Chapter 2

My relationship with Julius had been strained over the last few years.

Despite that, I assumed he still cared about our daughter Candy, which was why I never asked for a divorce.

All I wanted was for Candy to have a complete family.

Now, I realized Ronald had a more important place in his heart than Candy.

I pulled myself up from the ground and hugged Candy’s body tightly.

‘Don't be scared, Candy. Mommy will bring you back home.’

After she was cremated, I took the urn filled with her ashes and prepared to go home to sort out the funeral arrangements.

Then, the police officer approached me and handed me her belongings.

The transparent bag they handed me contained a pink mobile phone, an admission ticket, along with some pens and papers.

Candy was gifted in physics. Ranked at the top in school, she was very confident about her chances in the physics competition.

If not for this terrible freak accident, Ronald would have never claimed the first place.

Yet, the freak accident changed everything.

The police informed me they had gone through the surveillance footage.

The scumbag old man had postured as a waiter to sneak into Candy's room, where he had his way with her. He decided to kill her because she was ferociously fighting back.

Hearing this, it was like the wind had been knocked out of me. I was so heartbroken.

If Julius had not gone to be with his first love, this would not have happened!

I regretted not being with Candy.

However, there was no use lamenting over it now.

I knew I had to gather myself and sort out the funeral arrangements.

I made the arrangements with the cemetery and scheduled the burial for three days later. Then, I went home and placed the urn in Candy's room.

When I saw the piles of test papers on her desk, I couldn’t stop the tears from falling.

Julius was the principal of a prestigious high school.

Despite that, he had never leveraged his position to give Candy an advantage.

He would always tell Candy that she had to put in the effort instead of falling back on the practice of nepotism.

In truth, Candy had never even thought of asking for his help.

She always firmly believed that if she wanted something, she had to earn it, like any other regular student.

It was with sheer handwork and dedication that she managed to get into the prestigious high school where Julien worked. She had never slacked off.

Julius, on the other hand, was a hypocrite, helping Ronald with his connections. Ronald was supposed to go to a public school but ended up getting admitted into a prestigious high school.

He even spent money to hire a private tutor for him.

He justified it by claiming, “Candy had us to tutor her since she was a child.

“Ronald lost his father when he was a boy and his mother doesn’t know how to teach him. As the principal, I must help my students.”

More than once, Candy approached me. She suspected her father saw Ronald as his child rather than her.

“Every time Ronald makes even just a tiny bit of progress, Dad would praise and reward him with presents.

“But when I got the first place in the exam, he would lecture me about not getting the full score and point out the questions I answered wrong.”

At the time, I did not know what to tell her.

All I could say was that fathers tend to be stricter with their children. Stern discipline was the ingredient needed to cultivate success.