Chapter Fifty-One: The Only Daughter of the Hidden Family

The chopsticks clattered crisply against the rim of the bowl. Tao Tao set her bowl down and let out a long, satisfied sigh. “Ah—so good!” She wiped the grease from the corner of her mouth in one swift motion. “This is the first full meal I’ve had since I crossed over. It hasn’t been easy—hic!”

Gu Hua nodded. Indeed, it was obvious she’d been starving, though her appetite wasn’t particularly large.

“Miss Tao, where are you from? You don’t seem like a local. You use so many words we don’t understand. Would you mind explaining a little?” Gu Lin’s curiosity was piqued.

Tao Tao grinned smugly, picking a bit of vegetable from between her teeth. “You people are real fossils, you know that?”

“Huh? Fossils? Are those stones that have melted?” Gu Lin was baffled by this new term. Perhaps, he mused, it was because they’d been born and raised in the ancient tribe and were stepping out for the first time, so there was much they didn’t know.

Tao Tao was speechless. “Just take it as you understand it. Sigh, I have to say, Miss, you have a steady temper. If I’d met someone like that woman just now, I would’ve told her off until her mother regretted having her.”

Gu Hua forced a smile. “And what is a mother?”

“In my hometown, we call them ‘parents.’”

Gu Lin lowered his head, counting on his fingers, pondering the meaning of “parents,” while Gu Hua was already calling for help.

Gu Hua: [Jian, does ‘parents’ mean father and mother?]

Little Jian: [Yes, Master, you’re so smart! You guessed it right away!]

Gu Hua: [Can you find any information about Tao Tao?]

Little Jian: [Tao Tao was swept here by a spatial rift from one of the three thousand worlds. I’m not too clear on that world, only that there’s no spiritual cultivation there.]

Tao Tao’s eyes seemed vacant, but in truth she was deep in thought, plotting how she might persuade the beauty before her to find her a place to eat and sleep.

She truly couldn’t take it any longer. On her very first day in this world, her worldview had been shattered. In order to eat, she’d worked washing dishes at a restaurant, but after accidentally smashing a pile of plates, she’d been thrown out onto the street. Even now, the nearby shops avoided her like the plague.

To think that once, in the twenty-first century, she’d been a sensation online—a top-ranking mage in the national game server—and yet here she was, down on her luck and at the mercy of fate! How unfair destiny could be!

She thought of the heroines in those transmigration novels who all had systems or cheat skills; and herself? She couldn’t even get a steamed bun without begging.

Today!

Tao Tao was determined to win over the beauty beside her!

She wanted her! To be her lady!

A girl of e-sports would never bow to fate!

While Tao Tao struck various poses to psych herself up, her expressions changed faster than pages turning in a book.

Gu Lin was astonished. This was even more impressive than Brother Lin's face-changing techniques! Brother Lin was the founder of the ancient clan’s art of face-changing, able to alter his appearance at will using spiritual power. Only his family in the entire tribe could perform such an art—Gu Lin admired him greatly.

At that moment, a middle-aged man in a dark blue robe hurried down from upstairs and approached Gu Hua’s table, his face anxious. “My sincerest apologies. We’ve had too many guests today and caused you some inconvenience. Today’s meal is on the house, courtesy of First Pavilion.”

The manager bowed his head in apology to Gu Hua. The auction recently had kept them all on edge, and First Pavilion was seeing a surge in customers. He’d just heard of a dispute downstairs and, intending to come down and handle it, had bumped his head and been delayed.

“It’s all right. Are you the manager here?”

“Yes.” The manager looked up, and in that instant, Gu Hua unconsciously raised her right hand. The moment he saw the ring on her index finger, the manager’s face lit up with excitement:

“You are—!”

“Shh,” Gu Hua gestured for silence.

The manager understood at once. “Please, come with me.”

Tao Tao, seeing her future benefactor about to leave, quickly grabbed Gu Hua’s leg. “My savior! Don’t leave me behind!”

Gu Hua’s foot was caught—she couldn’t stay, but she couldn’t go either. [Jian, can I bring her along?]

[Bring her, bring her. She’s never done anything truly bad, just has a sharp tongue. If the spatial rift brought her here, it’s fate. If she ever wants to go back, I can ask the main god. If we leave her behind, with a mouth like hers, she won’t last long on the streets.]

“Get up,” Gu Hua said.

“Then… my benefactor?”

“Come with us.”

Tao Tao leapt nearly a meter high on the spot. She could feel it—she’d finally found herself a golden ticket!

The Ning Family.

“Father, those people went too far! They made me look like a fool in front of the Second Prince!”

Bang!

Ning Feng slammed his hand on the table, looking at Ning Xue’er with disappointment and frustration.

His wife—Ning Xue’er’s mother—had died in childbirth. To make up for her absence, Ning Feng had doted on his daughter, believing that showering her with fatherly love would fill the void of a mother’s care. But Ning Xue’er only grew more spoiled.

Only now did Ning Feng realize his excessive indulgence had turned her into this.

“Xue’er, do you not understand the things I’ve told you again and again?”

“I understand, but Father, they bullied me!”

“Bullied you? Isn’t it true that the servant said you thought someone was prettier than you, and you started arguing with her because the Second Prince looked at her one more time, and in the end, you lost the argument?”

Ning Xue’er stared at her father in disbelief—the man who had always doted on her, never scolded or punished her—“Father, I…”

Tears rolled down her cheeks like beads of water.

Ning Feng’s heart ached, but he knew that any further indulgence would only make matters worse. His daughter must not become a woman consumed by jealousy!

For the first time, Ning Feng turned away, not daring to look at his daughter’s tear-streaked face. He feared that if he met her eyes, he would lose his resolve, and in the end, Xue’er would be the one to suffer.

All the negative emotions in Ning Xue’er’s heart boiled over at that moment:

“You’re all on her side! That beggar, those merchants at the inn outside the city, Brother Xuan—even you, whom I respect the most! Why? She’s just an ordinary person! Why do you all take her side?”

With that, Ning Xue’er ran out of the main hall, leaving Ning Feng behind, covering his face. “Rong’er, have I been wrong all this time…? But if Xue’er doesn’t change her ways, she’ll only suffer more in the future…”

Ning Xue’er ran all the way to her room, ignoring the servants’ stares. She locked her door, threw herself onto her bed, and wept until her tears soaked the blanket, leaving behind a flowery pattern.

She remembered the merchants’ gossip in the inn last night as she’d gone upstairs;

She remembered the words that beggar girl had said to her today;

Jun Muxuan’s gaze, the unreasonable faces of those diners.

All of it seemed to say she was a pampered young lady, born with a sense of superiority.

But she had once rescued stray cats and dogs by the roadside, had helped the poor—why did no one ever notice the good she’d done?

Mother, I miss you so much. Xue’er misses you so much!