"Mom, I want to know about my biological parents."
Bella Green sat on the carpet, leaning against the sofa, and asked softly.
Chloe Johnson fell silent for a while, couldn’t help letting out a heavy sigh, and sat down beside Bella.
Her gaze rested on the chandelier on the ceiling, its fractured light scattering like she was staring at a past she could never reach.
"They were... really kind, wonderful people, a couple everyone envied. Your mother was very beautiful, and very outstanding. Clearly they were the young lady and young master of two wealthy families, yet just to spare each other’s feelings they pretended to be ordinary people."
As she said this, Chloe couldn’t help laughing.
"Clumsy and earnest like that, they tried so hard for each other to live the most ordinary life—rice, oil, salt; coarse tea and simple meals—and somehow the two of them found it all deeply satisfying."
Suddenly, the smile at Chloe’s lips gradually faded, and her eyes reddened slightly.
"If it hadn’t been for what happened later, they might have gone on living that simple, happy life forever."
Bella’s heart gave a jolt. She turned her head to look at Chloe.
Her palm slowly tightened into a fist, and her heart lifted with a mix of tension and dread.
He knew that whatever came next would be unbearably painful and sad.
Chloe stared at the chandelier, lost for a long moment.
Only after quite a while did she pull herself out of her memories, lower her head with a soft laugh, and choose not to go on.
Instead she turned, took Bella’s hand, patted it lightly, and smiled with maternal tenderness.
"No matter what, Bella, you have to know—they loved you very, very much. More than anyone in this world..."
Bella’s chest felt tight, as if a stone were pressing down on it, heavy and suffocating.
"My dad... is he also from the Lawrence Family?"
The fact that she and Matthew Lawrence ended up with that kind of paternity test report had to mean that she and her father shared a blood tie.
If that was the case, then her father had to be a member of the Lawrence Family as well.
The Lawrence Family was gone now; all that remained were Louis Lawrence’s father and Vivian Thornecroft’s father.
Chloe knew all this. She knew Bella would find out sooner or later, so she didn’t hide it; she simply nodded.
"Your father and Second Master were fraternal twins, that’s why the paternity test turned out like that."
Bella was completely stunned now. She hadn’t known Matthew Lawrence had a twin brother.
Matthew’s twin brother definitely wasn’t Louis’s father—after all, Louis’s father was widely known to be an illegitimate son.
Other than that, the only one left was the Third Master of the Lawrence Family.
Vivian Thornecroft’s father...
Bella started to feel unsettled, giving Chloe a strange look.
"So you’re saying Vivian Thornecroft is actually my biological brother?"
Bella felt this was a bit too fantastical.
Chloe was confused by the question, but the name Alexander Thornecroft was one she knew.
Back then, in the village where they lived, he’d been a boy who got along very well with Bella.
But she couldn’t understand what Bella’s words were supposed to mean.
"What nonsense are you talking, child? You’re an only child, where would a brother come from?"
Bella’s mind went blank with a bang, and she didn’t react for a long time.
From what Chloe had said, her father was definitely the Third Master of the Lawrence Family.
She knew Vivian had later been found and brought back by the Lawrence Family—but if she herself was the Third Master’s daughter, then what was Vivian’s situation?
Suddenly, Bella’s heartbeat sped up a few notches, and a suspicion slowly took shape in her mind.
Vivian Thornecroft wasn’t the Lawrence Family’s child at all!
She and Vivian were three whole years apart. Even if the Lawrence Family had identified the wrong person, they shouldn’t have gotten the age off by that much, should they?