“After that, my younger brothers came up with an idea. They told me to escape, but where could I escape to? Without my big sister, I couldn’t do anything. In the end, it was she who came up with the solution.”
Something was slowly dawning on me. Lu Yan’s gaze was hazy as she recounted the story that would affect the rest of her life.
“My big sister always had little to eat so even though she was two years older than me. She was still very tiny. I was almost as tall as she was. My sister told me to exchange clothes with her and she would follow my adopted family home the following day. She said it was the maid who would come to complete the adoption, and the maid wouldn’t be able to tell the difference.
“Before she left, she told me and my brothers to look after each other. We cried so hard because we were unwilling to see her go. However, when my sister asked whether I was willing to suffer years of beating, I was scared and I allowed her to take my spot.
“Then she told us to forget her. We should consider her dead, that way we wouldn’t be so sad. If she could survive and manage to make a life for herself, she would come back to get us.
“I was both afraid and touched. In the years after that, I lived in guilt. For that, I did my best for my younger brothers. I wanted to compensate them because Sister Qian had to leave because of me. I often lost sleep at night because I would dream about Sister Qian getting beaten and tortured. She would die and her eyes would glare vindictively at me.
“I was tortured by these nightmares that I almost went crazy during the year of my college entrance exam. My younger brothers comforted me. They told me that if Sister Qian was really dead, she would be guarding us from heaven. She would want us to live well. In fact, I would have to live well on behalf of Sister Qian who had given up her life for me.”
Lu Yan buried her face between her hands. She cried so hard that she was choking. Her heart was broken. I believed it was due to the mental torture that she had suffered all these years.
I stood up to grab a warm towel. When Lu Yan was more emotionally stable, I helped her put the towel on her face.
Lu Yan was caught in her memories.
I couldn’t help but sigh. So Ye Qian was already a scheming girl since she was young.
Lu Yan eventually calmed down. The towel helped ease her puffy eyes. ���When I saw her at the dorm that day, I thought I had seen a ghost. I wanted to avoid her because I owed her so much. But many days later, I realized things were not what I imagined at all.
“Therefore, I started to pay attention to your conversation with Mai Qi. Only then did I realize she had established herself in the upper-class society that my younger brothers and I would never reach in our lives. I couldn’t understand it. If she was faring so well, why didn’t she come back to get us?
“I really wanted to ask her, to ask her if she still remembers us. Because in my heart, I felt like I still owe her. It is my fault. But I didn’t dare to talk to her. How could I ever ask questions like, was she mistreated, was she beaten, and so on?
“She left because of me and even if she had managed to turn her life around, she didn’t have the responsibility to come back to help us. She didn’t owe us anything but I do owe her. I will always be in her debt, a debt that I will never clear in my life.”
She wiped away her tears and sighed, “But at least, the nightmares of her death have stopped. I am no longer tormented by that.”
Lu Yan sighed like a huge burden was lifted from her shoulder. She forced a smile that was uglier than a frown. “Nanxing, now that you know everything, do you look down on me? I am selfish, I have been selfish since I was young. I am weak and selfish.”