At the same time, his appearance was also quite remarkable.

Precisely because of this, it brought upon him an earth-shattering disaster in his life.

An Bingfeng’s father, Mr. An, had sixteen concubines.

As the legitimate wife, Mrs. An was already old and faded, no longer favored, yet she occupied the most important position. This led to everyone unanimously ostracizing and maligning her, further diminishing her status in Mr. An’s heart.

Mrs. An couldn’t be considered a good mother either. After losing favor, she desperately pushed the then-child An Bingfeng in every possible way, hoping he could succeed and gain Mr. An’s attention.

While others were playing at his age, he was already picking up books. When others sought comfort in their mothers’ arms, he might be enduring his mother’s wrath over a trivial matter.

His impression of his mother was forever colored by her words: "Why are you so useless? Why can’t you do anything right? Even if you grow up, you’ll still be a good-for-nothing. Look at your brothers, your father praised them again today..."

Was he really performing worse than them?

No, he was more outstanding than anyone else; what he lacked was not ability or talent, but the chance to be viewed favorably by others!

In such an environment, young An Bingfeng grew up.

Until he passed the provincial graduate exam and became a scholar!

For a merchant’s family, having someone with a chance to enter officialdom was a tremendous accomplishment.

What followed was praise from family members; his biological father finally noticed him, and his mother took pride in him. Everything seemed to be heading in a good direction.

However, the hidden conspiracies caught everyone off guard.

Back then, An Bingfeng was just fourteen, about the same age as An Ning and An Yu now.

Mr. An had a most favored concubine, during the glorious day An Bingfeng became a provincial graduate. Yet, it was also a day An Bingfeng could never forget.

On the night of the celebration party his family held for him, he awoke in the middle of the night to find himself pinned down.

By then, it was too late to resist, because the situation had already been set.

Despite his talents, as a young boy, he was still only half-grown.

Faced with such a circumstance, knowing the person sleeping with him was his father’s concubine, he absolutely couldn’t let his father know. His mother was unreliable, and An Bingfeng felt half of his life had already been taken.

In such a lonely and fearful state, he was coerced by the sixteenth concubine to maintain this relationship long-term.

In the face of career and reputation, few can afford to consider whether they are sufficiently humiliated.

More so, if this were to be exposed, An Bingfeng secretly consorting with his concubine would ruin not only his reputation but his future. He would likely never be able to face the public his whole life.

So, under such circumstances, An Bingfeng had no choice but to endure the humiliating situation.

Until the night before the imperial exams, he thought he could finally rid himself of this nauseating situation; he only needed to put in enough effort to achieve top results.

It’s a pity that then, the affair with the concubine was exposed.

That night, the concubine pinned all the blame on An Bingfeng, claiming she was forced, and subsequently, she ran into a wall and died.

By this point, this son was wasted, and Mr. An, already blinded by lust, naturally wouldn’t care about this son’s fate anymore.