The empty corridor.
After a period of silence, Li Meihua's suppressed sobs rang out.
Her face, worn rough and haggard by life, was buried deep in her palms.
Cloudy tears kept seeping through her fingers.
Qiu Qiu simply stood there quietly, watching her—watching this woman reveal such a miserable, fragile side of herself for the first time.
Her emotions were impossibly complicated.
She suddenly remembered.
During the summer break of her sophomore year, her mother had indeed hinted around, asking for her ID card and saying she needed it to handle some paperwork.
But back then, she had been full of resentment and estrangement toward this woman and had not wanted to say a single extra word to her.
She had stayed in that cold "home" for less than a week before using work as an excuse to leave in a hurry.
In her mind, her mother had always been—
A miser, a shrew, domineering, unreasonable, beyond redemption.
She had never truly cared about her.
The sadness of her childhood, the helplessness of being bullied at school, all the troubles of adolescence—
Her mother had dismissed them all with a casual, "Isn't it just some little thing?"
Then later, when her grandmother died in the hospital because there was no money for treatment, Qiu Qiu came to hate this woman from the bottom of her heart.
From then on, she had never again spoken to her calmly.
Her mother wanted her to study education and become a teacher, but she insisted on studying art.
Her mother wanted her to return to Rong City for work, but she insisted on staying in distant Yancheng.
She had used every possible way to resist, to escape.
But now, hearing her mother's broken, incoherent cries, Qiu Qiu seemed to understand her a little.
Her