"!!"
So, unsurprisingly, having run out of words and unable to think of anything better to say, he repeated some of the things he had said before, only in a more heated tone.
"Little Sister Lin!"
"You!"
"Just look at you! You're a perfectly pure and refined young lady. Why are you so stubbornly set on studying the ways of those fame-seeking hypocrites? Why insist on joining the ranks of those traitors and parasites?!"
"Cultivating! Cultivating!"
"All you ever talk about is cultivation!"
"When I first arrived, you weren't like this."
"Can't we spend time together like before—reciting poetry, admiring flowers and the moon, chatting and laughing? Wasn't that nice?"
"Why do you insist on involving yourself in worldly affairs every day and making trouble for yourself?!"
Yes, he simply couldn't understand why Daiyu was so stubbornly refusing to see reason, and he didn't understand why Third Sister had to get involved, too.
As far as he was concerned, Third Sister hadn't been like this before, either!
"You!"
"What nonsense are you talking about?"
Seeing this good-for-nothing troublemaker bring up the same old subject again, and do so with such self-righteous confidence, the sorrow Lin Daiyu had felt for her mother was instantly replaced by anger.
And so she lost her temper, too!
Without holding back, she knitted her brows and retorted with a resolute, uncompromising edge to her voice, then sneered through clenched teeth:
"Who are you to order me around like this?"
"I'll study if I want to!"
"Not only will I study, I'll become even better at it!"
"Just you wait. One day, I'll go and earn a degree, just to show you!"
"To prove that a woman can stand tall on her own, without relying on her ancestors' blessings or her family's status—only on herself!"
"And