"So what do you want to know about?" She rubbed her arm nervously, trying to calm her nerves, but failed.

  "Tell me first. Is Lu Ziluo my son or not?" Ye Xiaozu didn't waste time and interrogated her on the spot.

  Lu Tianxin jumped from her seat and stared at him in shock.

  "I—" She hesitated, but remembering her cousin and Gu Yuyao's words earlier, she gathered all the courage she could muster to come clean to Ye Xiaozu. No matter if he believed her or not.

  "No. He's not yours neither is he mine." She said, loud and clear for Ye Xiaozu to hear and see that she wasn't lying.

  Ye Xiaozu's brows drew together in confusion. If Li Ziluo wasn't their child, then whom?

  "What? What do you mean he isn't mine and yours?"

  How could that be possible?

  "Xiaozu, Luo Luo…" Lu Tianxin swallowed the lump in her throat. "He is Yimei's son. He's your nephew."

  There. She said it. She could only hope that he wouldn't blame her for whatever poor choices she'd made in the past. It was hard for her to choose between him and his sister, Yimei. Not only did she lose her good friend years ago, but her beloved and her own family as well.

  After she took Luo Luo in and presented him as her son, her own family rejected her and didn't accept Lu Ziluo as part of their family. However, her mother, Tang Xi, had helped her behind their family's back, refusing to cut ties with her.

  If it wasn't because of her mother, Lu Tianxin wasn't sure how she would be able to start a new life without her Sister Yimei, her beloved Xiaozu, and her family.

  "Yimei's son? How… How is this possible?" Ye Xiaozu wasn't aware that his sister was seeing someone eight years ago. "Yimei died seven years ago from cancer. What the hell are talking about, Lu Tianxin?!"

  Lu Tianxin gave him a weak smile, her eyes glistening with tears. She could feel his gaze upon her.

  "Then you truly didn't know your sister, Xiaozu. She didn't want you to know about Luo Luo in the first place. Why did you think I rejected your offer to follow you to Singapore? Did you think that I wouldn't want you anymore? No. It was because I chose to stay for your sister who'd chosen to keep her pregnancy even though she knew cancer would kill her. "

  Ye Xiaozu couldn't stop the trembling travelling across his whole body at Lu Tianxin's words. Indeed, he'd thought that she'd betrayed his trust when she turned him down, but how the hell was he supposed to know that he'd put Lu Tianxin in a hard spot by making her choose between him and his dying sister?

  He couldn't stop his tears flowing from his eyes. He wanted to scream at the unfairness of the situation they were in. Fuck Ye Xiaoting. Even in the afterlife, he still managed to ruin everything for him and his sister.

  "Why……? Why didn't you tell me, Tianxin? You know how much I love her." He muttered in a low voice. "You didn't even bother to show up at her funeral. I thought you cared for her, Tianxin."

  "I did! More than you ever know, Xiaozu! You don't know how hard it was for me." she cried.

  Lu Tianxin wiped her tears as she cried with him. This was why she didn't want to tell him yet, but there's no secret that could be kept forever no matter how hard she tried to keep it from everyone, especially him.

  "I couldn't go because I cannot leave her premature baby alone in another hospital while her remains were being buried. I cannot… I wouldn't know how to face your father after what he'd done to Sister Yimei and Luo Luo!"

  Ye Xiaozu's whole body shivered from it. What did his stupid father do to his sister before her death?

  "You don't know how horrible it was for Sister Yimei to be forced to get an abortion just to enable him to marry her off to a man she'd didn't even know. But you are right…" She covered her face with both hands. "I'm sorry. I should have sent her off for the last time. But I really couldn't."

  Something inside Ye Xiaozu's heart crumbled at her apology. He hadn't expected this truth after initially assuming that the child she was raising alone was his. Lu Tianxin had no fault here. In fact, she was dragged into this mess by him and his sister.

  He'd been angry and disappointed with her for a long time, not aware that she was also suffering alone like him. He couldn't imagine how hard it was for Lu Tianxin back then, raising a premature baby that wasn't hers, how she'd lost her bright future and career for choosing Lu Ziluo.

  And until this moment, ever since their reunion, he'd been a royal asshole with the way he'd treated her.

  "I'm really sorry, Xiaozu. I don't regret choosing your sister, but I regret causing you pain. I never wanted to hurt you at all."

  He believed her. The Lu Tianxin he came to love a decade ago, the Lu Tianxin he knew, was so selfless that she would be willing to sacrifice her own self for the good of other people.