Chapter 5 — My Foolish Beauty of a Sister

He wore a meticulously tailored black coat that carried the lingering chill of the freezing outdoors, his gaze as cold and dead as a sheet of winter ice.

"Try laying a finger on her."

Tu Thuy Tu’s voice was not loud, but the crushing, effortless authority of a man accustomed to standing at the absolute peak instantly rooted Wen Thuc Cam to the spot. With a cold flick of his wrist, he brushed her hand away and produced a wet wipe to meticulously cleanse his fingers.

"Pardon the intrusion. The door was unlocked, so I let myself in."

Tu Thuy Tu turned his head, fixing his eyes on Ngan Uyen, who was trembling violently with a pale, terror-stricken face.

"Miss Ngan claimed the audio was synthesized? No matter. I am a man who prefers to converse strictly in undeniable evidence."

He reached into the deep pocket of his coat, drew out a thick stack of pre-printed A4 documents, and tossed them casually onto the glass coffee table. The papers scattered, sliding smoothly across the surface until they came to rest against the polished shoes of the observing relatives.

"These are the photographed histories of WeChat conversations between you and Ngon Tich's last two ex-boyfriends spanning the past three years, complete with hotel reservation logs."

Tu Thuy Tu’s tone remained as flat and detached as a corporate executive delivering a quarterly report.

"I had an acquaintance run a brief background check. It turns out you aren't merely confused; rather, you operate as a dedicated philanthropist, recycling the very scraps your younger sister discarded."

"Ah, and before I forget."

He paused, tapping a slender finger against a specific page in the scattered sheaf.

"This individual named Tran Hao—the very one Ngon Tich broke up with on the spot. Exactly one day after checking into a hotel with you, medical diagnostics confirmed he had contracted a rather unspeakable, highly contagious disease. Miss Ngan, when was the last time you visited a clinic for a routine check-up?"

The moment those words dropped into the room, Wen Thuc Cam, who had been aggressively shielding Ngan Uyen a second prior, recoiled as if struck by a massive surge of high-voltage current. She abruptly dropped her daughter's arm and stumbled backward by two full paces. The eldest uncle and second aunt hastily shoved their chairs away with audible expressions of disgust. Ngan Uyen completely unraveled. She collapsed heavily onto the plush carpet, burying her face in her hands as a shrill, hysterical shriek tore from her throat.

"Shut up! Shut your mouth! It is all a fabrication! You are all conspiring to frame me!"

Ngan Chan Diep stared down at the documents littering the floor, his face turning an alarming shade of livid green while his chest heaved with violent, ragged breaths. He had always stubbornly believed his eldest daughter to be pure-hearted and virtuous. Never in his worst nightmares could he have imagined that behind his back, she was a predatory woman who specialized in snatching her own sister's partners, all while potentially harboring filthy diseases. This brutal realization instantly shattered his remaining shreds of dignity as a traditional, patriarchal father.

"You... You vile creature!"

Lunging forward, Ngan Chan Diep brought his palm down in a vicious, resounding slap across Ngan Uyen's cheek.

The sharp crack of flesh hitting flesh echoed sharply through the room.

Ngan Uyen was sent sprawling sideways onto the floor, a thin trickle of bright crimson blood seeping from the corner of her split lip.

"I didn't... Father, I swear I didn't..."

Weeping hysterically, she lunged forward to wrap her arms around Ngan Chan Diep's ankles, only for him to brutally kick her away. I stood silently to one side, watching this pathetic farce unfold with detached eyes. There was no wild, intoxicating rush of triumphant vengeance—only an overwhelming, profound sense of exhaustion and liberation.

"The play is over."

I turned my back on the chaos and looked directly at Ngan Chan Diep and Wen Thuc Cam.

"Starting today, I am moving out of this house. From now on, I will wire the bare legal minimum for monthly filial support to fulfill my mandatory obligations."

"As for any other lingering familial sentiments, consider them fully paid off over the past years, spent funding Ngan Uyen's upbringing instead of my own."

"Ngon Tich! You stop right there!"

Recovering from her initial shock, Wen Thuc Cam shrieked shrilly as she saw me turn to leave.

"You choose this exact moment to speak of severing ties? Are you trying to drive your parents to an early grave?"

She pointed a trembling, accusing finger at Ngan Uyen, who was still weeping miserably on the floor.

"Even if your sister made a mistake, it is a domestic scandal! Why must you insist on exposing our dirty laundry in front of so many relatives? What is your ultimate objective here? Do you even consider us your family?"

I paused in my tracks and slowly glanced back over my shoulder, staring at the woman I had called "Mother" for more than two decades. Even at this late hour, the thing that concerned her most was not the truth or morality, but rather the fear of external embarrassment—she was still furious with me for ripping away the fragile veil of hypocrisy.

"Family?"

The corners of my lips twitched upward into a humorless, razor-thin smile, the word tasting intensely bitter on my tongue.

"To you all, 'family' simply means that when Ngan Uyen plundered my belongings, everyone played deaf and blind. When Ngan Uyen deliberately destroyed the gifts I bought for myself, you all demanded that I be the mature, magnanimous one."

"Mother, the truth is you simply loved her more."

My voice was barely a whisper, yet in the heavy silence of the living room, every syllable cut like glass.

"It is not that you were unaware of her selfishness and malice. It was simply that, in your eyes, as long as the person suffering the collateral damage was me, any atrocity could be endlessly forgiven."

Without sparing them another glance, I turned my back on the room and walked toward the heavy front door. Tu Thuy Tu followed closely in my wake. As we passed the coffee table, he paused for a fraction of a second.

"Ah, I almost forgot."

He cast a frigid, condescending gaze down at Ngan Chan Diep.

"That cracked ice-patterned celadon tea bowl from the Qing dynasty that was smashed earlier is valued at two hundred and eighty thousand. If your eldest daughter lacks the means to pay for the destruction she caused, I will gladly have my legal team dispatch the itemized bill directly to your doorstep."

"Though I hardly care about a trivial sum of money, my personal philosophy dictates that utter fools must invariably pay the price for their reckless stupidity."

Ngan Chan Diep's face shifted into the bruised, dark hue of a boiled liver. He raised a shaking finger toward Tu Thuy Tu, but speech failed him entirely, leaving him gasping soundlessly. The heavy front door slammed shut firmly behind us, sealing off every last trace of the howling, weeping, and bitter recriminations into a completely separate world.