Originally, she had wanted to tell him she was pregnant.
But now, there was no need.
In fact, there was never any need at all.
He had said long ago that he would never give her either a title or a child. If he knew she was pregnant, he would only utter two cold words: "Abort it."
Celia lowered her head and forced a faint smile. "Nothing."
Nathaniel Fu gave her one last deep look. His voice was steady, distant. "Celia, I'm leaving."
She met his gaze, her lips curving as though mocking herself. "Mr. Fu, goodbye."
Without another word, Nathaniel turned and left the villa.
Celia sat in a daze for a while before finally standing up and walking upstairs into her room.
She moved to the window. Her delicate, pale hand reached out and pulled open a narrow slit in the golden gauze curtains. She leaned closer, peeking outside.
The man had already stepped into a black Rolls-Royce Phantom. The engine purred to life, and soon, the car glided out of the courtyard.
Moments later, his tall, cold figure vanished completely from sight—as if he had never been there at all.
Celia's gaze followed the direction he disappeared into, her eyes unfocused. The glow of the lamplight stretched her lonely silhouette long and thin, melting into the silence of the night.
"Cici, we've always felt that Grandma, Second Uncle, and his wife treated you strangely," Su Mo said cautiously. "So I secretly took some of your hair and compared it with Second Uncle's in a DNA paternity test. The results are clear—you are not his daughter. In fact… you're not part of the Su family at all."
Celia's eyes widened. She quickly flipped through the paternity report.
Her fingers trembled as she read the conclusion: there was no blood relation between her and Su Changrong.
Her mind went blank.
How could this be?
She had always believed she was a child of the Su family. Now, suddenly, they were telling her she wasn't.
Her lips parted, her voice hoarse. "Uncle, Aunt… if I'm not a child of the Su family, then whose child am I?"
Who was she, really?
Su Mo reached out, trying to comfort her. "Cici, don't panic. I've already confronted Li Chong, and he confessed everything. It turns out… my second brother and his wife's real daughter died shortly after being brought home. Your stepmother later found you by the river. You were still in a cradle, placed in a wooden barrel, drifting along with the current."
Celia's breath caught.
So… she had been abandoned from the very beginning?
But why?
"Cici," Jiang Meiling said softly, her expression complicated. "When they found you, there was something by your side. A token. We sent someone back to your birthplace in the countryside to retrieve it. This… belongs to you."
She carefully handed over a bracelet.
It was a thin band woven from red string, with a small golden bell hanging from it.
The little bell swayed gently as it changed hands, letting out a crisp and clear sound.
Ding—ling, ding—ling…
The chime was light, pure, and almost childlike, ringing through the silent room like a secret whisper from fate.