Chapter 427 - 365: Does My Ugliness Scare You?
Her bright eyes sparkled with excitement and curiosity. "I’ll go get her right away. We shouldn’t keep her waiting."
With a silent nod of approval from Chu He, she turned and left the room, her steps light and swift.
A moment later, she returned, leading Lai Yu Yao slowly into the room.
The moment Lai Yu Yao stepped into the room,
Chu He clearly sensed the tension radiating from her.
Her face was a little pale, with a faint red blush of anxiety,
but her eyes burned with the fiery, unwavering heat of determination.
"Is there something you need?"
Chu He’s tone was as calm as still water, without a single ripple, yet it carried an intangible sense of authority and pressure.
"I want to return to the Royal City.
Mr. Chu, I believe you understand what I mean."
Lai Yu Yao took a deep breath.
She slowly raised her head, her resolute gaze piercing the air like a sharp arrow,
and looked directly into Chu He’s eyes without a trace of fear.
Her expression showed no sign of hesitation or wavering. "But if I want to go back, I will need your full support.
I know my own power is meager. Only by relying on your prestige and strength, Mr. Chu, will I have any chance of achieving this wish."
"Are you proposing a deal?"
Chu He narrowed his eyes slightly.
He stared at Lai Yu Yao, and from her determined gaze and decisive words,
he more or less discerned the thoughts and calculations hidden deep within her heart.
The corners of his mouth lifted slightly, forming an ambiguous half-smile.
The smile held a deep, unreadable meaning.
"Yu Yingjie must have told you a few things about me, right?"
Lai Yu Yao bit her lower lip lightly, a trace of hesitation and conflict in her eyes.
For a moment, she didn’t know where to begin.
On her way here, her heart had been filled with excitement and resolve.
She had acted purely on a hot-headed impulse.
Now, Chu He’s simple question was like a bucket of cold water poured over her head, forcing her to calm down.
She slowly took a necklace from a pocket close to her body.
The necklace swayed slightly in her hand, glinting with a faint light.
"This necklace... was actually bought from a street stall.
My mother haggled with the vendor and bought it for just fifteen yuan.
The one who bought this necklace was my mother."
Lai Yu Yao’s voice trembled slightly. "My mother didn’t come from a well-off family.
At that time, she had seven siblings, making eight children in total.
This was an extremely common sight in the countryside back then.
In the village, whichever family had the most children
naturally had a certain amount of say in village matters.
My mother was the youngest. Growing up,
she always wore her older sisters’ hand-me-downs. Life was hard, but it was simple.
But this necklace, my mother bought it with money she had painstakingly saved for a very long time.
It might have been worthless to anyone else, but it became the most precious thing she owned.
She wore it constantly,
never taking it from her neck.
Thinking back on it now, it seems ridiculous, doesn’t it?"
Lai Yu Yao sighed softly and continued, "And yet, this ordinary, pitiable woman
happened to meet a young master from a powerful family in the Royal City, who was out gaining experience.
The two of them fell in love at first sight. Swept up by their passion,
they threw caution to the wind, got together, and she even became pregnant.
In that feudal and conservative village, my mother’s actions naturally made her the laughingstock of the community.
She brought shame upon her family and was constantly gossiped about, unable to hold her head high in the village.
But even so, my mother always held on to a sliver of hope in her heart,
always waiting for that man to come for her.
And when that man left, he had sworn to my mother
that he would definitely sort things out with his family and give her proper status."
At this point, Lai Yu Yao’s voice grew low and cold. "However, do you know how it ended?
My mother didn’t get the man she was waiting for.
Instead, she got assassins sent by his fiancée.
That woman felt this affair was an utter disgrace,
tarnishing not just the man’s name, but her own family’s reputation as well.
So, she ruthlessly sent assassins
and had my mother’s entire family of ten slaughtered to the last person.
Afterward, she even set a fire, trying to destroy the bodies and erase all traces of the crime.
Fortunately, the man had been cautious.
He sent someone in advance, who happened to arrive just as the assassins did.
With no other choice, the man had to take me, just a small child, and slip away without alerting the assassins.
And just like that, I was brought into that powerful family.
From then on, I became one of the family’s young ladies, named Lai Yu Yao."
Lai Yu Yao’s gaze grew even colder, as if it could freeze the air. "It was only because my mother, while playing with me, had taken out this precious necklace
and put it around my neck,
that I have even a single memento to remember her by."
As she spoke of this,
an intense, undiluted venom erupted in Lai Yu Yao’s eyes.
That venom was like a surging tide, threatening to drown everything.
It was precisely because of this incident
that her personality and behavior later became somewhat extreme and twisted.
The hatred in her heart was like a Demon, constantly gnawing at her soul,
driving her to relentlessly seek power and the chance for revenge.
"In those bygone days,
the current Her Majesty the Queen had not yet ascended the throne.
At that time, it was the former king who held firm control over the realm.
The former king’s temperament was quite similar to that of the current Her Majesty the Queen,