GV – Chapter 59

Before the New Year was even over, another major incident occurred in the ever-turbulent Shangguan family.

Guo Yu had a miscarriage.

While the news was shocking, it mostly drew the kind of gawking curiosity one might have for an old tree surprisingly blooming.

What truly turned Guo Yu’s miscarriage into a major event was that the perpetrator was her own daughter.

Such a private piece of news spread throughout A-City’s entire upper-class circle overnight. The strangeness behind it all only reinforced the impression that the Shangguan family was indeed in constant turmoil.

A large number of servants at Guo Yu’s manor were dismissed. The mistress, Guo Yu, was still lying in the hospital, while Guo Siwan, after receiving the “paternity test package,” was now enjoying the “confinement package” exclusive to Shangguan Chong’s daughters.

To avoid suspicion, Shen Wei worked hard to maintain her new persona. She began to revel in schadenfreude and play around recklessly, showing a tendency to become a profligate heir. She cultivated an air of lawlessness, as if she had already secured the Shangguan family inheritance.

Lately, “Miss Shen is covering everyone’s bill” had become the catchphrase of sales associates in A-City’s major luxury boutiques. The young people fortunate enough to have been hired as sales associates during Miss Shen’s spending spree all earned the first pot of gold of their lives, without exception.

Meanwhile, in an apartment in a bustling district of A-City, Shangguan Chong sat quietly, drinking. He had deliberately kept the apartment looking as it did over a decade ago, making it eerily resemble the scene of an escape room.

It was truly eerie, for a life had been lost here.

The once-renowned Miss Jin had been imprisoned here by her own husband. She had lived here, despaired here, and laid the groundwork for a countermove that would be enough to bring him to his death.

Shangguan Chong had never expected that such an intelligent and proud young lady could endure such humiliation. She had actually used her own body to obtain leverage against him.

Tsk, how could he have let her succeed?

Ah, he had liked her, too. Though not as much as he had shown, he had liked her.

And now, a part of Jin Yuan’s revenge had arrived ahead of schedule.

The moment he learned of Guo Yu’s miscarriage, Shangguan Chong felt a strange lack of anger. He inexplicably recalled Jin Yuan’s dying words: “You will live a far more miserable life than I.”

Before this, those words had been a joke—merely the pitiful, powerless final curse of a dying woman.

He, Shangguan Chong, had commanded the wind and rain in A-City for so many years. He had tormented the great Jin family until only a pack of groveling sycophants remained. What reason did he have to be miserable?

But now, his line had ended.

Shangguan Chong had attended a prestigious university, but that didn’t change his obsession with passing on his own genes. He still had two daughters, but one was the child of his enemy, and the other had just become his enemy.

He opened another bottle of wine. Jin Yuan, it’s just as you wished.

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Qin Meiying was one of the servants dismissed from the Shangguan household. On the day of Guo Yu’s miscarriage, she had been waiting outside the door to deliver the daily nutritional supplements. She hadn’t made any mistakes; she was driven out simply because she had accidentally witnessed her masters’ ugly affair.

She had also been forced to sign an agreement with a penalty for breach so high that she couldn’t pay it off even if she sold her entire family.

Thinking of this, Qin Meiying felt she had truly made the right decision in accepting the Second Miss’s offer.

Qin Meiying couldn’t help but pick up the property deed she had recently acquired and look at it again and again. The house was in S-City. She couldn’t have afforded a house like this even if she sold herself three times over, yet all she had to do was betray Guo Yu once to own it.

Just by swapping a water glass, the Shangguan family’s internal struggle had changed in an instant.

Guo Yu didn’t lose her baby after being pushed by Shen Wei, who had seen through her scheme to turn the sisters against each other. Instead, she was shoved to the ground in a fit of rage by her own daughter.

It was all because of a swapped water glass.

So, when Guo Siwan went to find the maid to get her own water glass back, she very coincidentally overheard Guo Yu flirting with her new lover on the phone.

She had always thought the man who was pointedly mentioned at the banquet was the only one.

She had seen a photo; he bore a striking resemblance to Shangguan Chong before his face became fleshy and cruel.

Because of this, Guo Siwan could understand her mother. In such a harsh environment, it wasn’t unacceptable to find a substitute for a bit of comfort.

But how could her mother keep seeking comfort?

Stepping out of line once could be due to pain, but doing so continuously was simply indulgence.

Guo Siwan rushed forward and demanded to know why she was doing this.

Guo Yu had recently taken the medicine her former lover had procured for her and was emotionally unstable. Faced with her daughter’s questioning, she found it troublesome and replied faintly, “I thought you would have known long ago that he wasn’t an isolated case.”

Known long ago? What should she have known long ago?

That the original wife who had died unjustly was constantly mocked by her own father for being promiscuous, when in the end, both her parents played around more than the other?

Shangguan Chong had countless mistresses, but as it turned out, Guo Yu wasn’t willing to be outdone, was she?

For all these years, Guo Yu had, by word and deed, taught her to throw herself into the Shangguan family’s struggles with no way out. But now it seemed she was the only one struggling to stay afloat in this swamp, while her mother had long since found her own pleasures.

Unfair.

This was the second thought that surged into Guo Siwan’s mind, but it was far more powerful than the first.

I work so hard, living so cautiously for our future. And you, as my mother, were supposed to work even harder than me. You were supposed to shield me from the wind and rain, just like in all the poems and essays that praise mothers. But not only did you bring me into the storm, you secretly found a roof for yourself.

You can get what you want, but what about me?

I have nothing.

Unfair.

For what was likely the first time in her life, the thought of rebellion rose in Guo Siwan. She snatched Guo Yu’s phone. The man whose call had been cut off was now sending a stream of cloyingly sweet messages. Seeing them, Guo Siwan’s expression grew even colder. “Break up with this man.”

Guo Yu frowned. “Do you have any idea what you’re saying?”

Guo Siwan raised her arm and slammed the phone onto the floor. Her voice was as heavy as the impacted floorboards. “I said, break up with this man.”

The loud crash made the corner of Guo Yu’s eye twitch. Then, she let out a derisive laugh and gestured for the maid, who was about to enter to check on the situation, to stay put.

She looked her daughter up and down, her usual grace, born from years of being pampered in the Shangguan household, now gone. She spoke with near cruelty, “I never thought you’d be so attached to your father. You’ve really become the Shangguan family’s dog.”

Guo Yu was not a good-tempered woman, not even with her own daughter. Back when Shangguan Chong had abandoned her, she was a beautiful single mother barely scraping by in the slums. If she had been good-tempered, she probably would never have seen the day she was brought back to the Shangguan estate.

Guo Yu knew herself well. She was a mad dog that bit people—bit everyone.

A clearly hurt expression appeared on Guo Siwan’s face. The words had truly wounded her. The woman before her seemed to have reverted to the madwoman from the slums who would grab her by the collar and cruelly ask, again and again, why aren’t you a boy?

This familiar pain only fueled her anger, which erupted along with all the resentment she had suppressed since childhood. “From the time I was little, you told me that without the Shangguan family, I was nothing. And now? You’re keeping a man on the side while making me be a dog in this damn house. Don’t you find that disgusting? Or maybe you’ve always been this hypocritical and disgusting. You’re the real dog living at Shangguan Chong’s feet, which is why you can live so comfortably under his protection.”

Guo Yu laughed in anger. “What’s this? Your wings have hardened?”

A while ago, Guo Yu had thought Guo Siwan’s wings had hardened and she was ready to fly. But it turned out her hardened wings were for slapping her own mother in the face. What right did she have to criticize her? Hadn’t she fought for enough for her? So much so that her daughter was now greedy enough to deny her even a little leeway.

Guo Yu admitted that the man she was seeing now was different. So different that even at such a dangerous time, she couldn’t resist the temptation. She had even entertained the idea of it being more than just a fling. That was why she had been particularly averse to Guo Siwan’s interference from the start.

“If you think it’s so tiring, you can keep a man, too.” Guo Yu intended to end the night’s unpleasantness with that sentence. She didn’t want to say any more to this child who was still vying for her mother’s attention. Guo Siwan had no idea how much she had sacrificed for her.

It was precisely because Guo Siwan knew nothing—she only knew the dark side of the world Guo Yu had always shown her, one full of competition, betrayal, and how to betray—that Guo Yu’s final words made her anger and fear surge up together. She shoved her mother hard. “Don’t you turn me into you!”

Guo Yu fell to the ground, and that was when she lost the baby.

This child, part of Guo Yu’s schemes for years, was lost in such an absurd way in the end. As pain wracked her body, Guo Siwan’s terrified face appeared in Guo Yu’s blurry vision. A mother’s instinct overrode the atmosphere of their argument, and she reached out a hand, wanting to comfort her.

It’s okay. It was going to be lost anyway.

Guo Siwan also knew it was going to be lost anyway. Guo Yu hadn’t hidden her plans from her.

It was a terrible plan, but the Shangguan family was far more terrible. So, one could only use terror to blend in and, eventually, to possess it. Guo Siwan had convinced herself to accept it, just as she had convinced herself at the age of twelve to falsely accuse Shangguan Xianxian of secretly visiting Jin Yuan’s grave.

However, the child was now lost at her own hands. This meant that the terror would now befall her.

A chill, identical to the one she’d felt the day Shangguan Chong took her for a paternity test, seeped out from the marrow of Guo Siwan’s bones. She wanted to run.

Tears streamed down her face unconsciously. The maid, who had been standing like a statue, began to scream and call for an ambulance. The surrounding noise became a meaningless cacophony, like a roll of film about to be dropped into concentrated sulfuric acid.

It can’t be saved. Before she took the medicine, maybe, but now there’s no way to save it.

Is this retribution? Guo Yu thought before she lost consciousness.

Amid the chaos, Guo Siwan finally regained her senses.

Her senses told her that, barring any surprises, she was finished.

So she stayed by her mother’s side, wiped the sweat from her cheeks, and resumed the appearance of a daughter, beginning to worry for her life.

Mom, you have to be okay. Otherwise, I… I’m finished.

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