Kill That Transmigrator Woman - Chapter 36

Chapter 36: She Doesn’t Want Familial Affection

She had barely walked a few steps when she ran right into her parents.

“Wanwan, tell your mother, why would the Empress Dowager suddenly take such an interest in this?” Madam Cui looked deeply worried and stepped forward to grasp her hands tightly.

“Did you say something to the Empress Dowager?” Compared to Madam Cui’s gentleness, Master Cui sounded much sterner.

Cui Wanwan raised her brows, lifted her gaze to meet Master Cui’s eyes, and said, “Yes. It was your daughter who deliberately tried to curry favor with the Empress Dowager, used sweet words to coax her into a good mood. That’s why she allowed me to stay in the palace.”

“You’ve lost your mind, haven’t you!” Master Cui scolded.
“Do you really want so badly to enter the palace? Do you even know what kind of people are in there?”

If their Wanwan got close to the prince she liked and was seen by the consorts of other princes, those women might harm her just to increase their sons’ chances in the struggle for the throne.

The ruthlessness of the imperial family was not something his youngest daughter could endure.

At home, when she caused trouble, her family could always cover for her, but in the palace, if she made a mistake, was the Empress Dowager supposed to protect her every time?

Thankfully, there was no one else around now, most people had already left the palace, so no outsiders saw this family scene turning into a farce.

Cui Wanwan shrugged with an indifferent expression, neither admitting nor denying anything. “Father can treat me as mad if he wishes. In any case, isn’t this a good outcome for everyone?”

“Wanwan!” Madam Cui flung her hand away. “What nonsense are you spouting?”

Cui Wanwan slightly raised her chin, the corners of her mouth tugged in a faint, cold smile. She spoke word by word: “Before the banquet started, didn’t Father say he’d rather I hadn’t come back? Since Father doesn’t want to see me, then as a daughter, naturally I should relieve my elders of their burdens, shouldn’t I?”

“You!” Master Cui was livid.

Slap!
Master Cui raised his hand and struck Cui Wanwan across the cheek.

Madam Cui grew flustered. “What your father said was just out of anger, couldn’t you soften your attitude a bit?”

“Words spoken in anger?” Her head had been knocked to the side from the slap. Her tone grew heavier.
After a brief pause, she covered her cheek with one hand, slowly stood up straight, and finally spoke softly, “But I took it seriously.”

Cui Wanwan looked down with a bitter smile, her fingers clutching the hem of her dress. She spoke slowly and clearly, “Father thinks I’m not as obedient and well-behaved as Wei Qingyu. Mother thinks I’m not as gentle and sensible as she is. In your eyes, Wei Qingyu is good in every way, perfect in heaven and on earth, but when it comes to me, something is always wrong. Either this is lacking, or that is unsatisfactory. I’m said to be vicious, to envy my elder sister, to repeatedly target and bully Wei Qingyu out of selfish motives.”

“But Father, Mother, search your hearts and tell me, was there ever even once, just once, that you actually saw me bully Wei Qingyu without cause or reason?”

“Was there?” Her eyes were beginning to turn red at the corners.

“Did I ever hit her? Did she smile kindly at me, and I responded with insults and curses?”

“I was born a legitimate daughter, having whatever I wanted. I was destined to become a noblewoman of the royal family, what would I possibly be jealous of her for?” Cui Wanwan’s tone carried a hint of mockery.

“Or rather, what could Wei Qingyu possibly have that would make me envious? I am your daughter. You’ve watched me grow up from childhood. Do you truly not know what kind of person I am? Why would you believe I am a woman full of jealousy and deep schemes, a person with a calculating heart?”

“When Wei Qingyu feels a little wronged and sheds a few tears, you act as if the sky is falling, and of course, that sky must have collapsed because of me. You only ever see her grievances, but have you ever once seen mine?”

All the unwillingness and resentment of her past life, the bitterness from the family’s unfairness, all of it poured out at this moment.

Cui Wanwan’s heart had already let go of everything.
That so-called familial affection… had long since been severed in her past life, severed when her family scolded her, when she fell into the mud and was met with cold, scornful stares, when she reached out to her own parents, the ones who gave her life, and was met with indifference.

The words from her past life echoed endlessly in her mind:

“You’re a curse upon the Cui family! Get out! Get out! And never come back…”

“If you had even a shred of your elder sister’s kindness, the Cui family might still tolerate you.”

“How can you be so malicious? Yu’er is kindhearted, we don’t ask you to treat your sister well, but at the very least, don’t harm her! For the Cui family to have a disgrace like you is the greatest shame we’ve known in a hundred years!”

“From this day forward, I have only Yu’er as a daughter. If I had known I’d give birth to such a vicious girl, I never should’ve borne you! It would’ve been better if you’d died in the womb!”

“Get out! The Cui family has no daughter like you!”

“I don’t have a sister like you. I, Cui Heng, swear to the heavens, from this day forward, I sever all ties with you as siblings. I cut my hair as proof.”

Cui Wanwan bit her lower lip, somewhere between crying and laughing, and stepped back a few paces.

Reborn into this life, so many things still felt as if they had just happened yesterday.

She would never forget: when she once questioned Wei Qingyu and, in her anger, slapped her, she was punished by being forced to kneel in the ancestral hall, without food for three days.

When Wei Qingyu framed her and caused her to be poisoned, she retaliated by stabbing Wei Qingyu in the shoulder with a dagger. In return, she was beaten with thirty lashes a day, every day for seventeen days without pause, until her flesh was torn and bloody.

When her face was ruined, and her skin melted into bloody sludge beneath the bone-eroding poison, she screamed in agony, cried from the pain, and still, her parents refused to believe it had anything to do with Wei Qingyu.

She had screamed and thrown herself at Wei Qingyu, who wore a mask of false gentleness, only to see her parents, her older brother, Ling Xun who had grown up with her, even the man who had performed the wedding rites with her, all standing by Wei Qingyu’s side.

Shielding Wei Qingyu from the harshness and cruelty of the world. Watching her, lying in the mud, utterly despairing… and struggling.

The day she was cast out of the Cui family, rain poured heavily from the sky. That was the day she gave up completely.

She fell from a high place into the dust. No one believed her.
Everyone loathed her.
Everyone… hated her.

In this vast world, though she had pleaded in agony, not a single person appeared who could save her.

Family bonds, sibling affection, father and mother, none of it mattered to her anymore.

Such unequal familial love, Cui Wanwan no longer cared for it.

She had once believed that if she worked hard enough, she could win back her family’s hearts and trust.

But after everything she had done, in the end it was all for nothing, like drawing water with a bamboo basket, utterly futile.

“Wanwan…” Madam Cui looked at Cui Wanwan, whose eyes were bloodshot and filled with tears, and her heart began to panic. She reached out, wanting to touch her face, but Cui Wanwan turned her head and avoided it.

“Don’t call me that!” Cui Wanwan growled under her breath.

“It’s already getting late. Father, Mother, you should leave the palace early,” Cui Wanwan calmed her emotions, raised her hand, and wiped the tears from the corners of her eyes with her sleeve. She didn’t want to shed another tear for so-called familial affection.

“With the Empress Dowager here, with her love and care, your daughter will live just fine in this imperial city. When the day comes that I am to be married, I hope it will be Her Majesty the Empress Dowager who prepares the dowry. As for the dowry you, Mother, have saved up bit by bit over the years, just give it all to Wei Qingyu. After all, compared to me, in your eyes she is the more outstanding and satisfactory daughter. Compared to the Cui Mansion, I would rather marry from within the palace. As for the things in my room, if she likes them, Mother, you may leave them all to her.”

After all, she would never return to the Cui Mansion again.

Cui Wanwan turned around, leaving Madam Cui behind her wailing in heartbreak, and Master Cui furiously scolding and shouting.

She did not look back, not even once.

Love in this world, bound by fate, gives no chance for do-overs.
Once it is gone, it should be let go.

They abandoned her, so why shouldn’t she be the one to walk away first?