MEMOIRS THAT WERE LEFT BEHIND

The next day, the twins approached her with a usual request. "Aunty, can we meet Mommy and Daddy?"

"Yeah, I dreamed of them last night! Let's watch them! I wanna see them, Aunty."

It was a Saturday. Kang Sola spent the whole morning with the twins. She fed the television with the recordings which her second brother, Chen Linyun, and his wife, Xue Jinxu had chronicled during the latter's pregnancy.

"Your parents might not be here, but it doesn't mean that they cease to exist."

"Hmmm…" The two kids murmured their agreement while eating their steamed buns, their eyes glued to the moving projections of their mother and father on the screen. It was like magical time-travel for the twins to the time when they were still inside their mother's womb.

"Your parents waited for your arrival. They were so excited…" Kang Sola sighed, unable to continue. She stroked the heads of these adorable twins. If she continued to speak, tears might just flow out of her eyes. She didn't want the kids to see her pathetically cry over their great loss. Instead, she took great efforts in maintaining a gentle smile on her face as she watched her niece and nephew reconnect with their parents through technology.

The adults had waited for them to grow up a bit before they briefly explained what happened to their parents. And so, when the twins turned six years old, they gradually opened up the truth to them. But not all. Vaguely, they implied about their deaths, and what happened in a way that will not traumatize the twins. They also left out the small detail of their father's older brother's contribution to his untimely death. No one in the household had even mentioned the older brother before.

Certainly not her. She used to like that older brother because he had been protecting her since she was a little girl. However, when she was eighteen, she discovered the truth which turned her world upside down. She discovered that there's despicable villain blood running through her veins and that same older brother that she used to like turned out to be an evil person who could hurt his own brother.

Just thinking about him was enough to make her tremble with despair. 'How could a person be so evil?'

One Saturday when she was supervising how the maids clean the master's bedroom, she found a journal which her late sister-in-law had kept. It was the journal of her pregnancy. It had a note handwritten at the cover: 'To my twins'.

When they had told the twins about their parents, she had read some of the entries of the journal of them for the first time. The twins cried when they heard the explanation about their biological parents, and surprisingly, when she had read the journal to them, it calmed them and helped them to sleep. Since then, the journal replaced the kids' stories that they used to narrate to them before bedtime.

Since then, too, the twins had been asking whenever possible to re-watch the recordings their parents captured and left behind.

She looked after the twins as they attentively munched on their steamed buns. She sat with them on the couch and stroked their heads caringly. Whenever at home, as much as possible, she spent most of her free time with them. It meant that the nannies could have their days off.

She wore a contented smile on her face. She was reminded of her life's planned timeline during her teens. She thought that by the time she reached twenty-five, she would have become an established news anchor in South Korea.

That was her plan – to go back to her mother country, South Korea, once she completed her studies under her scholarship grant.

However, life intended other things for her.

At sixteen, she did not know about having siblings. She went to China only to search for her father.

Yes, along the way she had discovered that she had two older brothers, the older one she had known for a long time, and the second older one she knew for just months.

Now that she had finally met them, her identity should have been well-defined. It should have made her complete.

However, she wasn't proud of her father nor her older brother's ways.

The discovery of her identity left her rather shaken. All she ever wanted was to know where she came from – who her parents where.

Now, the world mocks her as a convict's daughter. Bad blood ran through her veins.

Although, perhaps only a few knew about her paternal lineage. She didn't even use his surname, Shi.

But, because her second older brother had been good, her hope wasn't completely washed off.

As she watched the twins get much more enthralled by the recording of their parents – her second brother and his lovely, feisty wife, she wished that those kids would not be inclined towards evil. She hoped for them not to discover the dark past around their father's death, and she prayed that they would never waver and stray from the righteous path.

She had the same prayer for herself.

On Monday morning, Kang Sola's schedule had freed up so she decided to drop the kids to school. Xiao Lihua and Xiao Lingtian were in the first grade now, and even if they were homeschooled in their tender years until that year, the family decided that it would be better for them to attend normal school to mingle with other kids and make friends.

It was their first year to attend a normal school, and so far, or as far as she knew, the kids were loving it.

"Seize the day, my darlings!" Kang Sola both blessed each twin with a peck on their soft, warm cheek.

"Bye, Aunty." Xiao Lingtian waved his chubby paw up in the air energetically.

"Love you, Aunty. Mwah." The little girl, Xiao Lihua threw an adorable flying kiss on her direction. She pretended to catch it and encage it in her heart.

"Hahaha. Cute."

The two turned around and walked hand-in-hand with their red backpacks protruding on their backs as they went.

Before she could return to where her car was parked, a teacher approached her. "Excuse me, Miss Kang. Good morning."

"Good day!" She retorted with glee. Her aura was like the sunlight which brings energy to whatever it touches. "What can I do for you, Teacher?"