"We really raised you for nothing," Shen Jia's father sneered. This is the kind of person you surround yourself with now?"
The words hit hard, causing Ding Feng's jaw to tighten almost imperceptibly.
Around the restaurant, the atmosphere had become very uneasy.
There it was—the reaction he had expected from the very beginning. The disgust, the judgment, and the stigma that seemed to follow him wherever he went. No matter how much time had passed or how hard he tried to move forward, people always reduced him to the same label: an ex-convict.
Ding Feng lowered his gaze slightly.
For a brief moment, Shen Jia saw it clearly—that familiar expression that appeared whenever someone brought up his past.
It was not anger or defensiveness. It was something far more heartbreaking. It was resignation.
