Slap!
Lihua gathered all her strength and slapped Li Yan hard.
"I am your family? Do you even consider me as your sister?" Li Hua roared as if she were crazy, and slapped Li Yan across her mouth.
Li Yan wanted to dodge the next blow, but her hair was gripped by Li Hua who continued to slap her. She struggled to break free, crying frantically.
Lihua's hands turned red. Noticing that someone was as pulling her, she struggled like crazy. "You are so shameless! Only you can frame your own sister and wish her to rot in prison." She slapped Li Yan with great force causing her lips to bleed.
Finally Xia Tianlin managed to pull her away but his attention immediately drifted towards Li Yan who was hit onto the floor by her and the corners of her mouth were split open. She looked extremely piteous with her face swollen and blood gushing out from the corner of her mouth. "Li Yan! Li Yan! Li Hua you dare to hit your own sister so ruthlessly! You despicable thing. I let your grandfather know about your capricious behavior!"
Lowering her head, Li Hua smiled bitterly. She was despicable?
Li Hua ignored Xia Tianlin who was holding Li Yan in his arms who had almost fainted. The father-daughter pair looked pathetic in her eyes. She walked over to her father's desk.
She knew where her father kept the household keys and it didn't take her long to find the key that belonged to her old room. "I was here for the key. I'll be leaving."
"Stop! Who allowed you to leave?!" Xia Tianlin's roars faded in the background as she trod towards the furthest room in the mansion.
Using the key Li Hua unlocked the door and was greeted by a whiff of dust. The walls of the small room was occluded with cobwebs and mold. The room hadn't been cleaned for years and everything inside it was covered in layers of dust.
She glanced around at the photo frames. Most of them were of hers with her mother when she was alive. Some of them had Xia Tianlin in the shot.
One of the picture was when she was six years old and she had won a singing competition at school. She was sitting on her mother's lap holding the award and her father had a wide smile on his face.
In the next picture she was dressed in a fancy gown and had glittery makeup and she was holding a bouquet of flowers. Her mother and father were looking fondly at her.
If only she knew all of her father's smiles were fake.
It was time of leave these memories behind.
He had been cheating on her mother even before she was born. He had been forced to marry her because she was from the Jiang family.
Her mother loved Xia Tianlin like a fool even though she knew that he had a lover. She suffered a lot while living with the Xia family but she refused to divorce him. After she passed away he brought his mistress home whom he later married. He also had another daughter who was born before Li Hua.
Exhaling a long deep breath she bent down, dragging out a dusty violin case kept under the bed. Actually she had come back to Xia family Mansion only for this violin and not really to attend the family dinner.
It was her mother's violin.
She stayed in her room until it was time for dinner. She went downstairs with the violin case and was a bit flustered when she found that she was the sole person in the dinning hall.
She pulled out a chair and sat down at a corner. She kept down the violin case beside her chair waiting for her grandfather.
To her annoyance the first person to join her at the dinning table was Xia Tianlin.
At that moment, she leaned back against the chair and crossed her long legs under the table, with one hand placed on her knee.
When he saw her sitting lazily as if she had no care in this world his veins on his forehead throbbed and pulse quickened in rage.
"You have the audacity to come down for dinner after hitting your sister like an uncultured wench!"
Lihua felt so disgusted when he used the word "sister".
"Who is my sister?" She sneered and questioned him mockingly.
"Li Yan is your elder sister! You come with me and apologize to her or else I'll tell your grandfather what you have done!" Xia Tianlin grabbed her wrist, trying to pull her up from the chair.
Lihua struggled to break free. His grip on her wrist was strong enough to bruise her skin. Gritted her teeth she said, "I. Am. Not. Going. To. Apologize. To. Anyone."
Xia Tianlin became even more enraged as she emphasized on each word.
"If you don't apologize then I'll kick you out of the house right now! Scram!"
"Grandpa has the last say on it. He was the one who invited me here."
"What's with all this commotion!" Elder Xia's profound voice rung in the dinning hall.
Li Hua looked up and saw her grandfather descending down the stairs accompanied by butler He.