Even now, sitting across from him as an adult, she felt the same invisible leash around her neck.
The servants crept around the table, setting down steaming bowls of rice, fragrant meats, and delicate vegetable dishes. All the dishes were healthy food.
Not a single clatter of porcelain echoed, and every motion was careful, reverent, as though they too feared the weight of Jin Shuren's gaze and disturbing him.
Fang Lin caught one of the younger maids glancing nervously at her before quickly lowering her head, pouring tea in silence before retreating.
Their restraint only deepened Fang Lin's sense of suffocation, the atmosphere pressing in on her chest. Her Uncle hasn't changed one bit and is just as cruel as always.
Yueqin, oblivious to the storm in her aunt's mind, poked her rice with a chopstick and added with a giggle, "Daddy is very scary when he's angry. But he listens to me. So you better behave, Fang Lin! He will do anything I tell him to do."
