a six-year-old child managed to travel the distance of over a hundred miles from Jiang City back to the small town where her grandmother lived.
As Ling Fangzhou’s neighbors reported, at the time of Lingyue’s disappearance, Ling Fangzhou was away on an isolated research task in the institute.
Only after Lingyue had been missing for over a month did Ling Fangzhou finish his task and return home from the institute.
Upon coming home and seeing that his child was gone, Ling Fangzhou got into a big fight with Xie Wennan.
No one knew what the argument was about.
The neighbors only know that Ling Fangzhou, who looked terrified, went out to look for his child.
When the neighbors saw him again and asked about the child out of concern, Ling Fangzhou said that the child ran away to her grandmother’s place on her own.
Lingyue’s grandmother’s neighbors said that Ling Fangzhou visited several times to fetch Lingyue, but he was driven away each time by the grandmother wielding a broom.
Lingyue’s grandmother was a gentle and kind elderly madame who had never quarreled with anyone. Yet on that occasion, she tearfully drove Ling Fangzhou away from her doorstep with a broom.
In spite of Ling Fangzhou’s earnest pleas, he couldn’t manage to bring Lingyue back to Jiang City.
It wasn’t until two years later, when Lingyue’s grandmother fell seriously ill, that she asked a neighbor to phone Ling Fangzhou, urging him to return to look after Lingyue.
When the grandmother passed away, eight-year-old Lingyue, who was now unable to live alone in the small town, had no choice but to be taken back to Jiang City by Ling Fangzhou.
When Ling Fangzhou was home, Xie Wennan treated Lingyue as kindly as if she were her own mother.
Ling Fangzhou took on a task that would isolate him for six months, during which period, he had no contact with the outside world.
The moment Ling Fangzhou was gone, Xie Wennan’s attitude changed completely.
She didn’t physically abuse Lingyue, but had everyone at home ignore her.
Xie Wennan and Ling Fangzhou had a pair of twins, a boy and a girl. She also had a niece from her family side named Qu Yinyin, who lived with them and was the same age as Lingyue.
The twins were three years younger than Lingyue, and saw her as the enemy who stole their father’s love. They would often insult her by calling her “the broom star who hexed their mother to death,” telling the children around them that Lingyue was cursed, and whoever played with her would suffer misfortune.