Chapter 215: A Tragic Origin

Zhou Meng's real name was Mao Xiaowen; it turned out she was not a teenage girl but a married woman in her twenties.

Because Mao Xiaowen had a mild form of dwarfism, her stature was relatively short, and she also appeared youthful.

Although Mao Xiaowen had assumed Zhou Meng's identity, there was one thing she did not lie about: she had indeed been trafficked, but due to her physical condition and the fact that she could not bear children, after being trafficked she was quickly despised by her trafficker.

Then she was sold to a second person, a third person, and so on—even Mao Xiaowen herself did not know how many people she had been sold to.

Finally, Mao Xiaowen ended up in the mountains, where a sixty- or seventy-year-old old man bought her; the old man was extremely perverted and often tortured her with various means.

He bought Mao Xiaowen precisely because her youthful appearance could greatly satisfy his perverted desires.

After the old man had his fill of Mao Xiaowen, he forced her to go out and sell herself; in that village, anyone who paid could enter her room and sleep with her.

When the old man had money, he drank alcohol; after drinking, he tortured Mao Xiaowen even more cruelly—this experience was, for her, nothing short of a hellish existence.

Later, Mao Xiaowen finally found a chance to escape; she desperately flagged down a vehicle, and the driver, pitying her, took her in. As she watched the car drive farther away, she thought she had finally escaped that hellish life, but little did she know she had merely fallen into another tiger's den.

The driver who rescued Mao Xiaowen brought her to the Imperial Capital, forced her to pose as Zhou Meng to approach Zhou Feng and Bai Xinya, and threatened that if she refused, he would send her back to the mountains.

Mao Xiaowen had barely escaped, and naturally she did not want to be sent back there; moreover, she knew that if she were sent back, her fate would surely be worse than death.

So Mao Xiaowen immediately knelt and begged, pleading that as long as she was not sent back, she would do anything.

Seeing that Mao Xiaowen was obedient, that person first made a birthmark on her arm identical to Xiaomeng's arm identical to Xiaomeng's.

She then thought of a way to let her get close to Bai's mother; upon seeing Mao Xiaowen, Bai's mother's emotions immediately flared up, and she never doubted Mao Xiaowen's identity in the slightest, because Mao Xiaowen really looks just like the lost Zhou Mengzhang.

At first Mao Xiaowen was still afraid, but after seeing Bai's mother's reaction, her heart gradually calmed down.

Bai Meng and Zhou Feng's reaction, however, made Mao Xiaowen very uneasy, because they showed none of the excitement and joy at seeing their missing daughter after many years.

Their attitude toward Mao Xiaowen was completely different from what those people had said about loving their daughter as dearly as life.

Nevertheless, Mao Xiaowen stayed on regardless, which could be considered a step forward, but everything that subsequently happened to her went very poorly.

She not only failed to gain Zhou Feng and his wife's trust by taking advantage of the opportunity, but all her various covert and overt attempts to sow discord were like punching cotton—utterly ineffective.

Later, Mao Xiaowen, forced and with no other choice, could only scheme to make Qin Xiao create the false appearance that she had been insulted; in her view, even if Zhou Feng and his wife disliked her, they could absolutely not tolerate such an incident.

But Mao Xiaowen did not expect that Zhou Feng and his wife would not believe her at all, completely siding with Su Ruo and Qin Xiao.

Mao Xiaowen's scheme to drive a wedge completely failed, and as a result she suffered a severe punishment from the person behind the scenes.

After all these events, the person behind the scenes also saw that the scheme to sow discord was utterly useless, so they decided to take a risky turn and resort to poisoning.

But Su Ruo and her companions had been prepared all along, and in the end they were all caught in one sweep.

At the end of her account, Mao Xiaowen's expression was deeply sorrowful; perhaps from the moment she was born, her life had been destined to be a tragedy, and no matter how she struggled or resisted, she could not escape that tragic fate.

Upon hearing Mao Xiaowen's words, Zhou Feng felt extremely conflicted, wondering if his daughter, had she survived the trafficking by luck, would also have endured the same experience as Mao Xiaowen.

Or perhaps this is the shared fate of all abducted girls.

Mao Xiaowen is a bad person, yet how could she not also be a pitiful one?

When Zhou Feng returned home, it was already very late, but Bai Xinya was still waiting for him.

"How did it go?" Zhou Feng asked as soon as he entered the door, and Bai Xinya anxiously inquired.

Zhou Feng briefly told Bai Xinya the interrogation results; upon learning of Mao Xiaowen's experience, Bai Xinya also froze slightly.

Although many years had passed, whenever she thought of her daughter's death again, she could not help but feel heartbroken.

For Bai Xinya, her daughter's passing was an eternal wound that could never heal; it also made her involuntarily feel a twinge of sympathy for Mao Xiaowen, who shared a similar experience, though it was only fleeting.

After many years of marriage, Zhou Feng certainly understood his wife's feelings; he reached out and took her hand, asking, "Mother-in-law, what are you planning to do about that side?"

During this time together, Zhou Feng and Bai Xinya both knew how much the mother-in-law valued Mao Xiaowen; if she learned that Mao Xiaowen was not Xiaomeng, it would surely be a huge blow to her.

That is why they have tolerated Mao Xiaowen for so long.

At present, Zhou Feng and his group have two plans to resolve this matter: the first is to let Mao Xiaowen continue to disguise herself as Xiaomeng and stay by Bai's mother's side.

This solution is undoubtedly the best for Bai's mother, but it carries great risk; Feng Xiran has fled, and none of them know whether she will use Mao Xiaowen to harm them.

The alternative is to come clean with Bai's mother and tell her that Xiaomeng has already died; this would undoubtedly be a massive blow to her, and given her old age, it is uncertain whether she could bear it.

Zhou Feng simply stayed quietly by Bai Xinya's side, waiting for her to make a decision; no matter what choice Bai Xinya ultimately makes, Zhou Feng will respect it.

Bai Xinya's heart was also torn in an inner struggle; the two people she owed most in her life were her daughter and her mother.

Despite her age, she still caused her mother grief, which made her feel guilty, but this time she could not avoid causing her mother sorrow once again.

As the saying goes, prolonged pain is worse than short pain; rather than keeping Mao Xiaowen as a hidden danger nearby, constantly putting her mother and them at risk, it would be better to tell her mother the truth now, which would also be preferable to being deceived later.

After making the decision, Zhou Feng accompanied Bai Xinya back to the Bai family the next day; worried that Bai's mother might not withstand the blow, they even summoned Bai Laoyezi, who was stationed in the military region.

Seeing only Zhou Feng and Bai Xinya return, Bai's mother immediately asked, "Why are only the two of you back? Where is my granddaughter?"

Seeing Bai's mother like that, Zhou Feng and Bai Xinya's faces inevitably darkened, but what was bound to happen had to happen.

Bai Xinya helped Bai's mother sit on the sofa and solemnly began to tell her about Mao Xiaowen.