While the players stared in stunned disbelief, Qiqi's Mom had already moved beside the bed and begun gently patting the little mound beneath the thick quilt.
"Qiqi..."
"Qiqi..."
"Your teachers are here to see you..."
The little mound on the bed stirred, and a slender arm emerged from beneath the quilt. It was as thin as a withered branch in late autumn, every bone jutting sharply against the surface, as though a thin layer of skin had simply been draped over them.
The players had only gotten a single look. Before they could even reflect on the fact that the little girl really was ill, and seriously ill at that, her mother firmly shoved the arm back beneath the quilt. It had been exposed to the air for less than two seconds.
"Qiqi!" Qiqi's Mom's tone suddenly turned stern. "Why are you disobeying Mommy again?!"
"You're not better yet! You mustn't take your hands out from under the quilt! Do you hear me?!"
"But, Mommy..." A voice as faint as a mosquito's buzz came from beneath the quilt. "I'm hot..."
"You have to bear it even if you're hot!" Qiqi's mother refused to budge. Even though the little girl beneath the quilt wasn't struggling at all, she still held it down tightly and said sternly, "This is for your own good! It's all to help you get better sooner!"
"Mommy would never hurt you!"
"Taking care of you while you're sick is exhausting for Mommy, too. You need to behave and get better soon so you can ease Mommy's burden, understand?"
"Wait, that's not..." The more Jiang Miaoyi listened, the more wrong it sounded. Even though she wasn't a real schoolteacher and knew nothing about elementary education, she knew these were clearly things Qiqi's Mom shouldn't be saying to a