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April, 2004.

Seventeen years ago.

It was pretty late at night when I walked into a huge mansion where everyone around me was eating and talking to everyone.

I took a look around the mansion, there were colorful balloons and presents laying everywhere on the floor, there were fancy cakes and pastries all around the hall. The wall at the back was covered by a fancy backdrop with a sentence stroke across horizontally. It says——Happy Birthday to Andrew.

I figured it must be an expensive birthday party Andrew’s parents threw for him. He was the first son and the descendant of Peyton Group, he was born to be in the family on top of the aristocracy. Everyone envies him… Well guess what? But I don’t.

Although this party was said to be planned to be Andrew’s birthday party, for what I saw, the adults around the house did not come to just greet him.

Indeed, Andrew is an important figure that everybody would want to have connections to. The people wanted to be either talked about by Andrew to Mr. and Mrs. Peyton, or to be praised and recognized by Andrew so that it would be of help in their companies’ future. Birthday boy being used by all these filthy adults, how sad was that, Andrew?

Though, my parents were one of the adults too.

I followed my parents here. My parents wore as gorgeous as they would; I was in a specially tailored black suit, I wore a red bow tie under my chin, a pair of shiny black leather shoes on my feet, and I had my brunette hair comb to the side with a lot of gel which my butler applied for me.

I looked around, every kid in this hall was wearing something as fancy as mine, except for Andrew, because he was wearing a big crown on his head. King of the day, what a silent yet strong manifesto, I got it, it almost made me speechless when I saw it.

Although I dressed up for this party, I hated functions like this. Everyone was talking and laughing so loudly, some even sounded fake, it hurt my ears very much.

It might sound weird for the words to be said by a ten-year-old kid, but I in fact love peace better than all those merries.

However, in the chaos in this hall, my parents’ sides were the only safe zone of mine. Even if I hated the noises, I thought I should just follow wherever they go and bear with everything now until the night is over.

“Henry, could you please give us some space? Mommy and daddy need to talk to our friends.”

Unfortunately, just when I thought that they would say, as they always did, my mom requested for my absence so she could talk to the others without needing to take care of me.

With a little worryness showing on my furrowed brows, I pouted, “But mummy, where should I go?”

My mom bent her waist and patted my back, she pointed at the kids around Andrew at the other side of the hall, she mentions, “Maybe you can join Andrew and the kids there, you can play with them.”

As my mom said, I gave Andrew a glance. Andrew gave a sharp glance back at me, yet he looked away right away as he gave a scoff in disdain.

Andrew and I, we were in fourth grade at the time, and we were in the same class in school. Perhaps because he is wealthy, maybe because he was looked up to by everybody, and maybe because he felt competed by me——the son of Iverson Group, he never talked to me, and he always looked at me in a disgusted way, I figured he hated me. And I thought that was the main reason I disliked him.

If I couldn’t be by my parents’ side, and if I couldn’t care to join the king and his servants, and his admirers, I figured I should find a place around the mansion that could fit me and provide me peace.

As I decided, I took away the one last piece of macaroon and walked out of the hall. I munched on it as I walked. I turned my head and looked around, trying to find a quiet corner and spend the rest of the night all by myself.

However, a huge function like this made the mansion occupied by people. I wouldn’t mind if it was just a teeny-tiny hole in the wall, yet there was no space for me. I thought I shouldn’t have come to this party at the beginning.

Just as I finished the macaroon in my hand, I found myself walking out of the mansion. Under the white moonlight, I had entered a formal garden in front of the mansion. I almost stopped breathing when I took a glance around me.