My Archrival's Tragic Childhood

Afterward, they went on several more thrilling rides in succession: the roller coaster, the drop tower, and the pirate ship. By the time Lu Xiaoxiao stepped off the pirate ship's stairs, her legs were trembling and going weak beyond her control.

Shao Enci carried her little white bag in one hand. His other hand rose instinctively, meaning to steady her, but his fingertips hovered beside her arm for a moment before he slowly drew them back. "Let's go to the rest area and take a breather. We can ride more later," he said softly.

Lu Xiaoxiao nodded gently. The two had just turned toward the rest area when a sweet, coquettish voice suddenly called from behind them. "Brother?"

They both turned toward the voice at the same time.

Three girls stood there in matching sets of affordable luxury dresses, their makeup immaculate. They looked no more than fifteen or sixteen. The girl who had spoken wore her hair in fluffy twin tails and had bright, dewy almond eyes. But when her gaze swept over Lu Xiaoxiao beside Shao Enci, her smile froze instantly. Feigning concern, she pressed, "Do you have a girlfriend?"

Shao Enci raised his eyes and gave her a cool glance, his expression chilly and his tone distant. "None of your business."

He couldn't be bothered with this half-sister of his, who shared his mother but had a different father. He wasn't even close to his own mother, much less this extra sister.

Sheng Yao's face darkened at once. Her two companions exchanged a glance and whispered, "Yaoyao, why don't you and your brother seem very close?"

"My brother has always been distant. He's like that with everyone." No sooner had Sheng Yao spoken than she was dealt a resounding slap in the face.

Shao Enci lowered his gaze to Lu Xiaoxiao beside him, a touch of gentleness in his voice. "Go wait for me in the rest area. I'll go buy a cup of milk tea."

Lu Xiaoxiao was taken aback for a moment, then pressed her lips together lightly. "I'll go with you."

The two girls beside Sheng Yao froze on the spot and stared at each other.

"Yaoyao, is this what you meant when you said he was cold to everyone?"

"He even offered to carry that girl's bag. They must be together."

Sheng Yao stared fixedly at the pair as they walked away side by side, undisguised contempt surging in her eyes. She folded her arms across her chest and scoffed. "As if she's worthy."

She looked away and curled her lip. "The only person fit to be my future sister-in-law is Sister Xinyi."

The He Family was a century-old family, after all. Only a wealthy young lady like He Xinyi was worthy of her brother.

Inside the milk tea shop, Lu Xiaoxiao sat across from Shao Enci with a straw between her teeth, her thoughts drifting back to her first year of high school.

That was when she first met Sheng Yao. Sheng Yao had brought several thugs from outside the school and cornered her in a secluded alley by the school gate. Right in front of her, Sheng Yao had thrown the little blue shark bear she had given Shao Enci onto the ground and ground the toe of her shoe over it again and again.

"That was a gift I gave your brother. What gives you the right to treat it like that?" Two thugs had pinned Lu Xiaoxiao's arms tightly against the wall, leaving her unable to move. Watching the gift she had spent so long preparing with care being wantonly desecrated, she felt anger rush straight to the top of her head and couldn't help demanding an answer.

Sheng Yao stepped forward and seized her chin, her grip neither too hard nor too light, though her smile was full of malice. "The thing you gave him was cheap and unpresentable. My brother didn't think much of it at all and tossed it to me. But I think it's embarrassing too. You ordinary families should take your little trinkets back yourselves instead of bringing them out for people to laugh at."

"Did Shao Enci tell you to give it back to me?" Lu Xiaoxiao's chest tightened.

"He did more than tell me to return it." Sheng Yao rubbed her fingertips over Lu Xiaoxiao's brow bone, her eyes filled with undisguised jealousy. "He also asked me to advise you to look in a mirror before you go out and take a good measure of your family background. How dare you even dream of reaching above your station and becoming friends with him?"

With that, she saw the anger kindling in Lu Xiaoxiao's eyes and went even further. "Besides, your looks are utterly ordinary. When my brother was studying in the United States, he was surrounded by beautiful young ladies from wealthy families. Looking the way you do, you could never catch his eye."

Lu Xiaoxiao turned her face away, refusing to let Sheng Yao touch her. Her fierce gaze was full of indignation at Sheng Yao's arrogance.

Sheng Yao lowered her hand and left her with one final warning. "If you dare approach my brother again, it won't be as simple as finding a few people to corner you."

At the time, Lu Xiaoxiao hadn't entirely believed Sheng Yao, but her hurt and anger had made her want to find Shao Enci and get to the bottom of it, to demand why he had let someone else humiliate her like that.

But from that day on, he seemed to vanish into thin air, absent from school for an entire week.

The anger in her heart slowly cooled, leaving only estrangement and resentment. From then on, she deliberately avoided Shao Enci, unwilling to exchange another word with him.

Abruptly pulling herself out of the humiliating memory, Lu Xiaoxiao stirred her milk tea and looked up at the silent boy across from her. "Have you and your sister always had such a bad relationship?"

A shadow passed through Shao Enci's eyes, and he murmured an acknowledgment.

The moment he ran into Sheng Yao, he had thought of those oppressive, suffocating years of his childhood, and of his mother, Wang Zhishan, who had nearly driven him to suicide.

He raised his eyes to Lu Xiaoxiao and, for the first time, laid bare the scars he had hidden in his heart for years. His voice was soft and measured. "Sheng Yao and I have the same mother but different fathers. My mother divorced my father when I was a little over a year old and soon started a new family. The court awarded her custody back then."

Lu Xiaoxiao heard the pain his family had caused him beneath his words. Her brows drew together involuntarily, and her voice was full of sympathy. "Was your mother... not good to you before?"

"Mm."

Images of the past surged through his mind. His stepfather's endless humiliation and beatings remained vivid to this day. As a boy, he had hoped countless times that Wang Zhishan would protect him just once, but she had always sided with his abuser. When she was in a bad mood, she would whip him with a belt, every one of her cutting words piercing his heart.

"I truly regret giving birth to a burden like you. I meant to use you to attach myself to the Shao Family and secure my place as a wealthy man's wife. Who knew that old man of the Shao Family would consider my character so disgraceful that he'd force me out without a penny?"

In his memory, Wang Zhishan's smiling face was twisted as she dug her fingertips into his young shoulder, her voice dripping with mockery. "I thought having a son would let me seize hold of wealth and privilege, but nobody in the entire Shao Family is willing to acknowledge you. They only see you as a bastard with no name or standing. If you've ended up like this, you can only blame your bad fate. You won't get the slightest share of the inheritance."

He had been too young then to understand the tangled interests involved. All he knew was that his biological father sent a generous sum for his support every month, yet not a penny of it was spent on him. His mother and stepfather pocketed and squandered it all.

When he was twelve, Wang Zhishan caught him skipping class to go to an internet café.

Without regard for his dignity, she slapped him three times in front of all his classmates and teachers.

A boy in his rebellious years cared most about his dignity. Those three slaps snapped the last string he had strained to hold taut for twelve years.

Shao Enci dashed out of the classroom without a thought for anything else. Wang Zhishan chased after him in a rage, shrieking, "Shao Chengrui, if you've got the guts, go die! Don't come back and disgust me again!"

Yes, before he was twelve, he had been called Shao Chengrui. His father had given him the name, meaning to carry on the virtues of the family and possess clear and wise thoughts. It had once been a name in which boundless hopes were placed.

To a child living in a gutter, the name was a joke.

That winter, the first snow fell over the entire city.

On that day of the first snow, Shao Enci chose to jump into an icy river and end his life.

Lu Xiaoxiao was the one who saved him.

The boy who had spent years trapped in chilly darkness welcomed the first spring of his life because of her arrival.