Even as I was now, getting hooked on that stuff probably wouldn't end well for me. My body wouldn't be damaged, but that
feeling... wasn't something sheer willpower
could fend off.
Listening to Hu Shuo's story, I could almost picture it. A girl like that, just entering the springtime of her life,
had suddenly plunged into a bottomless
abyss. How hopeless must she have felt?
"It went on for nearly two years. Mother tried to kill herself so many times, but she couldn't escape the hold the drugs had on her. And
she had several abortions, too."
This kid, Hu Shuo, understood everything. His voice sounded calm as he said it, but beneath that calm,
there was a faint murderous intent. If this child
could travel back in time, he would surely kill every one of his mother's classmates, wouldn't he?
"If Mother had killed herself back then, perhaps that would've been the end of it... but later, one of her classmates' fathers turned out to be her father's
business rival. That man
used drugs to threaten Mother into stealing confidential documents for him. Mother couldn't refuse, and in the end..."
His voice caught slightly at that point. I could imagine the scene, too.
A businessman whose opponent knew his every move would lose everything.
Hu Shuo paused for a while, as though trying to control his emotions. Only once his voice was calm again did he continue:
"Grandfather went bankrupt. When Grandmother found out, she was so upset she ended up in the hospital. By then, Mother knew
she'd made a mistake. She left that
city outright, and after that, she never saw Grandfather or Grandmother again."
By this point, I knew it was a sad story, but one thing puzzled me. Why... did he call his maternal
grandparents