To Covet (GL) - Chapter 1

Ten years have passed since I last saw Yu Zhouwan.

At that time, she was “the daughter of a colleague” in my father’s words, and she came here because her family was away on a business trip and it was inconvenient to take care of her, so she stayed for a few days, that’s all.

My father hugged me, pointing to the little girl who was a whole forehead taller than me, “Darling, call her sister,” he said to me, “Your Sister Wanwan.”

Yu Zhouwan carried a half-worn schoolbag, nodding and lowering her eyebrows the whole time, silent to all the warm hospitality, wandering like a shadow for three days, and then we never saw each other again.

I affectionately called her “Sister Wanwan,” but I never thought to ask her full name.

Ten years later—at my biological mother’s funeral, I met her again.

Before all this happened, I had already learned the whole truth as a member of this family, whether it was the fact that we shared the same bl00d, or the emotional entanglements of the previous generation.

The woman standing next to him now is his second wife, but Yu Hanyang met her several years earlier than my mother, even to the point of discussing marriage. As for how this relationship broke down, I don’t know. Yu Hanyang broke up with her and quickly got together with my mother, and that woman disappeared for the next five or six years, until she reappeared, bringing a little girl older than me and a paternity test report.

I guess it was probably from that time that he made a choice between the two families after weighing the pros and cons.

On one side was an ordinary employee he met on a blind date, and on the other was a company executive who had a child with him. Yu Hanyang didn’t have much ability, and after being in Shucheng for so long, he couldn’t even find a stable salary. For him, this wasn’t cheating, but just making appropriate trade-offs for his future.

My biological mother, Yang Chun—the name engraved on the tombstone—repeatedly contacted her nominal husband before her death, trying to entrust me to him for the last two years before I turned eighteen. The result, of course, was failure. Little did she know that Yu Hanyang would take the initiative to attend the funeral.

He even brought his new wife and daughter, an enviable family of three.

The door of the crematorium closed with a bang, and a brief dizziness brought me back to the night nine years ago.

Yang Chun repeatedly told me not to interfere with the adults’ affairs. Although I was used to the sounds of arguing and things being thrown at home, I never dared to come out. But today’s noise lasted especially long, and after tossing and turning, I couldn’t help but open a crack in the door to look out.

Yu Hanyang was grabbing Yang Chun’s neck, calling her a b1tch. When Yang Chun’s dead gray eyes saw me in the shadows, they suddenly widened as if in a final flash of life, her nails digging deep into Yu Hanyang’s hand, the bl00d seeping into her fingernails first, and then trickling down. Yu Hanyang finally let go, and Yang Chun was thrown to the ground like a chicken drained of bl00d, rolling her eyes for a long time before finally catching her breath.

She crawled to pick up the paring knife on the ground. By this time, Yu Hanyang had already slammed the door and left.

I never saw him again.

I often have the illusion that Yang Chun was actually strangled to death by Yu Hanyang that night, and who occupied her body when she woke up again? I don’t know. Yang Chun’s soul was sucked away by the man who had been deceiving and tricking her from beginning to end. She later desperately tried to find what she had lost in other men, and of course, she failed—what you eat, even if you spit it out, is just foul-smelling vomit.

I thought, if Yang Chun saw the man who was usually cold and indifferent hugging another woman’s shoulder intimately before the mourning began, she would definitely turn into a ghost and curse him.

Unfortunately, there are no ghosts in the world.

Yang Chun didn’t have many relatives, and even fewer friends. I sent the guests away, and just as I was about to turn and leave, Yu Hanyang stopped me.

“Yu Keyi, stop,” he called my full name, “You’re coming back with me.”

He meant back to his current home.

“Okay,” I didn’t have the strength to break down and go crazy anymore. Because of exhaustion, I was especially polite to him, “I’ll go back and pack my things.”

My eyes fell on the girl next to him. She looked about my age, still with a cold face. Her eyebrows and eyes had opened up a bit since childhood, and the similar features between our faces became more and more obvious.

“This is your sister,” he said, pointing to Yu Zhouwan.

I glanced at Yu Zhouwan. She was still slightly taller than me, so I had to look up slightly to look her in the eyes.

“Sister.”