Many years ago, Song Qingwan was not yet the elegant and perfect piano prodigy she is today.
She was just a little girl who loved chasing butterflies in the Song family garden, who would secretly feed the carrots she didn't like to the dog, and who would, when tired from piano practice, throw herself into the arms of her mother, Song Shuhua, to act spoiled.
Back then, her eyes were clear, and her heart was full of sunshine.
The change began with that aunt, Song Shurou, who always seemed to run into her near the Song residence and whose eyes and brows bore some resemblance to her mother's.
At first, Song Shurou merely gave her candies and praised her for being pretty.
Gradually, she began to say strange things.
"Wan'er, you look so much like me."
"Did you know? I am your real mother."
Little Qingwan was terrified, the candy dropping from her hand.
She pushed Song Shurou away in rejection and ran back to the big house with its warm lights and her mother's gentle smile.
But the seed had been planted.
She began living in constant anxiety, her mind wandering during piano practice, stealing glances at Song Shuhua's gentle face during meals, and waking from nightmares at night.
She was both afraid of the woman who claimed to be her birth mother and unable to completely banish her from her thoughts, while the lessons taught by her teachers echoed in her heart: one must respect one's mother.
Her young heart was filled with conflict and fear; that innocence and kindness was now shrouded in an inescapable shadow.
Finally, during another secret encounter with Song Shurou, the tormented little Qingwan, her voice choked with tears, said, "I'm going to tell Mom and Dad..."
She thought telling the truth would bring relief, but she never imagined it was the beginning of a deeper nightmare.
Song Shurou did not stop her. Instead, she revealed a sad yet eerie smile: "Alright. But before that, let Mommy show you what real life is like."
In the following days, Song Shurou began frequently taking little Qingwan to her own neighborhood. It was very shabby, far worse than the mid-tier residential area it would become years later.
She made little Qingwan help her wash dishes. The greasy, dirty water submerged hands that should have only touched piano keys.
"Mommy has a hard life, Wan'er must help Mommy," Song Shurou would say. Yet, on one occasion, through apparent carelessness, she let a broken piece of porcelain slice deeply into little Qingwan's hand.
Blood gushed out, and little Qingwan cried in pain.
For several weeks, she couldn't practice the piano.
Song Shuhua, heartbroken, pressed for answers, but little Qingwan only dared to say she had accidentally broken a cup and cut herself while picking up the glass.
When Qingwan's wound was almost healed, Song Shurou arranged for a man from next door, reeking of smoke and alcohol, to "accidentally" come across little Qingwan waiting alone downstairs for her.
The man's lecherous gaze and reaching hands left an indelible psychological scar on the little girl.
Trembling with fear, she cried and hid in the arms of Song Shurou, who had just returned.
Song Shurou chased the man away, held her tightly, and said with a voice full of tears and feigned fear, "Wan'er, you see! This is the outside world! Without the Song family to protect you, you would meet countless bad men like this! Mommy almost lost you!"
Still shaking violently in her arms, the frightened little Qingwan was terrified of this place; she didn't want to stay here.
Then, Song Shurou cupped her pale little face and revealed something else:
"Wan'er, did you know? Song Shuhua and Song Qingzhi, they originally had a biological daughter of their own."
Little Qingwan's pupils contracted.
Song Shurou, satisfied with her reaction, continued, "It was Mommy, to give you a good life, who secretly switched you with that child."
"But Mommy didn't take good care of that child. She fell ill and died a long time ago..."
Watching Qingwan's face instantly turn deathly pale, she adopted a threatening tone: "If you go and tell the truth now, do you think Song Shuhua would forgive you?"
"How would she treat the daughter of the woman who caused her own daughter's death?"
"Do you think you could still live in that big house and play your piano?"
"You would be thrown out, living a life worse than Mommy's now!"
"You would lose the piano forever, and might even be sent to a place more terrible than this!"
Fell ill and died... Caused her death... Thrown out... Lose the piano...
One terrifying word after another hammered into little Qingwan's young heart.
She looked at the dilapidated surroundings before her, remembered the disgusting man's gaze, and contrasted it with the warm piano room of the Song family and that other mother's gentle embrace.
She was utterly terrified.
She couldn't tell. She didn't dare to tell the truth.
From that day on, this secret became an invisible shackle on her heart.
She still lived in the Song household but could never again be as wholeheartedly close to Song Shuhua and Song Qingzhi as before.
Watching their unreserved affection for her, her heart filled with guilt and fear, terrified that one day it would all vanish.
She became cautious, striving to play the part of a flawless young lady, attempting to use excellence to make up for her sinful origins.
Later, on her way home from school one day, an out-of-control truck nearly hit her.
It was Song Shurou who rushed out, pushed her to safety, and scraped her own arm.
At that moment, looking at her birth mother's bleeding arm and frightened face, Song Qingwan's complex feelings towards her reached their peak.
She placed her complete trust in Song Shurou, so much so that even when she grew up and knew about paternity tests, she never had one done.
Over the next dozen or so years, under Song Shurou's malicious guidance and her own ceaseless inner turmoil, that once innocent and kind-hearted little girl was step by step molded into the present-day Song Qingwan, who could no longer distinguish right from wrong and was selfish to the core.
