Li Nan listened for a while as he heard people shuffling away and a door close. He couldn’t help asking, “Ms. Yu, could you give me the specifics?” Li Nan had never interviewed female stars before and Yu Yaoyao’s crying made it an awkward conversation.

Meanwhile, Shen Yichong wanted to take the phone and speak on her behalf before he left but Yu Yaoyao stopped him. This was an entanglement between original Yu Yaoyao, her sister and her stepmother. She had to fight it alone. She owed it to the original Yu Yaoyao. They had deceived the original Yu Yaoyao in every way possible when the original character was naïve and stupid. It was absolutely disgusting watching a mother do that to her child, even if she wasn’t her biological mother.

Yu Yaoyao wanted to regain everything for the original character and make life better for her. She had been too busy lately to focus on it. She sobbed into the phone. “Why would they say something like that?” she said, weeping, “What did I ever do wrong? I have a family to take care of. I have been a wife and a mother for the past five years. I have been only able to financially support myself and my family only recently, after so much hard work. I have been saving up to provide for my husband and my son when his business wasn’t going well. Why would they discredit me so brutally?”

Li Nan felt anxious. “Perhaps because you have ignored them for so long?” he suggested.

“No!” she sobbed, “How could it be? In the past five years, the pocket money that my husband would give me, I have spent it all on my mother and sister. How could I be so unbearable for them now?” Through the phone, her voice sounded heart-breaking. “What do I do to make them feel like I treat them well? Nothing I do is ever enough. I have given all my money to my sister before.”

Li Nan was dumbfounded. “Do you mean that although you have your own family to look after, you gave all your allowances from your husband to your mother and sister? And they are still not satisfied by it?”

She sobbed so heart-wrenchingly that anybody who heard her would be sorry to hear her. “I don’t dare go home,” she cried, “I haven’t been to their house with my husband for a long time now. How could I? Whenever I went there, I would see my mother weeping in front of my husband saying she doesn’t have any money. She would tell him to be more responsible and help her cover her expenses as she grows old. How could I go there when my sister inconveniently pleads with her brother-in-law to pay her tuition fees for her?” She continued, “I couldn’t face them, nor shame my husband any further with their behavior. No matter how much I give them from my own earning or my allowance, it’s never enough. The moment we go there, they began pleading with my husband. It makes me feel shameful.” Her words stunned Li Nan. He was informed that she didn’t go home because she was rich now and didn’t want to look after her parents, but this sounded very different.

“Are you married, brother Li Nan?” she asked, “I don’t know if you understand. My husband is rich now, but it wasn’t easy for him as well. It has been very difficult for both me and my husband to reach where we are today. People see me as a celebrity and think I am so glamorous and my life is so easy, but the reality is different. I had to sacrifice so much and be content with small roles and meagre earnings to reach here. It has been so much more difficult for my husband too, facing bankruptcy in the past. When I was finally being noticed for my small roles, I had not enough money to even look after my son, much less spare it on others. No matter how much I provided for my mother and sister, it was never enough for them.”

Li Nan felt a sinking feeling. He understood her situation well. Because he had been on the receiving end of that in his own lifetime. “I know, Ms. Yu,” he said, “My fiancée’s family used to be the same.” He sighed, remembering his past. He had loved his fiancée vey much, but her mother would always scoff at him and hinted that she needed some money. She had made him buy many exorbitant gifts and placed enormous financial pressure on him as a prospective mother-in-law who he didn’t want to offend, all under the guise of filial piety. He realized that maybe Yu Yaoyao suffered the same.

“Then you understand me, don’t you, Brother Ni Lan?” she asked, surprised. “Are you miserable too?’

“I broke up with my fiancée,” he said sadly. “I broke up with her a long time ago. I am willing to care for my mother-in-law, I have no problem with it. But treating me like I was nothing, but a bank ATM really hurt my feelings. She acted as though she was selling her daughter for money. I didn’t want to be part of that family, so we parted ways.”

Li Nan heard Yu Yaoyao on the other side of the phone weeping helplessly. He heard her muffled sobs. “My husband must dislike me as well,” she said miserably, “Because of all the humiliation he has suffered.”

Li Nan’s heart sank. He felt sympathy for her. He wondered if the anonymous source who had contacted him was her sister. Maybe it was a trap set for Yu Yaoyao to force her to give more money to her to save face. Li Nan felt angry.