Mister Li, the Heart Bandit

Twenty-six years ago.

The Yu family and the Li family had stood at the top of River Town as equals who moved heaven and earth in the city.

They had certainly been bitter rivals with no hope of conciliation, with even their children and grandchildren at each other throats.

Yu Qishan had led the family at the time, fighting the then head of the Li family both in the light and in the shadows. However, none of them had expected to find out one day that Yu Qishan’s own daughter Yu Xiaoxiao was in a secret affair with Li Nanhai, son of Li Mingqi.

At the time, Li Nanhai was to be the next head of the family, and the noble families’ dispute had grown violent.

The way Li Mingqi had separated the two lovers in his rage was immediately identical to Yu Qishan’s own reaction.

Yu Xiaoxiao had been grounded, and Li Nanhai had been sent off to Europe.

As a result, Yu Xiaoxiao had been crying her eyes out every single day, on the brink of death as she stopped eating and declared that love is great and eternal. And yet, Li Nanhai had just been in Europe for one month when he found a new lover, and with many more after her that he had completely forgotten about Yu Xiaoxiao.

Five years later, when Li Nanhai was in the midst of a steamy affair with a woman named Xia Jie who was the love of his life, things went south as Li Mingqi was suddenly caught by a serious illness that left him bedridden. Li Nanhai was forced to inherit the entire Li family and take a woman he didn’t love as his wife in a marriage of convenience, separating amicably with Xia Jie since her humble roots naturally denied them any chance of a union.

Everything should have ended at that.

Immediately, word of how Li Nanhai’s growing influence spread everywhere. As news of how he spoiled his wife reached Yu Xiaoxiao, she was taken gravely ill as her lovesickness became a malady.

However, the people didn’t know back then that Li Nanhai had left his seed overseas, a crime of passion in his days of philandering.

The woman’s name was Wan Mei.

At the time, she had made a move on him because of Li Nanhai’s wealth, only to really fall in love with him later on.

And she was so in love that she could not pull out.

Ignoring Li Nanhai’s threats, she boldly and determinedly bore him a son.

Li Nanhai already had a family then, and he still had to rely on his wife’s influence to push his company to the top. There was no way he would allow that bastard to live, and hence ordered a hit on both Wan Mei and her child.

Even so, mother and son survived by chance, and it was only after Wan Mei went down on her knees to beg for Li Shaoling’s life that Li Nanhai stopped.

Three years later.

Yu Xiaoxiao who had always valued her love had changed drastically, often frequenting seedy venues, living in a drunken stupor of men and alcohol.

Eventually, she became pregnant following an illicit affair with a third-rate thug named Chen Bin.

Chen Bin was an extremely despicable person who could turn extreme in his fit of rages. Nonetheless, Yu Xiaoxiao was pregnant in her spiral self-destruction— Yu Qishan wanted to get rid of Chen Bin as he was unable to bear the potential shame on the Yu family, while the thug himself was in a desperate time and decided that he would become a son-in-law to secure the gold mine that was the Yu family by any means necessary, and hence kidnapped Yu Xiaoxiao as way of threat.

However, no one expected Yu Xiaoxiao to have a premature birth under duress, giving life to a baby girl named Yu Chuqing.

Afterwards, Yu Chuqing was raised until nine-years-old under Yu Qishan’s affection and shelter. And though Chen Bin did not marry Yu Xiaoxiao, he received so many benefits from the Yu family to start a chain of drinking bars, while often getting caught in fights and scandals.

By chance, it turned out that Chen Bin and Wan Mei were former lovers, with the latter leaving him as she couldn’t bear Chen Bin’s abuse and humiliation. Chen Bin had been trying to find her for years, and eventually he learned about her relationship with Li Nanhai and the son she bore him.

In his jealously, Chen Bin lured Wan Mei to his place where they broke into a heated argument. Driven to a corner, Wan Mei was about to go for a lovers’ suicide but Wan Mei refused, and as they continued their vicious struggle, Yu Xiaoxiao finally realized that the Li Nanhai she fell so deeply in love with was a scumbag in every sense of the word and started a fire to just bring everything down with her.

It grew into a towering inferno, and Yu Xiaoxiao fainted on the floor with carbon monoxide poisoning, while Chen Bin literally broke Wan Mei’s face and the two perished under the roof that came crashing down.

That was also the year Yu Chuqing that disappeared without a trace, and was presumed dead by everyone.

The truth was that she fled the fire, but was knocked down by Ji Xiandong’s car and suffered a traumatic injury in her head.

Xia Jie, who had married Ji Xiangdong had intended to bring Yu Chuqing to the hospital for a period of recuperation, but word that Yu Qishan was overturning River Town in search of his granddaughter reached the couple.

The two had intended to put up an act as kidnappers, to demand a king’s ransom from the Yu family.

However, Yu Chuqing started calling Xia Jie ‘mommy’ the moment she woke up, and couldn’t recognize anyone else other than her.

Being barren, Xia Jie ignored Ji Xiangdong’s every protest and adopted Yu Chuqing, changing her name to Ji Weixi.

***

There was a great downpour in River Town tonight, blurring out every star overhead at night.

Ji Weixi was standing outside the hospital entrance and looking.

It had been a long time since she looked at River Town’s skies like this—in fact, she couldn’t remember the last time she did so.

Ji Xiangdong had told her so much about the tangled, confused relationships of the Yu family and her birth.

Ji Weixi never imagined that the mother she respected and loved so dearly had intended to kidnap her for money.

Be that as it may, she had passed away and Ji Weixi did not have the heart to complain. Xia Jie might have been wrong, but ultimately, she had become her mother and showered her with motherly love.

Ji Weix took a deep breath. The chill in the air spread from her lungs to her whole body and she shuddered.

She had never imagined that she was a child of the Yu family and not the Ji family.

Now, she finally realized the truth behind the unusual looks Yu Qishan and Yu Xiangnian gave her on that day.

She was a child of the Yu family, and Yu Qishan’s granddaughter.

But she couldn’t be happy.

Ji Xiandong had also said that her biological father had killed Wan Mei, and her biological mother was the main culprit, but Ji Weixi lost her memory in the accident.

In that single moment, Ji Weixi’s heart felt stabbed, with fresh blood overflowing.

Even if Ji Xiandong did not tell her the name of Wan Mei and Li Nanhai’s child, Ji Weixi knew the answer.

The bastard of the Li family, three years old than Yu Chuqing—that is, herself.

He was Li Shaoling. Who else could he be?

Ji Weixi’s tears quietly rolled from her eyes.

She hurriedly wiped it away, as if afraid others would notice.

She smiled then, but it was almost mocking of herself.

Never could she have guessed that she and Li Shaoling would be caught in the grievances of the past generation.

That troubled feeling she had couldn’t be put to words.

The truth was right there in her face, but she was upset even though it felt as if it did not really happen to her.

No matter how hard she thought about it, her memories before she was nine years old seemed to be sealed in an iceberg, unable to break out.

“What’s on your mind?”

A voice spoke behind her then.

Ji Weixi promptly turned to find Li Shaoling putting a coat over her. “It’s cold. Get inside.”