Chapter 22: Your Existence

’Useless...’

Lumi was tired of hearing that word. She had probably heard it more times than she had heard her own name from their lips.

"So... should I strip the name Pei from mine?"

She didn’t know where she found the courage to ask such a question, but it slipped from her lips before she could stop herself.

Felix’s expression darkened immediately. "You really are challenging my patience, aren’t you?!"

"I’m just saying—"

Her words were cut off once again when Felix grabbed a fistful of her hair.

Lumi winced as pain shot across her scalp.

"You carry the name because I gave it to you," Felix snarled. "And if you want that name stripped away from yours, it also depends on me!"

He yanked her toward the entrance, forcing her to stumble after him.

"Now, you are going to follow me and ask for forgiveness from Celestine and your mother. Then you will explain to the Caesar family that all of this was your plan."

Lumi’s eyes widened. "My plan? No!"

She stopped in her tracks, but before she could say anything else, a sharp pain shot through her scalp as Felix suddenly hurled her toward the entrance.

"Ah! Father! Please... it hurts!"

Lumi stumbled forward, nearly falling to the floor as her injured head throbbed from the sudden movement. She instinctively reached for the wall to steady herself, but Felix was already striding toward her.

"Do you think I am asking for your opinion?" he snapped.

Lumi turned around, her eyes filled with disbelief. "But I didn’t do anything! Why should I admit to something that isn’t true?"

"Because you are the reason this happened!"

"How am I the reason?!" Lumi finally raised her voice. "I didn’t make Evan go into Rampage! I didn’t hurt Celestine! I didn’t bring those people to the ceremony!"

Her voice echoed through the entrance hall.

Felix’s face darkened. "Your existence!"

Lumi froze.

Felix stared at her with undisguised anger. "Your very existence has brought nothing but trouble to this family!"

Lumi lost all the words she had been about to say. There was nothing she could use to counter her father.

For nineteen years, she had tried to understand why they treated her differently from Celestine, always wondering what she had done wrong, what she could do to finally be acknowledged as part of the family.

Her lips trembled as the tears she had been holding back finally fell.

She quickly lowered her head, trying to hide them, but the tears continued to roll down her cheeks.

She didn’t want to cry in front of him.

She didn’t want to give him the satisfaction of seeing how deeply his words had hurt her. Yet no matter how hard she tried to hold them back, she couldn’t stop them anymore.

Lumi realized that perhaps she had been foolish to keep hoping that, somewhere in her father’s heart, he still saw her as his daughter. Because if her existence itself was the problem, then there was nothing she could ever do to make him love her.

Lumi wiped her tears with the back of her hand, but more immediately replaced them.

She took a shaky breath, trying to steady herself.

"Then..." Her voice was small, almost swallowed by the silence around them. "What do you want me to do?"

Felix’s expression remained cold. "Didn’t I already tell you?"

"Ask for forgiveness..." She locked her eyes with the very person she called a father.

"Yes. From your mother and Celestine."

Lumi lowered her gaze, "And then... tell the Caesar family that I planned everything?"

"Exactly." Felix’s voice remained cold.

She stood there silently for a moment. Then she slowly nodded. "Okay."

Felix seemed satisfied by her sudden obedience and turned toward the entrance. But before he could take another step, Lumi spoke again.

"Father." Her voice was weak, but the silence echoed clearly.

He stopped.

Lumi looked at his back, her fingers slowly tightening around the fabric of her dress.

"If I do that..." Her voice trembled. "If I say everything was my plan, will you finally leave me alone?"

Felix turned his head slightly. "What are you talking about?"

"I mean..." Lumi swallowed the lump in her throat. "After I confess, you won’t need me anymore, right?"

Felix frowned.

Lumi forced herself to continue. "You won’t need my Fated Guide connection for Celestine. You won’t need me to take responsibility for what happened. So after that..."

She hesitated, "Can I leave the Pei family?"

The entrance hall fell completely silent.

Felix slowly turned around. "What did you just say?"

Lumi’s heart pounded painfully against her chest, she was afraid, but this time, she didn’t take the words back.

"I want to leave." She wiped another tear from her cheek. "If my existence is really the problem, then I’ll leave."

Her voice was still trembling, yet there was something different in it now.

Something that had not been there before.

"I won’t take anything with me." Lumi looked around the grand entrance of the Pei residence, the place she had called home for nineteen years. "I don’t want the Pei family’s money. I don’t want the Pei family’s name. I don’t want anything."

She looked back at Felix. "I just want to leave."

Felix’s eyes darkened as he slowly walked forward, closing the distance between them.

"You are really challenging my authority right now, aren’t you?" His brows furrowed. "Didn’t I make it clear just now? You can’t leave until I decide to."

"What’s the point?!" Lumi shouted straight at Felix’s face, her voice breaking beneath the tears she could no longer hold back. "My existence itself caused hatred in this family! If I had never been born, Celestine wouldn’t have had to share anything with me, Mother wouldn’t have had to look at me like I was some kind of mistake, and you wouldn’t have to deal with me!"

Her chest heaved as she struggled to breathe. "So why won’t you let me leave?"

Felix’s expression remained cold.

Lumi laughed weakly through her tears, though there was no happiness in it.

"What are you afraid of? That I’ll take something with me?" She shook her head.

"I said... I won’t." Her fingers curled tightly against her dress. "I don’t want the Pei family’s money. I don’t want the Pei family’s house. I don’t even want the name anymore."

Her voice became quieter, "I’ve spent my whole life trying to become someone you could be proud of, but I couldn’t do it."

A tear slipped from the corner of her eye. "I couldn’t become like Rei. I couldn’t become like Celestine. I couldn’t even become a proper Guide."

She looked at Felix, her eyes red and swollen. "And now that I finally have something you could use, you hate me even more."

Lumi swallowed, forcing the next words out despite the pain in her throat. "So what am I supposed to do, Father?"

Felix remained silent for several seconds. Then his lips curled into a cold, merciless smile.

"What are you supposed to do? Then for everyone’s sake, you should go and just kill yourself."