“Not welcome.”
Claudia’s voice was very cold, and her gaze was equally resolute.
Realizing that his eldest daughter had grown bold and was no longer easy to fool, Hans decided not to waste more effort on her. He immediately turned toward Gloria and Cinderella.
“Lia! Cinderella! You don’t welcome me either!? Do you feel nothing watching your mother kick me out of the house!?”
“What do you want us to feel?”
Claudia walked down the steps and blocked Hans, who was trying to rush up to pester Gloria and Cinderella.
The more one studied the past, the better one understood the present. The more books Claudia read, the more she grasped the essence of things.
If it had been the old her, she would have softened at the sight of her father’s pitiful and pathetic state, standing by his side to blame their mother for driving him out.
But now, she wouldn’t pity him just because he put on a miserable face.
—Where did this man get the nerve to demand her sympathy?
The moment their mother drove him out, what had he done? He hadn’t confessed his past wrongs, begged for her forgiveness, or even considered taking his daughters with him. Instead, he had run off with the merchant caravan to other cities for drinking, whoring, and gambling.
…If she hadn’t overheard Ted reporting to their mother that he had spotted their father in a brothel in some city, she would still be in the dark, fooled into believing he had truly gone to the Sailan Principality. That his departure was really for his merchant business, for the sake of Hedelin House.
The reason their father had returned to Capital Vitril and appeared before the three of them, questioning if they didn’t welcome him home, was simply because he coveted the clothing store their mother had opened with Mrs. Clement and wanted to return to Hedelin House to seize the wealth she had earned from her hands.
Ah… what an ugly, filthy, and utterly vulgar man.
Why hadn’t the old her seen that the gems and fine clothes their father gave them weren’t out of love for his daughters, but an investment? He planned to pamper them into delicate hothouse flowers who could only live in luxury, setting their life goals to marry rich tycoons or minor nobles, so he could profit from their marriages later.
“Gloria! Cinderella!”
Blocked by his eldest daughter, Hans shouted at his two younger daughters again.
Gloria covered Cinderella’s ears, but Cinderella still heard Hans’s words.
“Cinderella, only you! At least you should stand by my side, right!? Claudia and Gloria were born to that woman, no helping it… but have you forgotten who fed you and your—mom—!?”
“I know you lost your mom and crave a new one, so I let Anna Rochel become your new mom! Cinderella, think carefully—if not for me, would you have a new mom!? Don’t let a few days of playing house with Anna Rochel, Claudia, and Gloria make you forget who your real family is! Cinderella, after I’ve poured my heart out to you like this, you—”
“…Liar…”
Hans seemed to hear a faint sound from Cinderella. He halted his torrent of moral blackmail, straining to hear her voice more clearly.
The girl suddenly lifted her head. Her emerald eyes, hidden beneath reddish-brown hair, were soaked with tears. Yet her voice held no trace of cowardice.
“You’re a liar!”
Hans froze, then made a last-ditch struggle: “Cinderella, what are you talking about!?”
Tears rolled from Cinderella’s eyes, but she didn’t sob: “You lied to me, didn’t you?”
“Mrs…. Anna Rochel isn’t your second wife at all, not my stepmother. Miss Claudia and Miss Gloria aren’t burdens she brought either—”
Smiling through her tears, Cinderella asked: “Did you really think your lies would never be exposed?”
The first thing that struck Cinderella as off was the painting hanging in the master bedroom—of Anna Rochel and Hans.
Cinderella herself never dared enter the master bedroom. Even when Ye Tang occasionally called her in, she didn’t dare let her eyes wander.
Kim Hora was different. Muttering something about “know your enemy and know yourself to win a hundred battles,” she took over Cinderella’s body and barged into the master bedroom, rummaging through drawers… but Kim Hora soon realized she couldn’t understand what she found.
So Kim Hora turned to something she could understand—the painting of Anna Rochel and Hans hanging in the master bedroom.
Having read some books with her sisters, Cinderella could tell the painting was old. She quickly realized the young woman in it was the “stepmother” she knew.
Her father said the “stepmother” was whom he married after her mother died, so why was there a painting of her young self and her young father in the “stepmother’s” bedroom? Even if the painter beautified them, the painting should have been recent. After all, her mother had been dead less than two years…
After Mrs. Rochel befriended Mrs. Clement and drew the attention of high society, those who sniped at her became more direct. They called her a “bas—tard” behind her back, snickering at her.
If Cinderella still hadn’t realized her true relationship to the three women of Hedelin House by then, she really would be a fool.
Cinderella even discovered that Ye Tang, Claudia, and Gloria all knew Hans had lied to her but hadn’t exposed it in front of her—they didn’t want to hurt the silly girl who trusted Hans so blindly.
“Holy shit!” came from Kim Hora inside Cinderella’s body.
Having grown up hearing the Cinderella story until her ears grew calluses, never once doubting the stepmother wasn’t a stepmother or the tag-along sisters weren’t tag-alongs, she felt like she’d been clubbed over the head.
Unexpectedly exposed by his most innocent youngest daughter, Hans panicked: “Cinderella, hear me out—”
“Father, when you sent someone to tell me Hedelin House’s wealth is yours and I could get a share, that was a lie too, wasn’t it?”
Cinderella’s heart ached too much.
The one lying to her, trying to use her, was none other than her biological father. Now she had to pierce his lies herself, tearing off his facade of a loving father.
“Hedelin House’s business was built on Anna Rochel’s dowry. You’ve made some money over the years, but you’ve spent plenty too…”
Cinderella had seen Hans’s ledgers.
Her mother had been a pigeon breeder and seller, always keeping ledgers handy. Cinderella could read them and was sensitive to numbers. She saw that Hedelin House’s income and expenses balanced out. The reason they lived well as commoner rich folk, with Hans able to carouse, was the time lag in business.
Her father didn’t pay the full amount to producers right after receiving goods. He often bought more from someone else, holding back part of the payment to settle slowly, then sold the new goods, used the proceeds to buy more, owing the next batch… and so on.
In other words, if all the suppliers demanded payment at once, Hedelin House would go bankrupt immediately. Hans’s so-called business was a castle in the air.
“This winter, did you come back to see me, or Mrs. Rochel, Miss Claudia, or Miss Gloria?”
“No, right?”
“Let me guess—you didn’t cover up your Sailan Principality lie properly and rushed back in such a hurry because you saw the news about that clothing store on Queen Road in the papers. Right?”
Hans said nothing.
Drenched in sweat from his daughter’s questioning, he chilled her heart completely.
Gloria pulled Cinderella into a tight hug, letting her bury her face in her chest so she no longer had to look at Hans’s ugly mug.
—They weren’t full sisters from the same mother. But so what?
Even without blood ties, she wanted to protect each other—that made them family, kin. She was Cinderella’s family and friend.
Above all, she was Cinderella’s sister.
She had to protect Cinderella.
“Father, stop harassing us.”
Claudia signaled her sisters to board the carriage waiting at the library entrance and head home first. She blocked Hans.
Seeing the situation turn sour, Coachman May hurried down to escort Gloria and Cinderella.
Once Gloria and Cinderella were safely in the carriage, Claudia shot May a look to stop her approach, raised her chin to send May off with the girls first, and said coldly:
“Otherwise, next time we’ll ask Mrs. Clement for help… You know that store is half hers. You might wrest Hedelin House from Mother, but Mrs. Clement won’t let you touch what’s not yours.”
“Please leave. This is the last shred of dignity I’m giving you.”
Snowflakes landed on Claudia’s shoulder, but perhaps numb from the cold, she felt nothing.
Hans could have shoved Claudia aside, but one look in her eyes told him: this girl meant business. If he laid a hand on her, she’d definitely go to Mrs. Clement.
A vixen like Mrs. Clement was beyond a small fry like him. If he kept harassing his daughters, he might be found floating swollen in the icy river by morning, and that bitch Anna Rochel would be a merry widow.
“—I’ve raised you three ungrateful white-eyed wolves for nothing!”
Hans spat bitterly and wrapped his robe tighter.
He should have borrowed money first to hire thugs and kidnapped the three girls to negotiate with Anna Rochel! The man he’d paid to fetch Cinderella had bolted when things went south!
“Oh? Father, don’t you know? Men can’t give birth.”
Claudia said coolly: “Women carry for ten months, women lie in labor beds. Mother risked her life to bring me into this world. If I sided with you to hurt her, that would be the real betrayal.”
“You—!!”
“And Father, you didn’t raise us either, did you? Weren’t you always saying ‘educating children is the wife’s job’? Out of twelve months, how many did you spend at home? And of the time you were home, how much did you devote to caring for me, Gloria, and Cinderella?”
Hans’s eyes bulged, but he had no retort.
Seeing Hedelin House’s carriage vanish around the corner, Claudia had no more words for Hans. She flicked her golden drill curls and turned away.