"You always acted like a good and caring daughter, but look where it took you dear sister. Ha!" Xin Fen's laugh echoed around the shabby and isolated room.
The walls were on the verge of collapsing, and you could see the paint peeling off from them. The room had only one bed without blankets even though they were in the middle of the harsh winter.
The only source of light was a little window besides the bed.
The woman on the bed had filthy clothes and a malnourished body, scars could be seen everywhere because of the torture they had inflicted to her.
She was wearing a long sleeved t-shirt and some trousers, both with faded colours from being constantly worn. They were too thin for the harsh winter's cold, but the woman wasn't trembling and didn't seem to care.
Even with the layers of dirt on her body, the beauty radiating from her couldn't be concealed.
Her eyes seemed bottomless and dark as ink and her once long hair had been cut short, while the small and slender face appeared empty and longing for something.
Her clenched hands formed fists on the sides of her lap, while the once well-proportioned body, because of being malnourished for a long time, was thin and without any shape. Overall she was as pale as early morning clouds.
Her face was angelic, but that harmony was disrupted by a long and deep scar on her right cheek, which was due to one her stepsister's plots.
Nevertheless she appeared still more beautiful than every other girl, even while in such a disastrous state.
Xin Yan kept looking at the ceiling with an uninterested look as Xin Fen kept talking bullshit, it only made her headache worsen.
"Xin Yan! Look at you acting all cocky and disrespectful, do you think you're still the haughty heiress you were before? That place is mine now, no matter what you do. Do you think people will believe the old Miss Xin Yan that bullied her poor stepsister, or me?" Contempt oozing from her eyes.
"Come on baby don't get angry, you know that she's going to die anyway, just give her that paper and let's go have some fun." Li Wei's voice reached her ears.
She suddenly felt a wave of disgust thinking about how that man was once the love of her life, how could she have been so blind?! It could be seen from a mile away that he was head over heels for Xin Fen, and she kept on hoping to build a future with him.
"You're right darling! Let's see how for how long you'll laugh Xin Yan." Xin Fen's delicate hand took a piece of paper from her new limited edition bag, and threw it at her face.
"You've always asked why Dad wasn't good to you and so on, now you can understand why bitch!" a sinister smile bloomed on her face while taking with amusement every little emotion on her face.
Xin Yan's eyes opened wide from the shock, her trembling hands gripping tightly the piece of paper.
That was a DNA test, Xin Mingli wasn't her biological father. Her heart felt wretched, but something kept telling her that she had always known that, but it still hurt, it really did...
A wave of visciousness clouded her eyes as she kept reading. Every word shaming her. How ridiculous... yes this is how she should call her attempts to gain fatherly love.
She had done her best all her life, getting good grades and being a good sister and even accepting her stepmother's family, everything for what? She got her title as an heiress stolen by her stepsister, while her stepbrother took her mother's company.
But the world still viewed her as the villainess, all because Xin Fen acted like a white lotus On the contrary she was always protected and deemed as an innocent an cute younger sister, people even forgot that there was only one Miss Xin. But at this point it wasn't even her, does she even have a father at this point?
Her body started trembling uncontrollably.
"Xin Fen, I swear on my name that I'll make your life miserable, I don't care how but i will." the hoarse voice getting stuck from the sudden urge to vomit.
Blood gushed from her lips as she felt her insides burning.
"You're getting your hopes up for nothing, you're going to die anyway, since the poison started working. Hahaha!" Her annoying voice coupled with Li Wei's hungry gaze towards her stepsister sent goosebumps all over her body. And just like that they walked out of the room, making it finally peaceful but her own thoughts made the room noisier than ever.
At that moment something caught her eye outside the window, even during a snowfall there stood proudly a little calycanthus flower, it was the only one as it had just bloomed.
That was one of her favourite flowers, she liked the flowers meaning, which is protection, she's always found it so interesting, such a little flower but it's yellow colour somehow brought her a feeling of safety as if she was protected for once.
It brought her to mind a distant memory of her and her Yichen, her fiance, when they where children. He always gave her the first bloomed calycanthus flowers in his garden, but never told her they're meaning. Before her stepmother's family came they where always together.
Wu Yichen had always been a cute and sweet child, but they were driven apart by all the untold things and everytime she tried to contact him strangely her family didn't let her.
She kept reminiscing of their memories while looking at the flower.
Such a pretty little flower could resist the cold and harshness that only winter could bring, she wished to become like that flower one day.
A single teardrop fell from her eye, then another, until she was a crying mess.
For once she hoped to see another winter with such flowers, but she couldn't.
"Please just another chance... this time I'll make it right please... please!" those where the last words coming out of her chapped lips as her gaze lingered on the little flower, little did she know how once her eyes closed the little flower sparkled like millions of stars.