Confronting the Poison Lotus Chapter 01

 Li Xia walked into the banquet hall and glanced at her reflection in the ceremonial mirror at the entrance. She wore a black strapless short dress, which made her skin, after sleeping in the sanatorium for thirteen months, appear even paler, somewhat resembling a vampire. Her short hair was styled fluffy and full, with no adornments except for a pure white headband.

White headpiece with a black dress, it felt quite appropriate, almost like attending a funeral. It was most suitable for attending the celebration of her half-sister Fu Yilan's victory party for winning the fifth National Young Entrepreneurs Fund Simulated Stock Market Investment Competition. However, today, there were many other celebrations in the Fu family as well, including her father's birthday. But wherever Fu Yilan appeared, she always stole the spotlight.

Li Xia looked at the crowded characters on the celebration signboard, lips curling slightly. Troublesome people bring trouble. She cast a clear-eyed glance into the hall, where Fu Yilan was delivering her post-competition insights from the podium. She was truly the center of attention, radiant and brilliant.

Fu Yilan was beautiful, pure, yet intelligent. How unreasonable for the daughter of a mistress to achieve such heights! With a handsome father, a pure and innocent mother, a cunning step-aunt, and a gentle and quiet sister, along with Fu Yilan who possessed beauty, innocence, cunningness, and gentleness, they were indeed a harmonious family of five.

Li Xia couldn't help but think, if it weren't for her father deceiving funds and connections from her mother and building a successful business, becoming wealthy, how could Fu Yilan receive the best education? Access to the elite circles? Achieve her current status? Talented, graceful, with integrity and intelligence, Fu Yilan was truly exceptional.

Speaking of which, Li Xia had no knowledge of these matters in her previous life. So, although her relationship with Fu Yilan had never been good, she never truly disliked her. Such overly perfect girls often make people neither like nor hate them because they seem too illusory, leaving no impression, especially on someone like Li Xia, who had lived a more adventurous life than her peers.

But now, Li Xia was deeply impressed by her. Fu Yilan, the Fu family, they would be her opponents in the future!

As Li Xia entered the hall, her footsteps were as assertive as ever, carrying a rare fierceness for a girl. Before her mother's suicide, she had always been a rebellious child who defied authority, spending many years with the adults' so-called "bad" friends, inevitably carrying the aura of a delinquent girl.

Her biological sister, Li Qiu, often said that although Li Xia appeared rebellious and evil on the surface, she had a pure heart. But Li Xia now realized, it wasn't purity, it was foolishness.

At the moment she had the car accident with her sister, Li Qiu's memories inexplicably entered her mind. And during these thirteen months of being in a vegetative state, she felt as if she had been reborn.

She saw her sister's twenty-three years of life, witnessed her sister's struggles with countless people during the first half of her life, including their impressionable father, including the unremarkable Fu Yilan.

She saw clearly that their tragedies, her sister's tragedies, her mother's tragedies, all stemmed from this group of people she had never cared about.

And the one who made her see most clearly was Fu Yilan.

When Li Xia was ten, her father's affair was exposed, and then her mother, in a fit of rage, kicked him out, only to remarry and give Fu Yilan's mother a legitimate status. But before that, he had brought Fu Yilan to the Li family in the guise of a distant niece, sending her to the same prestigious school as Li Xia, providing her with the best house, and giving her the best life.

At that time, Li Xia's mother thought she was really a poor relative's niece, so she took great care of her, and Li Qiu treated her well too.

But there really are people in this world who repay kindness with ingratitude. Fu Yilan knew her true identity from a young age, living in her father's house, but she had to address her biological father as an uncle. How could she be content with that?

While her own mother and sister lived in poverty and misery, her father's legitimate wife enjoyed a glamorous life both inside and outside the house; Li Xia and Li Qiu, the sisters from the same father but different mothers, had a happy family life and were the envy of their classmates wherever they went.

She, however, was a fatherless child. Why?

No matter how well her father's legitimate wife and half-sister treated her, it was all expected. She was also her father's daughter, and the splendid childhood that Li Qiu and Li Xia had should have been shared equally with her, not through foster care.

Their kindness to her was nothing but disdain, charity!!!

She resented this family, tried everything to sow discord among them, always ended up with scars herself, and then lied to her father, blaming her aunt and sister for her injuries. Her father couldn't express his anger, but his dissatisfaction with his wife's daughter grew day by day.

Until one day, Li Xia's uncle returned from abroad, bringing two sets of Barbie dolls with hundreds of different styles for the two sisters, but none for Fu Yilan. Fu Yilan resented it; her uncle didn't know that it was precisely because Li Xia's mother hadn't told anyone that there was another little girl in their family. It was too biased, too heartless.

That night, she broke the eyes of Li Xia's hundred dolls, painted them all red, and placed them on the stairs. Li Xia was scared when she saw them when she went to the bathroom at night, and she fell from the stairs, hitting her head and ending up in the hospital.

It was this action that made Li Xia's mother and precocious Li Qiu discover the problem. After a thorough investigation, Fu Yilan's identity was exposed, and she and her father, Fu Xinren, were kicked out by Li Xia's mother.

But her mother and sister couldn't bear to explain this to Li Xia, who had nightmares every day after returning home, so they kept it from her.

After her father reorganized his family, Li Xia's upright mother thought that although a man might not be his own, he was still his daughter's father. Since Li Xia had always been close to her father, her mother didn't want to speak ill of her ex-husband in front of her daughter. After all, divorce had already caused serious harm to the child's heart, and she didn't want to continue adding salt to the wound. She thought that the child would understand when she grew up.

So, Li Xia's relationship with her father was still good after she turned ten, and she occasionally visited the Fu family to see her grandmother and father.

But how could Li Xia know that Fu Yilan, her younger sister, was like a beautiful white lotus flower, but had a poisonous nature?

During high school, Li Xia had a late-night argument with her mother and went out, resulting in an accident at the bar. She blamed herself, not knowing that Li Qiu had secretly investigated and, although there was no evidence, heard that it was Fu Yilan's doing. The reason remains unknown to this day.

Li Xia was kept in the dark until she died once and saw clearly that some people, truly, would not spare you unless you provoked them.

But what Li Xia found intolerable, even hateful, was everything Fu Yilan did to Li Qiu.

Li Qiu, being the elder sister, always had a caring heart for anyone younger than her. So when Fu Yilan was in the Li family, Li Xia treated her neither well nor badly. It was Li Qiu who treated her well.

But this kind and patient woman was repeatedly slandered and vilified by Fu Yilan, who stole boyfriends, exposed scandals, and engaged in various business schemes. Even Li Qiu's only mistake of giving birth to an illegitimate child was not spared by Fu Yilan.

In Li Xia's heart, Li Qiu, three years older, was mature and sensible. She started working in the mall with her mother at fifteen and could almost stand on her own in the business world before the accident. In her memory, her sister always resembled the autumn she was born in: calm, mysterious, dazzling, proud yet stubborn, cold yet focused. She was the best to her.

At night, her sister would tell her stories; during parent-teacher meetings, her sister would take the scolding for her; when she was bullied by classmates, her sister would fight for her; when her allowance ran out, she would ask her sister for money; when she ran out of phone credit, her sister would recharge it for her; when she liked something, she would ask her sister to buy it as a birthday gift for her dozens of times a year; when she became rebellious, her sister would clean up after her day after day, year after year.

Li Xia had always thought her sister was a strong person, and there was nothing in the world that would worry or bother her.

But after obtaining her sister's memories in her rebirth, Li Xia realized how intense and thrilling the battles between the Li family and the Fu family were in the business world. The negotiations and confrontations between her father and Fu Yilan made this once strong sister so exhausted, facing her former relatives, her heart grew cold.

At this moment, she encountered her first love, giving herself over without reservation. But the warm youth who had embraced her was lured away by Fu Yilan. Li Qiu let go without looking back, only because her health was poor, and the miscarriage might have caused lifelong infertility. She had to give birth to her illegitimate child at eighteen.

But this child unexpectedly became a tool for Fu Yilan to deal with Li Qiu.

When Fu Yilan designed Li Xia, she took a picture, but the camera was lost. When she tried to retrieve it, she found out that Li Qiu had intercepted it. Fu Yilan tried several times to get it back, but Li Qiu refused, and from then on, she began to retaliate against Li Qiu.

Later, when Li Qiu was accidentally discovered with her son, Fu Yilan took a photo of them and blackmailed Li Qiu to exchange it for Li Xia's sexy photos. Li Qiu refused and destroyed the photo.

Soon, everyone in the business world knew that the Li family's eldest daughter had a three-year-old illegitimate child at the age of twenty-one. Li Qiu, indifferent and aloof, disregarded the rumors. This indifferent attitude made Fu Yilan feel deeply despised, so she even sent someone to the kindergarten to kidnap him.

When Li Qiu threatened Fu Yilan with a fruit knife, she finally revealed the whereabouts of Li Qiao. But when Li Qiu rushed to the park to find her son, the little boy was in critical condition from freezing in the ten-degree-below-zero weather and breaking his leg falling off the slide. Since then, he had suffered from heart disease and been confined to a wheelchair.

Li Xia looked at the pure and beautiful woman on stage and sneered. This wasn't an easily dealt with white lotus; it was a poisonous lotus.

At this moment, behind Fu Yilan stood four people:

Fu Xinren, the upright father;

Lan Yu, the mistress mother;

Fu Silan, the elder sister;

Lan Xin, the malicious aunt.

They were all Fu Yilan's support, but what did Li Xia have? Memories and Li Qiu's son, who was confined to a wheelchair with heart disease.

In her memory, her sister always rubbed her short hair and smiled, saying, "Our little chestnut doesn't need to grow up; you have me to protect you."

Now, she had to protect herself and her sister's son.

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