"All because I broke a plate while washing the dishes."

"A plate that cost two yuan."

The expression on Lucy's face stiffened for a second.

"That... that's all in the past."

"In the past?" I pulled my sleeve back down. "Do you have any scars like this on you?"

She didn't speak.

"Have you ever been locked in a storage room for the night? In the dead of winter, with no blanket and the wind whistling through the window?"

She took a step back.

"Have you ever been so hungry that you had to rummage through a trash can?"

"Enough!" Lucy covered her ears. "I don't want to hear this! I'm asking you, are you coming or not?"

"No."

"Then let me tell you, Mom said if you don't come back, she'll take you to court! Children have an obligation to provide support! It's the law!"

I looked at her, suddenly finding it a bit laughable.

"If she wants to sue, let her sue."

"I'll be waiting."

Lucy hadn't expected me to be so firm. Her lips trembled. "You... do you really have no conscience at all?"

"As for a conscience, she beat that out of me when I was seven."

Lucy bit her lip, her eyes turning red. But I knew she wasn't sad for me; she was desperate.

"Nora, I'm begging you." Her tone suddenly softened. "I'm really at the end of my rope. If Mom dies..."

"Then you'll have no mother, right?" I finished the sentence for her.

"Do you know what it feels like to have no mother? I've known since I was four."

My father,姜远征, was a soldier. He sacrificed his life during a disaster relief mission when I was four.

Two years after he passed away, my mother married Gary.

From that day on, I became the superfluous one.

Lucy opened her mouth but couldn't find any words.

Just then, the store manager walked over and whispered to me, "Nora, the guests at Table 2 are waiting."

I nodded and took one last look at Lucy.

"My shop doesn't welcome troublemakers. Leave."

I turned and walked back to the kitchen.

Behind me came Lucy's voice, laced with tears: "Nora, you'll regret this!"

I didn't look back.

The oil in the pan had already cooled.

I reignited the flame, heated the oil, and added the ingredients.

My hands were steady.

My heart was steady, too.

It had been twenty years. I had waited twenty years for that "Why."

She thinks I will regret it.

But she doesn't know that the person who truly deserves to regret it has never been me.

Chapter 3

After Lucy left, I thought I could have a couple of days of peace.

Unexpectedly, my phone blew up that same night.

It wasn't a relative calling, but a strange number.

I answered, and on the other end was the voice of a middle-aged man, husky and tinged with a local accent.

"Nora? It's your Uncle Gary."

Gary.

My stepfather.

I gripped the phone, not saying a word.

"About your mother, Lucy has told you everything, right?" He cleared his throat. "Well, look, this whole thing, at the end of the day, is a family matter—"

"I am not your family."

"Now, now, kid—"

"Gary, I left your house when I was fourteen. Our relationship on the household register was dissolved long ago. My last name is Jiang, not Gary. You’ve called the wrong person."

There was silence on the other end for several seconds.

"Then I’ll be blunt." His tone shifted, dropping the pretense of kindness. "Your mother had a difficult labor when she gave birth to you; she lay on the operating table for four hours. She raised you until you were six; you owe her."

"I owe her?"

"Before you were six, she raised you all by herself. Your father was in the military, and you barely saw him year-round. After your father died, she was alone even more—"

"Enough," I interrupted him.

"Since you’re bringing up my father, that’s perfect. I have a question for you, too."

"My father’s pension and survivor subsidies, along with the resettlement apartment provided by the military, were all in my mother’s name. Where are those things?"

The other end went quiet.

Quiet for a long time.

"What things?" Gary played dumb.

"Don't play games. My father was a martyr who died in the line of duty. The lump-sum pension and annual subsidies provided by the military, up until I turned eighteen, amounted to at least three or four hundred thousand. That apartment is in the military family compound in the east of the city, seventy-five square meters. Real estate in that area is now twelve thousand per square meter."

Gary didn't make a sound.

"Where did all of that go?"

"You—you’re just a kid, what do you care about these things for!"

"I’m not a kid anymore. I’m twenty-six. I want to know where the things my father left for me are."

"That money was spent long ago! Feeding you, clothing you, raising you—do you think that’s free?"

"Raising me?" I laughed.

"I wore the hand-me-downs Lucy discarded; I slept on a folding cot in the storage room; I ate two meals a day, often just white porridge with pickled vegetables. Tell me, how did that money go into 'raising' me?"

"I’m not arguing about this with you!" Gary raised his voice. "Your mother is in the hospital now. The ICU costs six thousand a day. You won't pay and you won't show up—have you no conscience?"

"I have a conscience that’s clear to myself."

I hung up.

When I put the phone down, my hand was trembling slightly.

Not from fear, but from anger.

I hadn't gone to investigate what my father left behind all these years since I left home at fourteen. It wasn't that I didn't want to; it was that I was afraid.

I was afraid that if I looked into it, I’d discover that the last bit of warmth I held onto was also a lie.

But now, they had delivered themselves to my doorstep.

I opened my computer, logged into the Civil Affairs Bureau’s online query system, and entered my father’s name—Jiang Yuanzheng.

Martyr information, pension records, detailed subsidy distribution lists.

Item by item, crystal clear.

From 2004 to 2018, a total of 526,000 yuan in various pension subsidies had been issued.

Every cent had been deposited into my mother Beth’s account.

I stared at the numbers on the screen, my fingernails digging into my palms.

I checked the resettlement apartment next.

Military Family Compound, East District, Building 3, Unit 2, Room 501. Owner: Beth (held on behalf of minor child Nora).

I clicked on the transaction records.

March 17, 2013, property transfer.

Buyer: Gary.

Transfer amount: Zero.

She had transferred the apartment my father left for me to my stepfather for zero yuan.

That year, I was twelve, curled up on a folding cot in the storage room, punished by her with no dinner.

And that year, she had handed over the home my father bought with his life to that man for nothing.

I closed the laptop.

The living room was quiet, save for the humming of the refrigerator.

I stood up and went to the kitchen to pour myself a glass of water.

Grandma C once said that a chef’s hands must not tremble. If your hands shake, the heat control goes off, and the flavor is lost.

The same applies to life.

After finishing the water, I picked up my phone and dialed a number.

"Cole, I need a lawyer."

Chapter 4

Cole acted quickly.

The next morning, a female lawyer in her thirties was sitting in my office.

Her name was Sienna, a specialist in family disputes and inheritance cases, with a rock-solid reputation in the city’s legal circles.

I printed out all the information I could find and spread it across the desk, from the pension distribution details to the property transfer records, explaining them to her one by one.

Sienna flipped through the documents, her expression growing increasingly grave.

"The property rights for this apartment were registered with the Civil Affairs Bureau at the time as 'held on behalf of a minor child.' Your mother, as the guardian, had management rights but no right of disposal. Transferring the property to your stepfather for zero yuan without due legal procedure is illegal."

"Can I get it back?"

"You can sue. The transfer happened when you were twelve; you were a person with limited capacity for civil conduct at the time, and the validity of this transfer is highly questionable. Furthermore, the zero-yuan consideration clearly harms the interests of the ward."

"What about the pension?"

"The pension was issued to your mother, nominally as a livelihood support fund for the martyr's survivors and minor child. If you can prove that this money was not used for your upbringing—"

"I have evidence."

I opened my phone and found a few photos.

Those were pictures I secretly took when I left home at fourteen.