Quanli lightly leaped down from the balcony.
Hmm?
It twitched its ears.
Some familiar sounds.
Its steps faltered slightly.
Then it looked up and peered into the house.
The scene was almost the same as yesterday.
The woman was beating the girl again.
She was using something long and thin.
The girl's face was streaked with tears, and her whole body was trembling.
Yet she was so quiet.
Aside from the faint sound of the blows landing on the girl, there was no other noise.
Quanli's expression turned cold.
The joy it had felt before was gone.
What was going on?
It didn't understand.
In its memory, the girl's father had never beaten her two days in a row.
In fact, as far as it could remember, the girl had only ever been beaten that one time.
What was going on with this girl?
Why was she always being beaten?
Had she done something wrong?
Quanli didn't understand.
And when it glanced at the woman,
the cold look in her eyes made its pupils contract slightly.
If she hit her like that... wouldn't something happen to her?
Humans were very fragile.
Especially human pups.
Didn't humans love and protect their own young?
Why?
The way the woman looked at the girl... was nothing like the way the girl Quanli remembered had looked at her own son.
It was nothing like the way other human parents Quanli had seen looked at their children, either.
It was as if she were looking at a stranger. No, as if she were looking at someone she loathed.
Quanli wondered if it had seen wrong.
Humans valued affection more than anything.
Especially the love between parents and children, which was unconditional.
But what it was seeing now... how could that be?
Quanli stayed.
It