Before I could say anything, a clear voice came from behind me. “If you haven’t seen an actual selfish person before, you shouldn’t define yourself as one!”

It was Mai Qi. I had no idea how long she was standing by the stairs, but by the looks of things, she must have heard everything. She didn’t look too good, but I was not sure if it was because of what happened between her and her mother or because of Lu Yan’s story.

Lu Yan stood up nervously, “Ma-Mai Qi, are you alright?”

Even now, she is more concerned about Mai Qi? Lu Yan had a personality who put others first. She would always think of others first before herself.

Mai Qi pushed her back onto the sofa, “Sit back down. Why are you so nervous? I won’t eat you.”

I smiled. “But you are scary, and you have scared Lu Yan.”

Mai Qi snorted, “I wanted fresh fruit tea too.”

“Yes, my dear princess!” I went to the pantry and made another pot of tea. It looks like Princess Mai Qi had calmed down.

Mai Qi said after taking a sip of the tea. “Let me tell you a story.” Lu Yan sat up straight and listened attentively.

Mai Qi glared at her. “You don’t look like you’re from an orphanage but a prison. Why are you so afraid of me? Can’t you just act normally?”

Lu Yan was flustered.

I nudged Mai Qi. “Stop scaring her. You know how she is!”

Mai Qi glared at me, but eventually, her tone softened. “Where was I? Yes, the story.

“The Gu Family at the capital comes from a line of nobility. After generations of hard work, the Gu Family’s wealth and connections are like a sinkhole, unfathomable. The Gu Family accrued their wealth and connections through political marriages. For example, the second master of the Gu Family married the daughter of another noble family, the Ye Family.

“The marriage between the two has nothing to do with love. It was more like a business transaction. So once the marriage was done, there was no possibility of divorce. Both parties were privy to the arrangement, and they had resigned themselves to their destinies. Miss Ye obeyed everything thrown at her because she knew it was her fate. Soon they got married, Miss Ye was pregnant. Unfortunately, she gave birth to a daughter.

“In such noble families, having a son was the only way for the mother to survive. Master Gu Er eventually lost interest in Miss Ye after the arrival of the daughter. However, Miss Ye loved her daughter deeply. She didn’t care for Master Gu Er to begin with, so she channeled her love onto her daughter. She turned a blind eye to Master Gu Er’s extramarital affairs or illegitimate children. For Miss Ye, other than her daughter, nothing else was important. However, an accident befell that daughter when she was three.”

Lu Yan and I were drawn into her story and our hearts rocked with the plot.

“Miss Ye brought her daughter to the mall to pick out gifts for Old Master Ye’s birthday. However, at the parking lot, they were robbed. The robbers had guns. They only had a nanny with them. When they were threatened by the guns, they lost their wits. When the police arrived and the scene was cleared up, they realized the girl was gone.

“This was a deadly blow to Miss Ye. The Gu Family used all of their resources to search for the daughter but strangely enough, the girl couldn’t be found. It was as if she had disappeared into thin air. As the days passed, Miss Ye’s mental state slowly collapsed until she lost it completely.

“Master Gu Er cannot divorce his wife even though she is certifiably insane because she is Miss Ye. That is their arrangement. The only way to heal her is to cure her and to only way to cure her is to find the daughter. This is an unsolvable problem.”