"Clara Whitfield, do you have any idea how I’ve spent these past twenty years?"

"Every single day, I kept my head down and bent over backward to please you. I had to watch your father’s face too, scared that one wrong step would set off your lofty Professor Whitfield, Doctor Whitfield."

"I was born into a high-ranking family in Jingshi, for heaven’s sake. And yet for you and your father, I went all the way to that godforsaken place in the northwest and ate sand for twenty years."

"The woman I wanted, I couldn’t even marry properly. My own children, I didn’t dare acknowledge. And on top of that, I had to put on this loving-husband act with a woman as cold as a block of ice."

Clara Whitfield looked at the man in front of her, her husband at last tearing off his mask and spilling out all his bitterness like a madman. Her stomach turned hard.

She could not tell whether it was his shamelessness making her sick, or the late-stage stomach cancer acting up again.

"Philip Hayes, if you hadn’t followed my father around like a tail back then, begging to be taken in as his assistant, with nothing but a high school education, do you really think you could’ve even set foot inside the western base?"

"And if you hadn’t stolen my father’s research, could you have climbed, step by step, all the way up to director of the lab?"

Clara Whitfield had seen through Philip Hayes long ago. Even so, hearing such brazen nonsense come out of his mouth still made her snap back at him.

"You forgot one thing. If your father hadn’t died, my Philip wouldn’t have gotten that martyr’s son-in-law title either." Her cousin Lorraine Tanner walked over and slipped her arm through Philip Hayes’s, her voice dripping with mockery.

"If not for that identity, how could he have gone back to Jingshi and become a big official? And our children wouldn’t be living such a fine life now."

Looking at Clara Whitfield half-dead in front of her, Lorraine Tanner felt nothing but pleasure, from the bottom of her heart to the smile on her face.

So what if she had once been the eldest miss of the Whitfields? So what if she was some overseas-returned PhD?

In the end, hadn’t she still been toyed with by Lorraine, by the whole Tanner family, all her life?

She had held her head high for decades, but now she was shriveled into a wheelchair, hanging on by one last breath.

And Lorraine Tanner? She had children around her knees, a husband in high office, and the Whitfield family fortune was about to fall into her hands too. Just thinking about it made her feel wonderfully satisfied.

"Mom, why are you wasting words on this bitch? Haven’t we suffered enough because of her over the years?"

"Exactly! From the time we were little, we couldn’t even call Dad ‘Dad’ out loud. We had to call him ‘uncle-in-law,’ and every time we met him, it had to be in secret. It’s all this bitch’s fault!"

The ones speaking were the son and daughter Lorraine Tanner had given birth to.

Back then, Lorraine Tanner had claimed some man had dumped her and left her pregnant. Not wanting to lose face in Jingshi, she had cried and clung and forced her way to the northwest to seek refuge with Clara Whitfield.

Following instructions from Lorraine Tanner’s aunt—who was also her own mother, Florence Tanner—Clara Whitfield found Lorraine a place to live, arranged work for her, and kept sending her money and goods, terrified she might suffer the slightest grievance.

She had even treated the twins Lorraine gave birth to as though they were her own children, using her own welfare quotas to solve their schooling and upbringing from childhood on.

And now these two children were standing here calling her a bitch to her face, saying they had suffered because of her for twenty years.

Just as expected of Philip Hayes and Lorraine Tanner’s offspring. Rotten to the bone.

Clara Whitfield could not be bothered to waste another word on this pack of filth. She turned instead to look at her own mother.

"Mom, you knew about those two filthy things a long time ago, didn’t you?"

"I did. Lorraine and Philip knew each other first to begin with. If you hadn’t come back from abroad, they’d have married long ago."

"When you get down to it, this is all your fault."

Florence Tanner nodded as she answered. At the corner of her mouth still hung that same gentle smile, soft and mild as ever, the kind she had worn for twenty years straight while pretending to be some detached, graceful lady.

Clara Whitfield stared at the dimples in her mother’s smiling face and wanted nothing more than to smash them flat with one punch.

Too bad she had no strength left now. She could not even clench her fist.

Still, she had prepared for this long ago...

"Then what about Herbert Tanner reporting my third uncle as a capitalist, and causing the death of his whole family? You knew about that too, didn’t you?"

Florence Tanner frowned slightly, as if she had not expected Clara Whitfield to ask that. "Your third uncle was a capitalist to begin with. What was wrong with reporting him? As for the others, that was just their bad luck. You can’t blame your uncle for reporting him."

After saying that, she shot Clara Whitfield a reproachful look. In a slow voice full of fake concern, she said, "All you ever cared about was the Whitfield family. You never once thought about the Tanner family. We raised you for nothing."

Clara Whitfield was so angry she laughed.

The Whitfields had once been major financial powers in Hu shang, while the Tanner grandfather had been nothing more than an ordinary clerk in a little foreign trading firm. The Tanner family had been sucking blood from the Whitfields for decades. Who exactly had raised whom?

"And what about my younger brother, Clive Whitfield? Did he really just get lost?"

"That’s enough. Clive Whitfield, that criminal ringleader, was shot dead years ago. Why are you still dragging up all this old dirt?"

Roland Tanner cut Clara Whitfield off impatiently, his whole face full of irritation. "Didn’t you call us here to say you had clues about the Whitfield family treasure? Where are the clues?"

The Whitfield family had already fallen apart long ago. Who had the patience to sit here and help this bitch dig through old accounts?

If it hadn’t been for those treasures, would he have left the little beauty he had just gotten his hands on and come all the way to this rotten place?

"Florence Tanner, I need you to answer my question."

Clara Whitfield ignored Roland Tanner entirely. She drew in a deep breath and hurled one last furious shout at the woman she had once called mother.

Florence Tanner’s brows drew together, but her answer came light and casual.

"So what if he got lost? He had only himself to blame for not listening."

"Fine. Then you and your obedient Tanner family can all go to hell together!"

Clara Whitfield threw back her head and burst into wild laughter. Bloody tears streamed from her eyes as her finger came down on the detonator.

In an instant, everyone was blown to pieces.

~~

July, 1965.

Hanlin Hutong, the Whitfield residence.

Florence Tanner lay on an imported French bed, savoring the pleasure from a moment ago while turning over the latest gossip she had heard in their circle.

The newspapers and radio had been encouraging intellectuals to return home lately. That bookworm Elgar Whitfield—was he coming back too?

Back in Shanghai, her father had been nothing more than a junior employee at a foreign firm, and her brother had spent his days loafing around the streets. But she, she had ability. She had managed to latch onto the Whitfield family’s second young master, the famous doctor and professor.

She had finally enjoyed a few years of wealth and comfort, only for Elgar Whitfield to insist on serving the country and going abroad to study some so-called new technology.

Of course she had refused. Using her pregnancy as leverage, she had made a huge scene.

Who would have thought that her husband, usually so honest and easy to handle, would become unusually firm this time and sign the divorce papers?

Before she had even processed it, the man had already taken their daughter, Clara Whitfield, and rushed overseas.

She had been completely dumbstruck and could only run to the Whitfield family’s Third Master for help.

She had only wanted some money. Even if the amount was a bit large, what was that to a family like the Whitfields?

What was more, she was carrying the Whitfield family’s child in her belly.

And yet Third Master Whitfield had shown not a shred of kindness. Not only had he refused to give her any money, he had even said that whether she kept the child or not was entirely up to her.

Every time she thought of that, Florence Tanner ground her teeth with hate. The Whitfields really were black-hearted to the core.

Just as she was thinking, the man beside her suddenly asked, "Qinqin, the papers keep shouting about scholars returning home. Do you think that bookworm of yours might come back?"

"Of course he will." Florence Tanner let out a cold laugh and cursed without hesitation.

"That fool went abroad for the sake of studying some new science. How could he possibly not come back?"

"Then when that time comes, you won’t kick me aside, will you?"

The man lifted her chin, putting on the look of someone demanding an explanation.

"When that time comes?" Florence Tanner cast him a look from the corner of her eye, her voice sweet and sticky like it had been dipped in honey. "That depends on how well you behave."

The moment he heard that, the man pounced on her again.

Very soon, the French bed began creaking and groaning all over once more.

And just then, the carved double doors were shoved open from outside with a hard push.

The bright summer sunlight poured in all at once, instantly lighting every corner of the room.

And along with the sunlight came the sharp click-click of a camera flash.

At the same time, a sweet, lively girl’s voice rang out.

"Mom, Dad and I came back to see you. Surprise—"