On Christmas Eve, her adoptive mother, Margaret, overturned the dinner table, withdrew the $50,000 she had paid toward the property taxes of Lily’s biological parents, and took Lily away. Moved by pity, Lily secretly signed away her rights to a trust fund to provide them with money—only for her biological family to lock her out in the freezing snow on New Year’s Eve. Standing in the icy rain all night, she listened to the sounds of them laughing as they counted the cash, and finally severed all ties with these parasitic relatives. Under the firm guidance of her adoptive mother, Lily spent two years transforming a local noodle shop into a city-wide chain of high-end bakeries, successfully ascending to a new social class. Meanwhile, her biological family—now stripped of their financial lifeline—faced bankruptcy and the impending auction of their home. They cornered her outside her bakery, using the guise of "family" to coerce her into paying off her brother’s gambling debts. On a snowy Christmas Eve in Central Park, Lily sat between her adoptive mother and her biological mother, a document of asset liquidation—which would seal the fate of her biological family—resting in her hands. She hesitated, her pen poised but yet to touch the paper.
