Chapter 120- A Grim Story

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Listening to Liu Guanyi's request, Adori couldn't bring herself to directly refuse it even if she didn't want to talk about it. Hence, she gave a thought about it and pondered deeply.

As Liu Guanyi had said, it wasn't fair to him for her not to answer and talk about herself. Moreover, it was too much for her to keep to herself after all these years.

It was just too much, also it was in and of itself, very bad conduct on her part. Liu Guanyi had talked a lot about himself and even spoke about his secret as an irregular and the outside.

If Adori still kept insignificant secrets at this point, she would be harming their relationship as she would pass off as an extremely distrustful person.

Adori was simply reluctant to talk about her problem as it was tied to her dark past. However, she knew that she couldn't ignore it forever, her previous outburst was an undeniable example.

Adori understood that she had to come to peace with it at some point before it would become something that could mentally hold her back.

If it was Liu Guanyi, then it was alright. If it was him, he would definitely be able to help her solve her problem and come to peace with it. If it was him, he should be able to show her the path. Hence, Adori calmed and resolved her heart, and finally opened her mouth.

"It's like this…" Adori slowly recounted her story.

Her story began in one of the slums in the middle area on the higher floors. From her childhood, she didn't have any parents only her friends and some adults who had kindly taken care of them.

The slums were the places for the residents in the middle area to abandon their children away. This was the case as the residents of the middle area couldn't have any children unless they were Rankers or had some connections with one of the ten great families.

Unfortunately, most of the residents were certainly not Rankers or had any connections to the ten great families.

Therefore, there were many cases where parents left their babies and children in the slums to fend for themselves as they didn't want to suffer the consequences.

Moreover, many members of the ten great families didn't help to make the situation better either. They often had affairs and had many illegitimate children which they left abandoned in the slums, making it even worse.

Living in the slums was certainly not easy, especially for little children like Adori and her friends. However, even though every day was hard, they always faced it together optimistically.

Adori, her friends, and the caretakers hand in hand faced the hardships and went through them with a smile. They lived in extreme poverty. Most of the time, they could barely able feed themselves only enough for their survival.

However, they didn't mind it.

They laughed and shared their happy memories together.

Those were happy and beautiful days for Adori.

At that time, everything was so much beautiful and simple. Having enough food to survive was already enough for them.

Unfortunately, nothing was eternal.

Just like the everchanging weather, spring couldn't last forever. Soon, it would change to summer, then autumn, and finally… winter.

Just like that, their happy days had come to an end when they were forced to abandon their only home and sanctuary. It was a terrifying day when a tragic fate and horror fell upon them.

For merely a simple and trivial reason, the fate of Adori and her friends had come to a dreadful ending.

At the time, Adori didn't know who exactly they were, but she later found out that a seemingly important member of one of the ten great families was about to come to visit the neighborhood near the slums where they lived.

To impress the personage, the local officials decided to carry out a massive clean-up of the slums. They wanted to keep their reputation and authority intact. After all, those abandoned children were the product of the violation of the tower's rules.

Thus, Adori and her friends had to flee the slums to avoid the massacre.

Some of her friends had died in the process but most of them had managed to survive. As always, they stuck together to weather the new hardships.

However, this time, it was way different from the previous ones.

Without the shelter of the slums, they lost their place to live and the source of their food. For little children like them, surviving by themselves in the middle area was next to impossible. They couldn't do any jobs nor did they have anyone to rely on.

With their frail bodies and malnutrition from living in the slums, soon, their group had become smaller and smaller as they began to die out of starvation, kidnapped to be sold, or just straight up being killed in cold blood, and other various reasons.

However, those who had been lucky enough to manage to survive, like Adori, had learned and grown as they experienced those incredibly harsh adversities. They became smarter, more ruthless, and cautious toward their surroundings.

To survive, they threw away their kind and naïve selves. They built a wall around their hearts to protect themselves. They didn't see the world optimistically like before, only wariness and distrust.

Every trace of their previous selves had vanished and they were never the same children anymore. To survive, they would do whatever it would take. Pickpocketing, begging, shoplifting, anything that could help them to live for another day.

Even the relationship between them couldn't help but be affected by the extreme change, Adori had experienced it firsthand.

Although she had matured after experiencing the hardships as well, she was still trying to be nice to her friends and even had shared her foods with them sometimes.

However, they always put their guard up even when they were facing her, someone who had gone through thick and thin together in their entire lives.

At some point, their lives had to change even more.