the two-faced Adopted Girl Who Melted CEO's Ice-Cold Heart-Chapter 529: You also know that provoking her is tantamount to provoking the prestigious Xie family.

Chapter 529: Chapter 529: You also know that provoking her is tantamount to provoking the prestigious Xie family.
"I’m sorry, Leah." Delphine apologized softly, her eyes slightly reddened. She forced a smile and said, "It’s my selfishness. I didn’t consider your feelings. I’m just so, so tired."
All these years, she had been holding on with great difficulty. In her next life, she wanted to be a tree, devoid of sorrow or joy, basking silently in the sunlight.
Leah looked at her now—emotionless, terribly thin, like skin stretched over bone. Suddenly, Leah’s emotions collapsed altogether. She felt as though she was about to lose little Delphine.
"Don’t leave me behind. Let’s go find Griffith together, okay? Delphine?" Leah pleaded, crying frantically.
"Leah, our paths are different. To be honest, I’ve always envied you, living so freely and untamed, as though nothing in this world could ever weigh you down. But I’m not like that. All these years, I’ve lived such a failure of a life. Even if I got out, I could never escape the towering walls inside my heart."
Inside those walls was a woman named Delphine Carter, forever trapped, unable to find freedom or salvation. No matter where she went, it all felt futile.
"You don’t even want the child? I’ll help steal the child for you." Leah sobbed as though her heart was breaking.
Delphine’s gaze turned vacant for a moment. After a long pause, she shook her head and said quietly, "Leah, if it weren’t for you and Griffith back then, I would’ve ended up dead in the Golden Triangle."
Ever since she learned that the one she loved had disappeared forever, she had attained profound clarity. All these years, struggling and suffering—who had she been trying to prove herself to? That person had vanished long ago. There would never be another Magnus Leclair in this world. So, after hating for so many years, she suddenly didn’t know whom she ought to hate anymore.
"Don’t worry, Leah. I’ll only be here for two years before I’m out again." She made an effort to give a calm smile and spoke softly, "Finnian has already managed everything."
She didn’t even know why things had gotten to this point. Perhaps it was because she didn’t want to turn back anymore. Perhaps she was gambling her entire life on one last slender chance.
Separated only by a wall, Richard Shaw sat in a wheelchair, gazing at the man in front of him whose face was icy and solemn. He felt that in the months they hadn’t seen each other, this man had grown as cold as a block of ice.
"I’ve already informed Howard Family’s matriarch of your arrival in the Imperial City. When you step out, remember to go back and plead forgiveness. You might as well kneel in the ancestral hall while you’re at it." Richard spoke coldly. The matriarch had been longing for a grandson so much that her eyes might go blind from yearning. And yet here he was, fathering a pair of twins, stubbornly refusing to let out a single word about it. The Leclair patriarch too—he was something else—didn’t even hint at their existence, afraid the Howard Family would try to claim the great-grandchildren.
This Leclair Family, their whole household was abnormal. How they ascended to the position of the foremost aristocratic family was anyone’s guess.
There were surveillance cameras in the room. Richard watched Leah crying her heart out, utterly devastated, and tension gripped his entire being. It felt as though someone were stomping down on his chest.
And all of this was Ignatius Leclair’s doing. If Delphine couldn’t deal with Leclair Senior, then the Howard matriarch surely would.
Ignatius noticed Richard had informed the Howard Family, and his thin lips pressed into a tight line, his face darkening slightly. The matriarch was an exceedingly shrewd and astute woman, not as easy to placate as the patriarch. If she found out about the child and Delphine, it would hardly end with a mere punishment in the ancestral hall.
"Wait until we’ve left first. Then you can come out. I’m afraid if Leah sees you, she’ll go mad and fight you on the spot. You know her identity—provoking her means provoking the Shaw Group." Richard clapped Ignatius on the shoulder, unapologetically standing up for his woman.
Ignatius said nothing. In truth, he hadn’t expected that after just a few days apart, Delphine would have become so alarmingly thin, the prison uniform hanging loosely on her frail frame. A dull pain suddenly surged through the man’s mind, and his handsome face revealed a trace of torment.