I Became an SSS-Ranked Chef in a VR Game [Arc 1 Complete] ✅

Stage 4: The Crackle of Anger

After ending his call with his mother, Lixin flopped back onto the bed, a little dazed. The conversation had been stiff and awkward because of the unfamiliarity between them, but he had to admit it was quite pleasant.

As someone who never knew the love of a parent, it was somewhat strange to hear adoration in his mother's voice as she spoke to him. He guessed this was what he had been missing out on all these years.

The two of them conversed for over an hour and it was really enlightening. After reading the text once more he took Mr. Johnson's advice and questioned her about what happened and why it led to him being in his father's care.

When he viewed the message from the detective in his previous life, he vaguely recalled brushing it off as something he would do later. Unfortunately, he never got the chance. Perhaps, if he'd done so earlier, he would have known not to put his faith in his dad.

Shaking his head, Lixin thought about what he had discovered. The entire situation seemed so much like a poorly written soap opera that he found it almost unbelievable. But there was evidence so it had to be real.

According to his mother, his father targeted her after learning that she came from a wealthy background. His father hatched a scheme to seduce her with the sole intent of obtaining her money. Which worked marvelously. However, from the get-go, her family was aware of his motives. They tried to warn her, but she was too infatuated with him to see what he was up to.

By the time she suspected something was afoot, they were already married, and she was heavily pregnant. However, divorce wasn't easy to get because of the prenup his father suggested they sign as a testament of his love for her.

In the prenup, it stated that the only reason they could get divorced was if one of them cheated. If they divorced for any other reason, the party owed the other party 50 million dollars. Because his mother was so in love with his father and never thought she would leave him, she only thought of the clause as a romantic gesture.

However, that clause came back to bite her. It was only after asking her father for help that she was able to divorce him without giving him a cent. But Lixin's father wouldn't let go of his cash cow so easily.

After Lixin was born, the court granted his father visitation rights. But he could only see him on weekends. His mother thought his father had changed for the better at first. However, when Lixin was two years old, his father took him to another country and never brought him back, basically kidnapping him.

His father kept in contact with them using disposable phones, exploiting Lixin's safety to extort money from them. He collected more than half a million dollars before they were able to trace him. Sadly, he managed to evade capture and disappeared with Lixin and the money, never to be seen again.

Lixin's heart ached as he realized how much this revelation explained about his childhood; why his father never showed any true form of care for him.

Especially when he heard his mother's voice quiver with sadness on the other end. She told him she loved him and how desperately she had searched for him all these years.

Tears filled his eyes as he felt an overwhelming mix of emotions - gratitude for being able to reconnect with his mother despite everything, and anger at his father for taking him away from a loving parent without feeling any remorse.

If he didn't think his father was a scummy lowlife before, he sure did now. He just didn't understand why his father took him the second time when he could no longer use him to get money. But as he thought about it, he realized the man did it out of spite.

He was upset that he wouldn't be able to get any more money out of his mother and wanted her to suffer because of that. It was truly diabolical.

Lixin sneered contemptuously as he thought about that miscreant. His father was a filthy, dirty dog, and not worthy of respect. He would pay anything to see the man get the beating he deserved.