CHAPTER 707: CHAPTER 711: INTERSTELLAR HEARTTHROB (30)

Extra (II)

"Leave now," she said, "I’m like a clay Bodhisattva crossing a river, barely able to save myself. Your father is very angry and doesn’t want to see you right now."

Su Xun could hardly believe it when she was swept out the door. She had never expected her stepmother to do such a thing.

By the time she came to her senses, the luggage that the nanny had packed for her was thrown out after her.

Watching the front door being closed from the inside, Su Xun reacted quickly, sticking a foot in at the last moment to block the closing gap.

In desperation, she asked Connie, "Mom, how could you do this? Have you forgotten? If it weren’t for my birth mother, you wouldn’t have been able to come back and play the role of the influential lady..."

In her panic, Su Xun blurted out the thoughts that were buried deepest in her heart.

This immediately extinguished the last bit of guilt that Connie had felt—as she had, after all, lived with Su Xun for some time, and doted on her like a daughter.

Even raising a small pet requires some emotional investment, let alone raising a person.

Whether she took Su Xun in because she had promised that man to settle Su Xun properly after getting out, or out of spite towards her own husband, betting that taking Su Xun as her adopted daughter would appease him, she had genuinely invested some of her heart in Su Xun. How could she be completely devoid of feelings?

But... no matter how important the adopted daughter was, she wasn’t as important as herself.

Before, she could still be capricious and vent by leveraging her family’s power, but now... the Kang Family could no longer protect her, and she didn’t have the courage to think about how her husband would treat her.

So, after her husband expressed his dissatisfaction with Su Xun, she didn’t even try to plead on her behalf.

In fact, she harbored some resentment towards her adopted daughter in her heart.

If she had really put her heart into it, she could have definitely won Su Li over.

Moreover, the child had always been wary of her. Su Li’s revelation of their biological relationship had been forced by circumstance.

She didn’t know how the child had communicated with Su Li last time, making it so that even seeing her biological daughter in person and having her status as a woman exposed had left her indifferent.

Su Xun’s value as a pawn was now practically nil.

This had certainly given her irate husband a solid reason.

Connie felt that, in any case, she was now unable to help her.

By taking in Su Xun and allowing her to enjoy the life of a rich young lady for a while, she had done enough to repay her mother’s help.

Seeing that Su Xun stubbornly refused to leave, Connie lost patience and said coldly, "Close the door."

The servants, who had been cautious not to close the door too forcefully for fear of hurting Su Xun, added a bit more strength when they received the order from their mistress. Despite Su Xun’s foot being wedged in the door, she could feel the oppressive force.

The door was slowly closing.

If Su Xun didn’t want her foot crushed, she had to pull it out, but doing so meant she could never enter again.

This was a test of ruthlessness.

Ultimately, Su Xun didn’t dare bet on her stepmother’s soft heart. When the door pinched her foot painfully, she quickly withdrew it.

At the same time, the door slammed shut in front of her. No matter how hard she knocked, the people inside didn’t respond.

Although Su Xun was disappointed, she didn’t despair.

She left without even taking her luggage and headed straight for the address that man had given her.

According to him, he was her biological father.

He had been unaware of her existence for over a decade, which is why he had never come to look for her.

Luckily, he saw her face on the Star Network this time and realized he had a daughter out in the world.

He didn’t need a DNA test to be sure; she was definitely his daughter.

It was all because Su Xun bore a striking resemblance to this man’s mother, her own grandmother.

Su Xun had thought that if this man was willing to travel from the Armed Forces’ base, crossing several Star Domains to acknowledge her, he must at least be willing to accept and like her.

But when she finally found him, she discovered that, just like her stepmother, what they needed was not a girl named Su Xun, but the identity of being Su Li’s biological daughter.

However, as soon as it was confirmed that Su Li would definitely not reappear because of Su Xun, her biological father no longer seemed to care much about her.

Even the thought of taking her back to the Armed Forces’ Main Star was no longer mentioned.

It was at this time that Su Xun gradually came to understand that her father, Gao Lin, didn’t just have her as an offspring.

Just among the ones officially recorded with titles, her half-brothers and sisters from different mothers numbered as many as seven.

Not to mention the children other commoner lovers had borne him that weren’t counted.

Gao Lin’s promiscuous and affectionate nature was famous throughout the Armed Forces.

For a daughter who had not grown up by his side and who had no utility value, Gao Lin wasn’t stingy about supporting her, but that was the extent of his attention.

Su Xun had never understood the ins and outs of this situation, until someone hit her with a blackjack and tied her up, casually selling her to the lowest-level interstellar merchant.

Only then did she learn of the complicated relationships from the dissatisfied half-brother who shared the same father.

Gao Lin didn’t mind the extra mouth to feed, but Su Xun’s other half-siblings certainly did.

Who knew whether this newcomer was a schemer or not? It wasn’t just the fear of the unlikely but the fear of the possible.

What if she sweet-talked the old man into parting with a portion of his wealth?

Better to be done with it once and for all and get rid of her.

They had a very clear understanding of their father’s character; Gao Lin truly didn’t prioritize his children that much.

In his presence, it was less that a child’s worth depended on the mother, and more accurate to say the reverse.

On her departure, this half-brother who’d caused the trouble sneered and ridiculed Su Xun’s foolishness incessantly.

Choosing a begging mother over a high-ranking father.

Even a three-year-old child knew better than to trust the empty words of a licentious father.

Wasn’t it just too foolish?

It got to the point where her biological mother wouldn’t even acknowledge her anymore, a truly tragic end.

Otherwise, with the title of Su Li’s daughter, Su Xun herself could have been living quite comfortably.

Yes, other interstellar citizens might not believe Su Li was really a woman, nor that she had a daughter.

But the other children of the Gao Family with Gao Lin as their father had known since they could remember.

They knew their biological father had a former lady he kept in his heart.

But this woman he missed still couldn’t stop the licentious father from being promiscuous, siring children, and engaging in romantic escapades with others.

In the end, nothing was neglected.

They had also seen photographs of the former lady, so they had no objections to Su Xun being Su Li’s daughter.

It was precisely because of this that this man held so much disdain for his half-sister.

He didn’t hesitate one bit in striking her down, since she had rejected her mother herself, and no one was truly going to come to her rescue.

No need to be overly concerned; just go ahead and act decisively.

After all, without regard for her life, at worst she would be sold by some heartless interstellar merchant to a small planet to become someone’s wife and bear children.

At this moment, as she was being sent away, what replayed in Su Xun’s mind were the days she’d spent on the garbage star.

When she really faced a crisis she couldn’t resist, Su Xun suddenly understood her mother’s good intentions.

If she hadn’t neglected her Martial Arts, she might have at least had a fighting chance, instead of being like a chicken or duck waiting to be slaughtered, utterly at the mercy of others.

She regretted it, the one in this world who had loved her unreservedly was none other than her own mother.

She shouldn’t have been so willful...

But regret was futile. Her consciousness gradually drifted into sleep, and she didn’t know what awaited her when she would open her eyes again.