Chapter 164: Chapter 164



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The comments on the live stream had already gone crazy:

‘Oh my God, I just saw a plot twist online! It’s not her biological daughter! Oh my God.’

‘No wonder she’s not close to her father. As it turned out, she’s not his biological daughter! No wonder, then!’.

‘That’s too biased an opinion. To my way of thinking, the kindness one shows in raising a child outweighs that of giving birth to it. The fact that she’s not your biological child, does that mean you can forget how much you raised her?’

‘I agree. If you can be a total ingrate just because you’re not your parents’ biological daughter, what position do you put the families who so kindly adopt children in the orphanage in?’

‘I myself am an adopted child. My biological parents abandoned me at birth, but my adoptive parents treated me very well. Our relationship now is no different from that of blood parents and children. Does it matter whether we are blood relatives or not?’

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At the Andersons’.

Roxanne, who was amazed by the turn of events, was actually a little embarrassed. She had come here solely to bring popularity to her stream, as well as to persuade them to reconcile.

She had not expected these twists and turns at all.

She couldn’t help but secretly blame and resent Henry for not telling her the truth. Besides, from the way he was reacting, it was obvious that he knew. She just didn’t want to admit it, that was all.

She frowned and looked at the comments on the live feed. Then, the quick reporter said, “There is no greater kindness than the love and care you receive from your parents growing up, Miss Smith. A DNA test report doesn’t explain anything. Since you grew up with the Smiths, that makes them your parents. Do you really want to break ties with your parents who have worked so hard to raise you?”

As soon as he said that, Wendy reacted quickly. She pulled out a handkerchief from who knows where and held it over her eyes as she cried. She said, “I see, so you’ve been estranged from us because of that? But think about it: when have we ever treated you badly over all these years?”

Henry’s expression had also darkened.

Being exposed to a fact like this was putting him in an embarrassing position. However, now that things had come to this, it was no longer just a question of whether it was embarrassing or not.

He clenched his jaw and said, “Yes, you are indeed not my biological daughter, but because of my relationship with your mother, I have treated you as if you were mine all these years. I’ve worked hard to earn money to provide for you. Are you going to deny our kindness in raising you just because you’re not my biological daughter?”

Roxanne let out a sigh and said, “They are your parents, Miss Smith. Thanks to them you have grown from a helpless baby to the beautiful young woman you are now. As far as I know, you were at home until you were at least nineteen. You…”

The trio joined in attacking her.

Nora lowered her gaze.

She disliked exposing her affairs to others, and having them know that she had never been loved since she was a child; or that she had always hidden in a darkened room since she was a child; or that when she was still a child with no means of retaliation, she could only eat food that had gone bad and drink cold water.

She was even more disgusted that others knew how miserable her life had been as a child.

Someone as strong and powerful as she was had never needed anyone’s pity.

Besides, she was not eloquent enough to talk about such things.

However, neither was it her style to allow those three people to twist and distort the truth.

Nora lowered her head, picked up her cell phone and tapped on it several times with her long, slender fingers.

As a result, all the viewers of the live broadcast could see was the sight of her completely ignoring the words of the three people and playing with her cell phone with her head down, which made her look very rude.

The negative comments on the live stream were even worse.

‘That lady is very pretty, but why doesn’t she know how to behave properly?’

‘Never mind, your parents raised you to become an adult. You can’t just do that.’

‘That’s the Andersons. I can’t seem to patronize Harmonia Pharmacy’s medicines anymore. How can their medicines be any good when the people who make them are so ruthless?’

‘I heard that your aunt, that is, Mrs. Anderson, is not a decent human being either.’

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All sorts of insults bombarded the comments on the live feed.

Melissa was furious. She said, “Why don’t they ask themselves if they really treated Nora right? If they had, why would they keep her from going to school?”

Wendy let out a sigh. “That’s because she’s in poor health-we’ve spent a lot on her over the years because of her health! In fact, we used to have quite a bit of income, but because of her condition, we’ve depleted all of our savings…. I know you must think we’re doing it for money, and to tell you the truth, we are doing it for money; but it’s because we’ve been backed into a corner and we don’t know what to do!”

Wendy put her hand to her eyes and cried as she said, “Even though our oldest daughter has spent all of our savings, by rights, since the money was for her medical expenses, it shouldn’t matter. Our youngest daughter is now in graduate school and is not working, the family has no money. At this time, our oldest daughter is found by her wealthy relatives. I have learned that Nora’s mother owns some stock in the Andersons’ company, so she is now very wealthy…. We’re not asking for riches or honors; we’re just hoping she can give us some money – even a few thousand dollars would be enough – to help the family. I have my own selfish motives, too. I feel very bad to see my youngest daughter living from hand to mouth. Nora, as an older sister, can’t you give your sister a little of what you have when you are doing well? Your father and I are old, so we can do without-we’re even willing to live on scraps! But your younger sister is such an exceptional girl…”

Her performance could bring tears of sadness to anyone who heard it.

Melissa had always been a very eloquent woman, but even she was astonished by Wendy’s shamelessness.

Simon took an even more direct approach. As far as he was concerned, if spending a small amount of money could solve the problem, he would do it and let the matter drop. Nor would he hold anything against them. Thus, he asked, “How much do you plan to ask Nora?”

His question made Wendy’s eyes light up. She replied, “How about this? Not only is Nora rich now, but we sent her to the doctors last time because she was supposedly Henry’s biological daughter. In that case, we will make her pay us back all the money we have spent on her medical treatment all these years. If she doesn’t want to relate to us in the future, we won’t come anymore either. We’re not asking too much, are we?”

The live stream was filled with comments such as:

‘Her request is not too much at all!’

‘Exactly. It doesn’t sound like Miss Smith is a good person to me either. In that case, they might as well make her pay them a lump sum and cut ties after that’.

‘Since she wants to sever the relationship, they should settle all past accounts properly. Why limit it to medical expenses? They should also include everything else, like living expenses, etc’.

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As these comments were being broadcast live, Nora finally raised her cold eyes and spoke. She said, “Sure, in that case, let’s settle the accounts properly. Let’s take about five dollars each of the meals I ate since I was a kid. That makes fifteen dollars a day. All told, that’s…”

Wendy smiled and interrupted her. She said, “Is it necessary to go into so much detail, Nora? This all happened twenty years ago – who could remember it so clearly? Why don’t we do this instead? Let’s calculate the few important expenses instead. The first is your medical expenses. Then, during those years you were overseas…”

Henry nodded and said, “Yes, that’s right. We’ll forget about the daily expenses for food and so on. I’ll just consider that I was feeding a dog. Instead, let’s calculate the big expenses…”

“No, that won’t do.” Nora stood up straight, and at that instant a sharp glint flashed in her sleepy-looking eyes. Her lips curved upward in a smile and she said unhurriedly under her breath, “I’ve always been one to distinguish clearly between gratitude and spite, so I mustn’t leave out a single penny. I have a detailed breakdown of your bank records here …”

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