"Katrina, you"ve been asking me about my relations.h.i.+p with your father, and why I"m so kind to you and why I adopt you. Actually... I am lying to you that I am your father"s old friend. I want to treat you well because of guilt. Over the years, you intuitively know that I am kind to you, but what I did is far from enough. What I owe you haven"t paid off yet."Fourteen years ago, my business failed and lost a lot of money, almost in debt, and ruined my family. At that time, I was really desperate. I walked to a lake unconsciously and had an attempt to commit suicide. I thought I could finish anything if I died, and there would be less pressure after death. I jumped into the lake impulsively in an instant manner. However, after jumping, I thought of my wife and children, my relatives and friends, and I suddenly regretted it.
"In the most desperate moment, your father pa.s.sed by. He saw me in the water and jumped down to save me. Uncle Anderson couldn"t swim. I choked a few mouthfuls of water in the lake. The suffocating feeling is really uncomfortable. It was almost a survival instinct that I held on to your father tightly. Your father was held tightly by me, his hands and feet were bound, and it was more and more difficult for him to swim. When he took me to the sh.o.r.e, he pushed me up first. But when I looked back, I found that he had no strength to climb up.
"I"d like to save your father, but I couldn"t swim at all, and there was no one around to ask for help. I could only run away, trying to find a rope, or a stick, to pull your father up. It was just...when I arrived at the sh.o.r.e again. I found that there were many people around the lake. Your father"s body was lying on the lake, covered with a white cloth. The police and journalists came.
"Yes, at that time, although I felt tremendous guilt, I was still scared. After all, I was a businessman with failure. I didn"t want to let others know that I was trying to kill myself, and I didn"t want to be interviewed by media reporters as well, because this may become a stain in my life, so I left without even revealing my face. The forensic doctor could tell from the traces of your father"s death that he died to save others, but no one knew...It was me that your father saved.
"After the experience, I began to do business again. The scale of business became larger, and there came Andersons" Estate Enterprise. Though I appeared impressive on the surface and made my family live an economically prosperous life, I often couldn"t sleep at night. Your father"s death was like a thorn in my heart. If it hadn"t been for me, he would never have died. I should have been right to die. He gave me his life. I could only secretly write the diary to confess my guilt.
"In order to alleviate my guilt and pain, and to repay your father"s kindness, when the company was growing better and bigger, I heard about your whereabouts. As the ident.i.ty of an old friend of your father, I took you back from the orphanage and wanted to raise you up instead of your father.
"Maybe your Aunt Winnie doesn"t understand me very well. That"s because I never mentioned it to them before. They never know that your father is my lifesaver.
"Katrina, over the years, Uncle Anderson has been busy doing business outside, trying to repay your father"s kindness, but also knows that many times, I am the one who feels sorry for you.
"Actually...After knowing that I get cancer, I gradually look down on the world and feel relieved. If it weren"t for your father, I would have died more than ten years ago, and it"s already been a gift for me for so many years, what will I not be satisfied with?
"Maybe the death dislikes me to be such a timid and selfish person, so he gives cancer to punish me."
"Katrina, my greatest regret in life is not having the courage to tell you the truth and apologize to you and your father in person. I don"t want to leave forever with these secrets. I hope you can forgive me after learning the truth."
Katrina is shocked to see the contents of the letter.
Her beautiful eyes are full of incredible emotions, and her hands are trembling while holding the letter.
How can the painful truth be expressed through a letter?
How can Uncle Anderson be... that man?
Yes, her father died to save a drowning man.
From beginning to end, the rescued man never appeared.
Katrina hated the man in her heart.
If it hadn"t been for that man, her father would not have died at all!
If it hadn"t been for that man, she would not have lost her father, who loved her most, and she would never have been orphaned.
Her father sacrificed his precious life to save the man, but the cold, heartless man...
Until his father was buried, the man did not appear, nor did he say a word of thanks to his father.
Why did her father sacrifice his life to save such an ungrateful man?
She felt worthless for her father!
Katrina didn"t think that...
She hated a man for so many years, and it should be her Uncle Anderson.
She did not realize that Uncle Anderson would be the man who was cold and heartless and saved by his father but disappeared himself.
The truth fourteen years ago is revealed little by little.
When Uncle Anderson, who nurtured her, suddenly becomes the murderer of his father"s death, the contrast is so strong that it is conceivable how complex Katrina"s mood is at the moment.
It"s not until the handwriting in front of her becomes a little blurred that she realizes her tears have fallen from her eyes and onto the handwriting on the letter.
Why is this so?
Why?