Everyone in the crowd fell silent as they shifted their focus onto Sophia after Sandra finally finished rambling. Although Sophia’s old scars and wounds had just been dug out, she didn’t feel any sadness or anger in her. She simply lamented the fact that she used to have such a tough and bitter life, having been criticized so badly in the past. After Sandra finished speaking, Sophia gently lifted her microphone up and glanced at the crowd before her. “Well? Does it sound like I had a really tough and hard life as a child?” she asked in a light-hearted tone.
The crowd fell silent. The story of her being molested was a huge issue in the past, but the Harpers later admitted that the story of her getting an abortion in high school was a rumor they had created. They compensated her for it, but still, there was no denying that the girl who stood in front of the crowd right then had gone through a lot of struggles. Sophia glanced at the silent crowd before she continued her speech slowly. “The Mitchell Family gave me all of this…” Her voice was filled with grief and a hint of distaste. “That’s right. My mother was a waitress. She was born into a poor family and didn’t have any academic qualifications.
She was a nobody in comparison to my father, but the love they had for each other was abstract and inexplicable; she was the one that my father chose to fall for in the end. Although they got together at a young age, their love had always burned with passion. My father has loved my mother for his entire life, and it hasn’t changed in the past 30 years. He’s still deeply in love with her now! For the sake of my mother, my father has chosen to remain a widower throughout all these years.
How many of you here can do that?” Sophia sighed gently before she said, “Because of the differences in their status, the Mitchell Family was against my father and mother’s relationship. Some of you here might have witnessed this with your own eyes. I’m not here to blame anyone for anything, but I would just like to ask for those witnesses to step forward. I’d like you guys to tell the rest of the family what the Mitchells did to my parents in the past!”
“Don’t change the topic, Sophia!” Sandra reminded her. However, Sophia simply turned back to the crowd, her voice now chilly as she spoke. “Would you like me to say it myself, or would someone like to step forward and do it instead? My father clearly remembers everything you guys did to him in the past—he recalls each and every one of your faces and names. Just because he refuses to take revenge doesn’t mean that he’s forgotten about it! Well? You guys had the guts to do it in the past, but no guts to step forward and admit your faults now?”
Sophia’s powerful voice sent the question out to all of the Mitchells in the crowd, and it rang loud even in the ancestors’ graves. Everyone looked left and right, hoping for someone to step forward and explain what the Mitchells did to Cooper. After a while of silence, a frail, trembling hand went up as an elderly man spoke from within the crowd. “Let me talk about it…” The crowd stepped aside to reveal an old man who was supported by both his cane and his grandchildren. He slowly walked toward Sophia.
“Andrew!” Someone recognized the old man. He was one of the elders of the Mitchell Family, and he was probably more than a hundred years old then; naturally, it was shocking to see him present. Andrew lowered his face guiltily as he took the microphone over and glanced at the crowd. Several other members of the Mitchell Family were even watching this livestream from other countries. With that, he began to talk about the forbidden past of the Mitchell Family that had been concealed for 30 years.
“In the past… Cooper fell in love with a waitress. We advised them to break up, but he refused to listen to us. The council of elders took a vote and decided that we had to get rid of the woman in order to make him give up on his dreams of being with her.” The old man was honest and open about the past. After all, the woman survived and returned, so they’d only be fooling themselves if they continued to hide this secret. “Therefore… we burned Cooper’s lover into ashes right in front of his eyes,” he uttered.
The crowd exclaimed in shock. I can’t believe something like that happened in the past! How torturous it must’ve been for Cooper to witness the death of his own lover; how hateful he must have felt after not being able to see her dead body! The Mitchells are too much!
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