“Soon after they lived together, Catherine was born. They had a pretty happy life together, but it didn’t last. When she was three, her parents were run over and killed by a large truck on their way home after working in the fields. Back then, nobody in the family knew about it, and there wasn’t a single person in the village who knew my uncle’s real identity.
“Hence, the village chief sent Catherine to an orphanage. When Catherine turned seven, my grandfather missed my uncle so much that he sent my father to look for him in the village. However, the village folks told my father that my uncle and his wife had died.
“They also informed my father that Catherine was sent to an orphanage. Hence, my father hurried over to the orphanage and brought Catherine home. He treated her like his daughter ever since,” Stanley Batton explained.
When Stanley talked about these things, he couldn’t help but recall the first time Catherine came to their house. He remembered the day she came to their family; it was raining heavily outside when their father walked through the door holding Catherine’s hand.
Everyone in the family was waiting for them in the living room.
When the two entered, Catherine was wearing a dirty denim overall and an equally dirty white T-shirt. Stanley remembered she had two pigtails, and she smiled at him as soon as she saw her.
Although Catherine was in an unfamiliar environment and was seeing so many strangers for the first time, she was not timid at all. Her natural cuteness made everyone fond of her immediately.
When Xyla listened to Catherine’s life story, she couldn’t help but feel her heart clenching painfully.
She would never have thought that Catherine, who seemed like a jolly person, actually had such a painful past.
Catherine had lost her parents at a young age and spent many years in an orphanage on her own. Xyla could only imagine how terrible it had been for Catherine, and her eyes began to well up with tears.
“She had lost her parents and lived in an orphanage. She must have been bullied a lot, right? After all, she was only three when she went in…” Xyla said.
“Yeah. The other kids often beat up Catherine before she came to live with us. That’s also why she asked our father to take her to martial arts classes and trained herself with Country Z’s martial arts techniques,” Stanley said.
“Sigh. It must have been so tough for her.” Xyla told herself she wanted to be even nicer to Catherine.
“It was indeed difficult. Because of that, we gave her a lot of love and affection…” Stanley said truthfully.
Xyla nodded before letting out a long sigh.
Beep, beep, beep…
Right then, Stanley received a call from Sebastian Brenand. He put on his Bluetooth earphones and picked up the call. “What’s up?” Stanley asked.
Comments
The readers' comments on the novel: Revenge of the Hideous Lady (Xyla Quest)