Chapter 13: Her Scars and Taboos

 Chapter 13: Her Scars and Taboos

Qin Ruan had just walked out of her room when she caught a strong whiff of beef.

She was starving, so hungry that she almost fainted.

Perhaps she was so famished that her eyes turned green, or else she wouldn't have attracted the attention of that devil.

A male caregiver who was related to the orphanage director had set up a table in the courtyard, where he and some people were drinking and eating delicious food.

Qin Ruan swallowed her saliva and stole a glance at the meat dish on the table: tomato braised beef brisket.

The bright color of the tomato mixed with the beef, and the aroma of the meat wafted through the air. It looked sour, refreshing, and delicious, making people want to savor it.

The seven-year-old Qin Ruan must have been crazy to run up to the table and grab the tomato braised beef brisket in a plastic container, only to turn around and run away.

How could a child with short legs outrun an adult?

Qin Ruan was caught.

"You little brat, you stole from your grandpa. If I don't teach you a lesson today, won't you guys step all over me in the future?" The man's fierce and cruel voice became Qin Ruan's nightmare.

He was determined to punish her and showed no mercy, using his fists and feet.

The children sleeping in the house were awakened, and many of them stuck their heads out of the windows, while some braver ones walked out to watch.

Under everyone's gaze, the tomato braised beef brisket, which was still steaming hot, was poured into Qin Ruan's mouth.

The dish had just come out of the pot and burned her mouth, throat, and fragile stomach.

The excruciating pain that she could neither shake nor fight off became an unforgettable trauma for Qin Ruan.

Her mouth was covered in blisters, and her already sore stomach was hit hard.

For the following week, she didn't eat anything.

It wasn't that she wasn't hungry, but she couldn't swallow any food.

She had to rely on drinking water to fill her stomach.

But even drinking water hurt her internal injuries when she swallowed.

The trauma left by her childhood shadow made Qin Ruan stay away from tomato braised beef brisket from that day on.

Whenever she saw this dish, she would instinctively resist, memories of excruciating pain flooding her mind and causing her body to ache subconsciously.

One day, after being taken back to the Qin family, her father, eldest brother, and second brother suddenly made three different-colored tomato stewed beef dishes for her.

She thought they knew.

They knew about the humiliating experience she had endured in the orphanage.

For Qin Ruan, it was a scar and a taboo.

Seeing the dishes that her father and brothers had made with their own hands, Qin Ruan felt a sense of rejection and resistance in her heart.

Under the expectant gaze of the three men, she swept the three dishes of tomato beef off the table and onto the ground, the sound of porcelain shattering filling the air.

The affection between father and daughter, and between siblings, was rejected by her at once.

Since she entered the Qin family, Han Xian and Han Kexin had instilled in her that even if her father and brothers treated her well, it was only out of guilt and compensation. She was ultimately an outsider in the Qin family.

Qin family was a big family with big business. Everything they did for her was like giving to a cat or dog.

How could Qin Ruan not know that Han Xian and her daughter disliked her?

She was not foolish enough to blindly believe them.

Qin Ruan had been mingling in the poor districts of the Western City since she was a child, encountering all kinds of people. Her guard was up, and she wasn't so easily accepting of the three men in the Qin family.

Misunderstandings between her and her father and brothers grew under her resistance and the provocations of Han Xian and her daughter.

Until their family was destroyed, and there was no chance to prove many things.

No one knew that after Qin Ruan overturned the three dishes her father and brothers made, she secretly took them away.

In the end, she still had expectations for her blood relatives.

(End of this chapter)