After a moment of silence, Clement sighed. “In the underworld, the lines between the law and crime are pretty strict. While influences and actions might mix, the real families don’t intermarry. There are hard rules and a mutual understanding.”
“The Dark family is a major player in the arms trade, recognized as one of the top criminal powers. My family, the Silver family, isn’t the biggest name in the legal world, but we come from British nobility with hereditary titles, so we’re also considered a prominent family.”
“As for how my sister got involved with Little Ryan’s father, that’s a story from long ago. Until she gave birth to Little Ryan, she couldn’t even set foot in the Dark family. And Little Ryan’s father married a woman from another prominent family under the ruthless hand of the Dark family boss at the time.”
Heartbreak, power struggles, and family feuds-it was a classic story, but one that never seemed to fade away. Echo shook her head slightly. She saw things more clearly than anyone from the outside.
Clement saw her shake her head and, for some reason, he did the same. He remembered how many in their family had tried to intervene, to stop his sister. She had charged out without a backward glance, her determination leaving no room for retreat, and in the end, she ended up alone.
Clement continued, “My sister was a stubborn one. She cut ties with both the Dark family and the Silver family, raising Little Ryan on her own. But the pressure from both families, along with people who thought she had shamed the Silver family, took their toll. By the time Little Ryan was three, she fell gravely ill.”
Clement continued, “My sister had no one else willing to get close to her-no relatives or friends to care for her. Little Ryan was even more neglected. It was too far for me to fly out there every day. Plus, my family noticed I was getting close to my sister and cut my allowance, so I didn’t have the money. I wasn’t comfortable letting strangers care for her either. I begged her for two days before she finally agreed to come back to the Silver family with me. But I didn’t realize I was pushing her into a pit of fire.”
Echo listened quietly. She had never heard about these rules between the underworld and the legal world.
Weren’t there lots of marriages between them?
She didn’t know that the pure families from the underworld and the legal world had always viewed each other with hostility. Their pride was rooted deep in their bloodlines and heritage. Only families built on history and status strictly followed their rules, and unfortunately, the Dark family was a centuries-old powerhouse, while the Silver family was tied to royalty. Neither could tolerate the other.
Clement took a moment before continuing. “I won’t go into too much detail. Just know that for someone who brought shame to their entire family, coming back home was brutal. They were harsh, provoking, and quick to start trouble. People who were supposed to be family did everything to make my sister’s life miserable. I never knew that family could be like that; they wanted to choke her because she brought shame to everyone.”
“When my sister was seriously ill, the Silver family ignored her completely. Even her own parents didn’t care. It was laughable-face mattered more than the lives of their children. I was only a teenager, trying to take care of Little Ryan and my sister while dealing with all the schemes from these so-called family members. I ended up failing at everything.” Clement suddenly slammed his fist on the table.
Echo frowned at that. She could imagine the scene. Family meant a lot of things to some people, but she didn’t see the upside of having one. As an orphan, she felt like she was better off without that kind of family-sometimes having no family was better than having a toxic one.
Clement gritted his teeth. “I don’t know how much Little Ryan suffered in secret. I only remember one time I forgot something and went back home from school. I saw Little Ryan tied up on the balcony of the clock tower, completely naked in the winter cold, while a group of women laughed at him. Snowflakes covered him, and the blood streaming from his body contrasted starkly against the white snow.”
“I don’t know how I rushed over and hugged him. All I remember is that Little Ryan didn’t cry. Those innocent, lively eyes were filled with the icy chill of that moment, cold enough to send chills down my spine. As I carried him back, he quietly said to me, ‘Don’t tell my mommy.'”
“That day, I realized how my cousins and relatives treated Little Ryan when I wasn’t around. My sister was still part of the Silver family, so they wouldn’t go too far with her. But Little Ryan was a Dark family child, a bastard that even the Dark family rejected. He was the butt of all jokes. They abused him-poking, insulting, and punishing him in every way possible. His little body was covered in scars, red and swollen, marks from the beatings that made it hard to look at.”
“Can you imagine a group of women surrounding a three-year-old Little Ryan, mocking and ridiculing him for his background, his birth, his body, and even his gender? They hit him and cursed at him, taking every chance to humiliate him. And the men from the Silver family? They instructed the women to do it. The whole thing was just pathetic.”
Clement suddenly let out a cold snort, his eyes filled with anger and disgust. “This is what they call nobility; this is what they call ladies. They can really do those terrible things and say those awful words, worse than the shrews on the street. Nobility? Ha! That’s the real face of nobility. Tear away that shiny exterior, and what you find inside is nothing but filth.”
Echo was taken aback, staring at Clement in shock. She had never considered that Ryan might have gone through all this. He was just three years old-how could anyone be so cruel to a child? And yet Ryan was so stubborn and smart. She fell silent, feeling a weight in her heart.
Clement took a moment to collect himself, his eyes red as he looked out the window. “My sister was a smart woman. Even though she was bedridden and couldn’t move, it didn’t mean she was unaware of what was happening. She just didn’t have the strength to fight back; she was getting weaker every day. From that time on, Little Ryan became silent. The once lively, innocent child’s gaze grew colder by the day, and he stopped talking to anyone in the Silver family except me.”
“After I made that mistake, I always kept Little Ryan close. I even took him to school with me. But I realized it was too late. From that moment, Little Ryan had developed a deep hatred for women, a hatred so strong that he didn’t even want to touch them. It was etched into his bones.”
Echo remained silent, slowly leaning back in her chair as she watched Clement. She felt a twinge of pain inside, unsure if it was pity or something else. All she knew was that her heart ached.
Now she understood why Ryan had such strange rules, why, as a powerful leader of the underworld, he was surrounded by no one, living a solitary life.
Ryan, it turned out, had it even harder than she did. She pressed her hand against her heart-it hurt so much it made her feel uneasy all over.
“Honestly,” she said coldly, “if it were me, I’d probably give it back tenfold.”
Clement looked up, silent for a moment, then lowered his head again. “Tenfold? You’re still softer than Little Ryan. Back then, he was always with me. I wouldn’t let him wait alone by my sister’s side. But one day, right before Christmas, I was carrying Little Ryan while picking up some medicine for my sister, and I overheard a conversation between my father and her. That was the first time I heard the word ‘death’ from my father’s lips. He said ‘You should have died a long time ago.’ That phrase has stuck with me for life, and it was something he said to his own daughter.”
“It was so heartless, so cruel. I can’t remember everything, but when I walked in with Little Ryan, my sister was both crying and laughing, looking at him with such regret and tenderness, saying over and over, ‘What will you do if I’m gone?'”
“Little Ryan’s response was chilling, filled with a kind of anger that was absolute, his little voice steady as he said, ‘I will live well. They owe us today, and one day I’ll make them pay back a hundredfold, leaving not a single one from the Silver family.'”
“My sister and I were both shocked. My strong and confident sister, after a moment of being taken aback, looked at Little Ryan and said word for word, ‘No, they’re family. You can deal with them, but you absolutely can’t kill them. Promise me, Little Ryan, you must not.’ Little Ryan was silent for a long time. When my sister was barely hanging on, he finally nodded reluctantly.”
Clement sighed deeply, trying to steady his emotions as he turned to Echo. “The memories from back then are too vivid, so vivid that I haven’t forgotten a single word. That’s the origin of Little Ryan’s hatred for women and why he wanted to wipe out the entire Silver family but had to suppress it.”