"Juntang, you can come out now. Auntie Zhao has left."
Zhang Zhu knocked on her daughter's door and asked softly.
Zhang Juntang ran into the living room and saw there was still a stranger there. She froze for a second or two, then scurried back into her room like a pill bug that had been dragged out into the open, shutting the door behind her and refusing to come out.
"Has she really left?"
An uneasy voice came from inside the room.
Having an outsider see me like that... I... I must have embarrassed Mom!
Zhang Juntang curled up on the bed, thinking sadly.
"Why would Mom lie to you?"
Zhang Zhu said.
Although Xueyun seemed to have many questions, her daughter was more important.
"Can I come in?"
she asked again.
"O-Of course."
Zhang Juntang replied.
To Zhang Zhu, this kind of exchange had long become routine.
Every time she entered Juntang's room, she would knock and ask first.
It could be said that she cared about her child's privacy, but for Zhang Zhu, it was simply that she did not know how to treat her own daughter.
Zhang Zhu entered the room, looked at Zhang Juntang curled up on the bed, and said, "Are you angry because Mom brought a friend home without telling you?"
"N-No, that's not it!"
Zhang Juntang raised her face, panic written all over it.
I'm the one who embarrassed Mom!
"I'll be more careful next time."
Zhang Zhu said.
"I... I'll be more careful too."
Zhang Juntang replied weakly.
Then the mother and daughter fell silent.
Zhang Zhu did not consider herself a qualified mother. When Juntang was young, she and her father often argued, and she had little energy left to care for a child.
All she could do back then was