"Honestly, I never intended to acknowledge you as my father."
"I’ve known you were my father since I was little, but the first ti I actually saw you was near the train station on the outskirts of River City."
"Back then, you had no idea who I was, and I had no desire to have anything to do with you."
Caron Spencer let out an "oh" and said, "I was wondering, turns out you already knew who I was back then. You hid it really well, I didn’t even feel a thing."
"But why did you choose not to keep enduring later on?" Caron Spencer carefully studied Nick Zeller, "Did you have to use the knot on that Peach Wood Sword to test ?"
Nick Zeller sighed and bitterly smiled, "Even now, I didn’t plan to acknowledge you. I have my own parents, but I’m still not content. Ever since I saw you with my own eyes, I could no longer pretend you didn’t exist."
"I just want justice for my younger self and for my mother who beca destitute and a beggar after you abandoned her!" Nick’s eyes slowly reddened.
He glared at Caron Spencer: "Back then, in order to marry Ruby Rayner, you cozied up to their powerful connections and forced my mother to divorce you."
"My mother was heartbroken by you, she was pregnant but didn’t want to tell you, just wanted to live on her own."’
"But your in-laws, the Rayner family, were so intimidating, they practically wanted her dead!"
"Every job she found, they would co and have her fired."
"She set up a small business stand only to be frad by inexplicable troublemakers and had her stand wrecked, losing all her money."
"Later, with no way out, as her belly grew larger, the Rayner family intensified their actions, even hiring thugs to try and humiliate her!"
"When she resisted, she accidentally knocked one of the thugs unconscious, frightened of being pursued, she hurriedly left with just so travel funds to find refuge with her cousin uncle in River City!"
Caron Spencer shot up and harshly asked, "What did you say?! The Rayner family actually did such things?! How do you know?!"
Back then, Nick Zeller was still an unborn child in Eleanor Armstrong’s womb, how could he know these things?
Nick Zeller coldly laughed, "This is what my mother personally told when I was young!"
"She brought to River City seeking refuge with her cousin uncle. Initially, she couldn’t find him because he had moved."
"That year, she couldn’t find a job, spent all her money, and had no choice but to beg in that small city with a pregnant belly, staying under others’ eaves."
"Until she was about to give birth to , her cousin uncle suddenly had to return to his previous residence and finally discovered her."
Caron Spencer realized, and softly said, "...Then your adoptive mother, Florence Armstrong, is your mother’s cousin uncle’s daughter?"
Nick Zeller nodded, "My adoptive mother is Florence Armstrong, but she is not my cousin uncle’s biological daughter. She was born to my cousin uncle’s wife with her previous husband and ca over with her mother."
"My adoptive mother told that my mother was very strong-willed."
"After giving birth to at their ho, she didn’t want to live off them, even before the postpartum recovery period was over, she went out to work as a nanny, a salesperson, and a cleaner."
"But her body was utterly weakened due to the exhaustion from that year’s pregnancy and childbirth. When I was four, she passed away."
"The knot was taught to by her, and even before she died, she asked if I rembered how to tie that knot."
"She watched tie a knot for her with her own eyes and then held that knot as she closed her eyes."
Nick Zeller noticed his face felt wet, he wiped it with his hand—turns out it was tears.
He quickly grabbed a tissue and wiped his face, saying with a nasal tone, "Do you know? The Rayner family and you owe my mother her life!"
"Don’t think everyone is scheming for your money!"
"What good is money when life is gone?!"
"I’ll consider Ruby Rayner’s debt to my mom as paid!"
"And what about you? What debt do you owe my mom?!"
Caron Spencer pressed his lips tightly, the wrinkles on his face cut deep like a chisel in stone.
After a long while, he too asked in a heavy nasal tone, "When you were four, your mother passed away, and then you were adopted?"
Nick Zeller said, "Aunt Anne and Uncle Wynn have always treated well. After my mother passed away, they adopted ."
"By then I already understood, and they didn’t hide it from either; my mother had long told who my father was and what his na was."
"My adoptive father and mother treated like their biological son, no differently from their three biological daughters."
Nick Zeller hung his head and quietly sobbed, as if he wanted to wash away the grievances and frustrations of over forty years in one go.
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