For several seconds, no one in the room moved.

Gu Dingchen stood beside the sandalwood table, his face pale.

The three boys stared at him.

And from the staircase came the sound of something falling.

A porcelain cup shattered.

Lin Weiwei was standing halfway down the stairs.

Her expression had completely changed.

“So you heard everything,” I said.

She forced a smile.

“Qingyuan, what are you talking about? Those children—”

“Are yours.”

Her smile disappeared.

Gu Dingchen snapped:

“Enough!”

I looked at him.

“No. Five years of silence is enough.”

I took my phone from my bag.

The photographs were already saved.

The DNA report.

The hospital records.

Transfers from Gu Dingchen to Lin Weiwei.

And, most importantly, the original fertility treatment file bearing dates that proved something even more ridiculous.

The eldest boy had been conceived before Gu Dingchen and I were even married.

I placed my phone on the table.

“Since everyone is here, let’s finish this.”

His mother rushed in from the adjoining room.

“What nonsense is this?”

I enlarged the test results.

Gu Zixian.

Gu Zihao.

Gu Zishui.

Probability of maternity with Lin Weiwei:

99.99%.

The old woman stopped.

Her lips trembled.

Then, unbelievably, she looked at Lin Weiwei instead of her son.

“You gave birth to all three?”

Lin Weiwei started crying.

“Auntie, listen to me…”

“So Qingyuan has been raising your children?”

Nobody answered.

I laughed quietly.

That was the answer.

Five years earlier, after I married into the Gu family, the first boy was brought home barely a month later.

Gu Dingchen told me he was the orphaned child of a distant relative.

His mother said:

“A Gu family child cannot grow up outside.”

I accepted him.

Then came the second.

Another “relative’s tragedy.”

Then the third.

By that point, I had already become so accustomed to being told what a good wife should endure that I never questioned why every unfortunate child happened to resemble my husband.

I fed them.

Stayed awake through fevers.

Attended school meetings.

Taught them to read.

And while I was carrying Nuannuan, I still packed lunches for three boys who had already learned from the adults around them that I existed to serve.

Gu Dingchen finally spoke.

“They are still innocent.”

I looked at him.

“So is my daughter.”

His mouth closed.

I turned toward the three boys.

I did not hate them.

Children become cruel when cruelty is rewarded.

But I was no longer willing to sacrifice my daughter so they could remain comfortable.

Gu Zixian’s face was red.

“So… you’re not our mother?”

“No.”

He looked at Lin Weiwei.

“Then she is?”

Weiwei started toward him.

“Zixian…”

The boy stepped backward.

For the first time, there was no arrogance in his expression.

Only confusion.

I took Nuannuan’s small hand.

“We’re leaving.”

Gu Dingchen immediately blocked the doorway.

“You can go.”

He looked at our daughter.

“She stays.”

Nuannuan clutched my coat.

I smiled.

“No.”

“She’s a Gu.”

“She’s my daughter.”

“And mine.”

I reached into the document folder.

“You should have remembered that before allowing your sons to use her as a servant.”

His eyes hardened.

“I never told them to do that.”

“You watched.”

Silence.

That was always the excuse in this family.

Nobody ordered the cruelty.

They merely allowed it.

I placed another document on the table.

Custody petition.

Evidence attachments.

Statements from two former nannies.

Photographs of Nuannuan washing the boys’ shoes.

Messages from Gu Dingchen’s mother ordering me to “teach the girl obedience.”

And a recording.

His mother’s voice played clearly:

“A daughter will marry out anyway. Let her learn to serve her brothers now.”

The old woman’s face turned gray.

Gu Dingchen stared at me.

“You’ve been preparing this?”

“For three months.”

His eyes widened.

That was when he finally understood.

I had not asked for divorce because I had suddenly become angry.

I had already stopped believing in this marriage long before he threw those papers on the table.

I had simply been waiting until I could leave safely with Nuannuan.

My lawyer arrived twenty minutes later.

So did two members of my father’s old legal team.

Gu Dingchen looked stunned when he recognized one of them.

“You know Attorney Zhou?”

Attorney Zhou adjusted his glasses.

“Ms. Ye was one of my firm’s earliest art-investment clients.”

Gu Dingchen turned toward me.

“What?”

There was still one thing he didn’t know.

Five years at home had not erased everything I had been before becoming Mrs. Gu.

I had stopped exhibiting publicly.

I had not stopped painting.

At night, after everyone slept, I painted in the storage room.

Under another name.

My work had sold in Hong Kong, Singapore, Paris and New York.

The mysterious artist “Y.N.” whose paintings the Gu family had once tried to buy for their corporate collection?

Me.

Attorney Zhou placed a valuation summary on the table.

My current independent assets exceeded what Gu Dingchen had assumed I could ever earn.

His face became almost comical.

“You said no one wanted your paintings.”

“No.”

I corrected him.

“You said that.”

I had simply stopped arguing.

The divorce became ugly after that.

Gu Dingchen fought for Nuannuan at first.

Not because he had suddenly become a devoted father.

Because losing his biological daughter publicly would make the Gu family look terrible.

But evidence is difficult to argue with.

The family court reviewed everything.

The unequal treatment.

The living arrangements.

The children’s testimony.

The household staff’s statements.

And eventually, Nuannuan herself was asked where she felt safe.

She pointed at me.

That was enough.

I received primary custody.

I took none of the Gu family’s company shares.

I didn’t need them.

I took my daughter.

My paintings.

And the years still waiting for us.

As for the three boys, Lin Weiwei finally had to become the mother she had spent years pretending not to be.

Within two months, she complained that they were difficult.

That they disobeyed.

That she couldn’t manage three children alone.

I heard Gu Dingchen hired two nannies.

Funny.

For five years, no one thought I deserved even one.

A year later, Nuannuan and I moved into a bright apartment with an enormous window.

I gave her the largest room.

One afternoon, I found her standing in front of my easel.

“Mom?”

“Yes?”

“Can girls paint too?”

My brush stopped.

I looked at my daughter.

Then I smiled.

“Girls can do whatever they become good enough to do.”

She thought seriously.

“Can I learn?”

I pulled a small stool beside mine.

“Sit.”

That evening, she painted a crooked yellow house beneath a blue sky.

There were only two people standing in front of it.

A tall woman.

And a little girl holding her hand.

No brothers.

No grandmother.

No father.

I asked:

“Who lives there?”

Nuannuan smiled.

“Us.”

For five years, the Gu family believed I had no ability to survive outside their house.

They were wrong.

The person who could not survive without me was never my daughter.

It was the family that had mistaken my sacrifice for weakness.