9 Interesting and Amusing

When Chu Lian dragged her tired body inside her apartment, she saw her roommate Rou Xi sitting on the carpet in living room. She had headphones on and it's probably on full volume as she didn't notice Chu Lian's arrival. Rou Xi was tapping her fingers on an electric guitar connected to a special modified computer, lightly moving her head with the rhythm and in front of her were a notepad and a pencil. She's probably writing a new song and she was listening to her demo.

Chu Lian directly walked to the kitchen and searched for snacks in the refrigerator. She found an unopened half-gallon of ice cream, took a spoon, then went to the living room and sat in front of her roommate. Rou Xi took off her headphones as she watched Chu Lian eat a spoonful of her favourite mint ice cream with a grumpy face.

Rou Xi suddenly asked, "How can you something that tastes like toothpaste?" Chu Lian just glared at her; she was already in a foul mood after all that happened today and now even her best friend is teasing her. The restaurant's boss fired her as she originally didn't do well with her job and would often get in conflict with costumers who took interest in her; and now eating her favourite ice cream sort of improved her mood and Rou Xi just had to ruin it.

"Guess who I met today?" Chu Lian mysteriously asked Rou Xi. "Hmm," interested, the latter rubbed her chin and thought for a while, "Seeing you feeling so distressed, it must be that witch or her spawn right?" Chu Lian scooped a mouthful of ice cream and stuffed it in her mouth then said after swallowing, "No, but close enough." Chu Lian then told Rou Xi about the events that happened earlier, from when she entered Starry Night Studios until losing her part-time job.

Rou Xi was amused as Chu Lian skilfully imitated the voice and facial reactions of the people from earlier, making her feel like she watched the whole fiasco herself. She laughed especially hard when Chu Lian imitated Li Mingzhu's squeaky high pitched voice.

"That slap must have been so satisfying." Rou Xi commented after Chu Lian's story telling. "Not really, they did much worse things in the past." Chu Lian's face darkened as she thought about the sufferings she went through under that witch foster mother of hers.

Chu Lian was an orphan and has lived in an orphanage for quite some years until her foster father, Chu Duyi, adopted her. Chu Duyi was a successful businessman; he was a rare kind of person as he was a philanthropist and would often attend charity events. It was during one of those charity events that he met Chu Lian in the orphanage and decided to adopt the little girl after noticing she was different from the other girls around her age.

Chu Lian as a child was quiet and already mature; she had no interest in playing with other children and would instead read story books. Although Chu Lian was quiet, the other children liked and respected her a lot. They thought of her as their older sister as oftentimes she would tell the younger ones the stories she read; even the sisters taking care of them liked Chu Lian a lot.

Whenever the children see Chu Lian reading another book, they would give her space as they thought of it as an investment. "If elder sister reads more books, she would have more interesting stories to tell," the little ones always thought.

As children, they easily get bored by stuffs such as books, that's why they could only learn about different stories from Chu Lian. Of course, it could also be credited to Chu Lian's interesting and amusing way of telling stories as her voice and face would change as she mimics the characters from the stories.

It was because Chu Lian was already outstanding as a child that Chu Duyi decided to adopt Chu Lian when she just turned twelve years old. He thought that she would be a great older sister to his own daughter. Of course his wife was very against it but she couldn't do anything.

His wife even thought that Chu Lian might be his bastard child but knowing her husband, she knew that's unlikely. However, Li Jiaming, Chu Duyi's wife, still hated the adoption of Chu Lian as she thought that her own daughter would have a competitor for Duyi's love and attention, and especially his inheritance.

When Chu Lian arrived at their residence, Li Jiaming showed an amiable and loving act towards Chu Lian in front of Chu Duyi. Seeing how his wife treated their new daughter, he was happy and satisfied. However, behind his back, Li Jiaming treated Chu Lian coldly and harshly. There were even times when Chu Duyi was away for days on a business trip that Chu Lian would be locked up in a dark room as a punishment in the stead of her foster sister, Chu Ju.

Li Jiaming had rarely hurt Chu Lian physically as it would leave evidences but she instead had tried to always break Chu Lian emotionally. But Chu Lian was a mature girl for her age, as an orphan she already went through a lot of things and she even viewed Li Jiaming as petty. But this only made the woman increase her abuse towards Chu Lian. She somehow took it as a challenge to break Chu Lian.

Chu Lian never told Chu Duyi about her two-faced foster mother's abuse as she viewed herself as an outsider in the family. She had no blood relations with them so she thought she shouldn't do anything that could break this family.

She was grateful towards Chu Duyi for trying to give her the warmth of a family but that's it. Other than gratefulness and respect, she felt nothing towards her foster father.