The woman’s body tensed slightly, then Lu Sinian’s cold voice reached her ears again, “Do you know what kind of life your son has been living all these years?”
The woman instantly looked up, staring directly at him, “They treated you badly?!”
At this moment, her voice held a sharp edge.
Fu Sinian immediately sensed something was wrong. He also knew his guess was likely correct.
He let out a cold laugh, “If there were no other heirs, what do you think I would be considered?”
In front of the woman, he no longer feigned his gentle demeanor, reverting to his cold, natural self.
The woman’s expression seemed to darken further. Two large tears fell again. Lu Sinian grabbed her wrist and led her to the sofa, saying in a low voice, “Sit first.”
With Lu Sinian there, she couldn’t leave now. Moreover, she had no intention of leaving.
She sat down obediently but said nothing.
Lu Sinian gazed at her, and finally spoke slowly, “Ten days before you left, my family told me you went on a trip with friends. I believed them.”
The woman’s expression flickered, and the guilt in her eyes intensified.
Her tears fell again. She parted her lips, unsure of what to say.
But Lu Sinian hadn’t finished. “Twenty days before you left, I asked why you hadn’t returned. My family told me you were in a bad mood and went out to clear your head because a friend had passed away, and you didn’t want to communicate with the family for a while. That’s when I stopped believing them, because I checked, and all your friends were alive.”
The woman hesitated to speak again, her eyes flowing with tears as if there were no end.
Lu Sinian looked at the person before him and spoke again, “A month after you left, my family was still making excuses for me. But I had lost control of my emotions and questioned them, asking why they were lying to me and where they had taken you. Seeing that the matter could no longer be concealed, Grandma told me that you had heartlessly found another man, divorced my father, and abandoned us.”
The woman instantly turned her head away in sadness, covering her mouth with one hand to stifle her cries.
This was likely how she felt now, unable to speak of her troubles.
“I didn’t believe it, you know? Not one word. I was very young then, but I knew you loved me dearly; you would never abandon me without reason.”
The woman: “……”
She was truly on the verge of breaking down into tears.
Lu Sinian’s gaze remained fixed on her. “So I’ve been looking for you. I started searching for you ten days after you left. I couldn’t get used to life without you. You always used to make breakfast for me, but after you left, it was replaced by the family cook. Their cooking never tasted like yours.”
The woman suddenly bent over, covering her face with her hands and weeping uncontrollably.
“I’m sorry, son, I’m so sorry.”
She didn’t want to abandon her son. He was her only son; how could she bear to?
But…
She had no choice. At that time, she truly had no recourse.
“Initially, my desire to find you was very strong. They constantly fed me images of you as a villain, telling me not to look for you anymore, calling you an ungrateful wretch. But I didn’t believe them; I kept searching. Because of this, my father beat me many times, just to make me give up.”
The woman: “……”
She suddenly didn’t know what to say, only crying. But she heard every word Lu Sinian spoke.
Lu Sinian’s throat bobbed, and he said again in a low voice, “At first, I stubbornly resisted them, saying it was impossible, that there must be a reason. I even blamed them for losing you. But after several beatings, I learned my lesson. On the surface, I went along with them; it was no use defying them. I could only pretend to be obedient, gradually accepting the fact. I kept looking for you, but you had, as if, evaporated from the face of the earth.”
The woman felt as if even breathing was becoming difficult.
She sat up slightly, her tear-streaked face causing Lu Sinian to frown deeply.
“Until just now, I saw you. I recognized you at a glance. Even after so many years without seeing you, the moment I saw you, it felt different, a feeling I’ve never had with anyone else.”
But he couldn’t be sure, so he chose to follow her to see. He hadn’t expected it to be his own mother!
“I saw you twice in the last two months as well, but you must have discovered me and avoided me, right?” Lu Sinian looked at her, not speaking anymore, waiting for her response.
The woman sighed softly, as if suppressing her emotions, but her words were still choked with sobs. “It was me. I realized you were following and ran away.”
“Why?” Lu Sinian’s gaze never left the woman, and the coldness in his eyes grew. “Can you tell me why?”
The woman subconsciously shook her head. She couldn’t say.
Lu Sinian let out a cold laugh, “Do you think my relationship with them is very good now? Do you think I can’t take charge of the Lu Group? Everyone revolves around me. No one can do anything to you now. I can protect you!”
The woman’s expression flickered, and she subconsciously looked up at the person in front of her. But she parted her lips, hesitating to speak several times.
“Mom…”
The woman’s expression changed. Upon hearing his address, she was on the verge of collapsing.
Lu Sinian turned his head and sighed, “If you still don’t tell me now, then I’ll have to take you back by force.”
The woman’s face changed drastically. She quickly shook her head, “No, I can’t go. Don’t tell them you saw me, don’t tell them…”
As she spoke, her voice was filled with deep fear, as if she didn’t know what to do.
“I shouldn’t have appeared, I shouldn’t have appeared…” Even now, she was in a state of panic, as if she couldn’t explain herself.
No, to be precise, she hadn’t intended to explain; it was as if she had some hidden hardship.
Lu Sinian’s brows furrowed. “The more you act like this, the more it proves my suspicions.”
The woman’s eyelashes trembled, and she subconsciously looked up at him. “What can you guess? You don’t know what happened back then, so you…”
“So you let them bully you, let them say whatever they want about you? If you didn’t leave, they wouldn’t give me the position of heir, and they would forcibly drive you away, is that it?”
The woman’s expression froze completely, as if petrified.
And in the next moment, she shook her head. “No, it’s not like that, I…”
With just that one sentence, he didn’t know how to proceed.
But Lu Sinian let out a cold laugh, “From beginning to end, they were all lying to you! Your withdrawal was only to fulfill their wishes, not mine!”