The blazing sunshine of late August had unexpectedly given way to heavy snow.
Jian Ran felt himself dragging an exhausted body slowly forward, his spirits more weighed down than ever, as though the entire world were about to collapse.
The alley was silent except for the crunch of snow beneath his feet.
He wondered to himself whose body this was.
Li Xinyi's or Wang Meng's?
Before long, someone gave him the answer.
A voice called out, "Wang Meng, hurry up! Your dad's drunk again, and he's smashing things!"
Jian Ran felt himself raise his head, an uncontrollable surge of anger welling up in his chest.
"Let him smash whatever he wants! There's hardly anything left in the house anyway!"
"Oh, for goodness' sake, your mother's still lying in bed!"
Wang Meng froze. "My-my mom's out of the hospital?"
As soon as she asked, she broke into a run, racing back to her family's single-story house. She pushed open the door to find her father smashing bowls and cursing.
"Why don't you just die?! You burden! All our money's gone toward treating you! How are we supposed to live?!"
Her gravely ill mother lay on the kang bed inside. Hearing his words, she coughed violently, unable to hide the hurt on her face as she spoke haltingly.
"I-I'm sorry. I've dragged you and our child down."
Hearing this, Wang Meng's eyes instantly reddened. She charged in, shoved her drunken father aside, and shouted, "What right do you have to talk about my mom like that?"
"Have you earned a single cent all these years?!"
"If my mom hadn't sold vegetables to support you, where would you have gotten money to drink?!"
"When my mom was sick in the hospital, did you ever look after yourself for even a day? If all