“It happened really long ago and he was an introvert. He refused to speak about it, so I went to ask Lu Xia about it.”


  Huo Tingrui pursed his lips and continued. “Although she claimed not to know anything about it, I could tell from her flustered denial that there was something really fishy about the abduction and she must have done something for him to react like that.”


  At the time, he had called their eldest uncle to investigate the kidnapping incident and found out that Lu Xia was their original target.

  Huo Yulin happened to be there when the abduction occurred. She managed to escape but did not tell her family about his abduction.

  They missed the best window of time to save Huo Yulin owing to her silence. Even though they eventually managed to save him, he was badly injured and on the verge of dying.

  After he regained consciousness, he seemed to have been badly traumatized and his personality changed a lot. From then on, he refused to talk to anyone. No one in the family knew that Lu Xia was the kidnappers’ original target.

  By the time he learned the truth, it was already two years later. Huo Yulin’s trauma was starting to show improvement, so Huo Tingrui asked him about it.

  Huo Tingrui could never forget the sadness in Huo Yulin’s eyes when he told him not to tell the family about it.

  Perhaps he chose to shoulder everything on his own since Lu Xia was his little sister. Since the kidnapping happened a long time ago, if Lu Xia really cared, she would have come clean about the situation ages ago.

  However, Lu Xia did nothing of the sort. Huo Yulin must have been so disappointed that he decided to leave the country altogether.

  Huo Tingrui felt that he could not keep this to himself, so he casually brought it up to Huo Yanxi. However, he forgot how much Huo Yanxi doted on Lu Xia ever since they were children.

  When he told Huo Yanxi that Lu Xia had escaped her abductors and hid the truth about Huo Yulin’s kidnapping, Huo Yanxi had refused to believe him right away. He also scolded Huo Tingrui for thinking that way. Lu Xia was so sweet and innocent, so she was incapable of doing this.

  He was taken aback by Huo Yanxi’s reaction and thought about how their parents also trusted Lu Xia unconditionally. If he told them the truth behind the kidnapping case, they would probably react the same way as Huo Yanxi.

  After he sounded Huo Yanxi out, he did not bring up the incident again. However, he was no longer as close to Lu Xia ever since.

  Every time he looked at Lu Xia, he was reminded of Huo Yulin’s trauma.

  As he grew up, he gradually understood why people were capable of instinctively doing such things for the sake of survival.

  However, he could not understand why she did not tell the family about it right away. If she had, Huo Yulin would not have been in such bad condition when he was found.

  Sometimes, his parents would ask him why he was not close to Lu Xia and kept avoiding her, but he was incapable of telling them the truth.

  Truth and justice did not really matter if the family might end up being broken owing to the so-called truth.

  He was naturally incapable of destroying this family.

  Huo Tingrui raised his head as a bitter taste rose in his mouth. After some time, he turned to look at Huo Yao. He could not help feeling moved when he saw the look of concern on her face.

  She was different.

  Since Huo Yao was his biological little sister, she was instinctively protective of her family.

  Huo Tingrui felt relieved that Lu Xia was not his biological little sister as he thought about the past.