Chapter 1137: Proving them all right
Felice wasn’t a perfect mother. She had her ups and downs and said and did things no parent would do in front of their children. But that didn’t make her a terrible mother. Hera couldn’t have imagined how she would turn up as an adult if she had a different mother. She could be worse.
It was why Felice’s death truly hurt Hera like no other.
Although Vicenzo’s death hurt her just as much, her father died of natural causes. He died because his bad habits caught up to him. But Felice... she was murdered. How could Hera let go of the people who took away her mother?
"Can you believe it, Mom?" Hera chuckled as she opened the bottle of wine she brought for her mother while sitting in front of the grave. "I was living in a different body for over a year. It’s like a fantasy plot — even I can’t believe it whenever I think about it. It felt so surreal; it’s like I’ve slept for a long time and then suddenly, woken up from the dream."
The wine popped faintly, making her snap her eyes at the gravestone. "For a while, I forgot the pain, the anger that kept me going as Hera Cruel."
"Heaven Liu," she continued. "That’s the name I lived as for the past year and a half. Heaven Liu. A has-been actress, a wife of a business magnate, and a mother of a genius boy. You would love Basti — I could already imagine you say that he took after me."
"I missed him just as much as I miss you." Hera slowly poured the wine into the empty wineglass, smiling. "I hate... missing people so much, Mom. Because if I miss them, it means I can’t be with them or they’re not with me anymore."
She slid the wineglass in front of the grave. "I want to forget, Mom. Forget about the pain, the anger, the reason I am Hera Cruel today. I wanted to be Heaven Liu, and I thought if there’s anything that I could do to be her, I would."
"But I can’t." Bitterness shone in her eyes as she thought about this long and hard enough. "At first, I thought the reason I woke up in Heaven’s body was to keep Dominic alive. That man is a magnet of very vicious people, including me. But when I returned to this body, I figured it was just a short gift."