A Graduation Gift

His mother was just such an elegant and charming woman, from a good family; she was left with no choice but to go through life miserably after she met Horace, who thought she would get in his way. Moreover, he decided to leave her even though she was already carrying his baby. As if that wasn't bad enough, her father even disowned her and drove her out of his home, forcing her to change her surname.

She lived a solitary life without asking for anybody's help, and then Rufus came along. In the last few years of her life, she had gotten afflicted with a severe illness brought about by her long periods of hard work and overfatigue. Thereafter, she lost her consciousness and had been bedridden ever since for the years to come until finally succumbing to her illness and passing away.

Over those years, Rufus would patiently sit at the bedside of his mother all throughout the afternoon, watching as the dust drifting through the sunbeams peeking over the window. Of course, his mother, although losing color on her skin, was the spitting image of the holiest of angel in his eyes if he ever saw one.

But the angel had been forced to plummet straight into hell because she had her wings clipped by Horace, a wretched devilish man.

Rufus immediately sat up on his bed and pressed down his temples with his fingers. The sight of Horace plunging down in the daytime was still so fresh in his mind as if it had happened just now.

Horace's originally stocky physique had wilted away little by little. His aspirations, not to mention his spirits, were being drained bit by bit.

His intelligence had withered as he grew older, and Lionel, on the other hand, the son he chose to focus on and spend so much effort in cultivating, couldn't even give him the tiniest bit of a sense of security.

In a bout of poetic justice, only the son who had been born out of wedlock, whom he had almost shoved into the depths of hell, had the power to get him out of the mess he had gotten himself into and preserve the legacy he had built through painstaking labor all his life.

But how could Rufus let him off so easily just like that?

'Horace, you ain't seen nothing yet. The game is just about to start!

Even if you don't have the strength to get through this, Lionel would still be left standing! Oh, how I would love to see your face as you watch your favorite son fall to the ground with your very own eyes!' he promised himself.

sleep. Her throat felt like it had gotten dry so she

heart almost burst out of her chest, seeing

looked so down in the dumps and so deep in thought.

out a cough as she

brought Clark, who was so out of it just a moment ago, back to his senses. He reflexively sprung up and shifted his gaze onto Cassandra before he realized how miserable he might have looked through

was faking it. It was clear as day

there something

to instantly go back to his usual self. The sorrow written all over his face was gone without a trace and

Cassandra had to hold in a heavy

just got a little thirsty. That's all. I just came down to grab

softly coughed again, pretending to clear her throat before heading straight into

door of the kitchen entrance and watching as she poured a

stole a glance at

already known who was living next door, ' his thoughts began

purchase this house right next

and broke the somewhat deafening silence. And her

sort. It

and telling lies, so his knee-jerk response was, for sure, a refutation of