Hunter Warren returned home, and it was almost 3 a.m.
The Townsend Family’s servant opened the door for him, while Faye Townsend had stayed up without sleeping, immediately getting out of bed and turning on the light as soon as she heard noises downstairs.
The couple met at the staircase. Faye rushed down the stairs and embraced him tightly.
Seeing the two hug, the servant tactfully left.
Hunter Warren held her, gently stroking her hair and lightly sniffing the scent of her strands.
"Why aren’t you asleep?"
"How could I sleep on such a night?"
She stepped back from his embrace and looked straight into his eyes: "I was waiting for you to come back, waiting to tell you everything."
Hunter Warren took her by the wrist and went upstairs into her room.
This was the second time he had spent the night in this room over the years.
The last time was the day after their wedding when they returned to her parent’s home.
Back then, he harbored a grudge against her because of Sebastian Sheldon’s matters.
So, one of them slept on the bed and the other on the sofa.
This time, they nestled closely together on the Princess bed, with Faye resting her head on his shoulder.
Neither had taken a bath; they just lay there, heavy with unspoken troubles.
Hunter Warren said, "She seems to be doing pretty well."
Faye nodded: "Yes, very gentle and peaceful. She never competes with others, nor does she blame heaven and earth.
In the years that I’ve known her, she has never given me any negative energy. She’s always encouraging and comforting me.
Even when we were about to divorce, I went to her, and she just held me in her arms, telling me that everything in this world is controlled by the human heart.
Although all hearts are made of flesh, there’s still a lot of difference between people.
You can’t expect everyone to be like me, so you have to learn to face happiness and to accept setbacks."
Hunter Warren lifted the corners of his mouth, "Sounds indeed much kinder than my mom."
The "mom" he referred to was his father’s legitimate wife, that proud daughter of a high-ranking official.
But later, her father was disciplined for violating the organization’s discipline, and from that point forward, she became an inconsequential existence to the Warren Family.
In his memory, his mom was either angry or quarreling with his dad, or else going out for crazy shopping sprees.
Even though she lived a life that others couldn’t reach in a lifetime, she was always critical.
She was full of dissatisfaction with life, brimming with negative energy.
Most importantly, she didn’t like him.
Since he was young, Hunter couldn’t understand why the mother would favor one and neglect the other; he hadn’t done anything wrong but seemed to be always bearing the consequences.
Every time he and Lucas Warren made the same mistake, the one who got punished was always him.
He clearly remembered once he and Lucas both brought friends home to play.
Lucas’s friend received warm hospitality.
Yet, his friend was driven out the door on the grounds of being too low grade.
After that, no other kids wanted to come to his house to play.
Even though he was close to Henry Sullivan, he never came to his house to play.
Later, when he had grown up a bit, he asked Henry, "Why don’t you like to go to my house?"
Henry said, "That place is just where you live; to me, it doesn’t feel like a home but a cold storeroom devoid of warmth, lacking humanity.
Every time I went to your house, I felt so suppressed. Your mom’s gaze was like a nail, making one feel uncomfortable."
At that time, he actually didn’t like that place either, but there was no way around it; back then, he was just a kid.
It wasn’t until the day that his grandmother personally came to take him from the Warren home to the old house that he learned a home was supposed to have warmth; it wasn’t supposed to be cold and heartless, or to speak in terms of rules and have servants solve everything.
The affection in the family seemed all like a mirage.
If it weren’t for his grandmother, he really couldn’t imagine what kind of person he would have become.
He even once considered whether to run away from home like his dad.
If he left that family forever, could he change everything?
Now he realizes how naive he had been back then.
It turned out what was hated was not him as a person but his existence.
The child of a mistress... Which legitimate wife would like that?
He gave a rueful smile. It turned out that he had misunderstood his mom all those years; he was indeed deserving of such treatment.
In his embrace, Faye lifted her head to look at him for a moment, then grasped his hand tightly: "Auntie is your real mom."
Hunter Warren took a deep breath; he didn’t know what to say at this moment.
This revelation threw him into complete disarray.
Many things in his life had been negated, and while he couldn’t say he hated his birth mother, he did hate himself.
He hated being such an existence.
"Whatever is said, a mistress is still a mistress; nobody can change that," he said.
"Auntie is not a mistress," Faye sat up and looked at him: "Hunter, Auntie is not a mistress. She is the woman whom Dad has loved deeply from the beginning.
The real mistress is your foster mother, Lucas’s mom.
In that past relationship, there was no place for your foster mother; it was she who forcefully pushed Auntie out of the relationship, Auntie is the victim."
"Since she was pushed out of the relationship, she shouldn’t have given birth to me.
Having given birth to me, she should have raised me herself.
For her to suddenly appear now, my whole life has been turned upside down."
"When you were little, you lived with her.
Don’t you feel that she’s very familiar?
She never wanted the Warren Family to affect your life.
It was your foster mother who learned of your existence and then forcibly took you away from Auntie’s side."