Su Qinglan stiffened as the voice echoed through the cave.
A moment later, the one who spoke stormed in.
It was a middle-aged female. Slightly fat, her face filled with anger, and her eyes full of spite. She looked straight at the pile of good hides on the ground, then immediately stomped forward and grabbed them all in her arms.
"You have a mate waiting at home, and you’re giving all these things to this ugly girl?!" She snapped with her shrill and harsh voice. "Have you even thought about your mate?"
Su Qinglan blinked, stunned. Ugly girl? Who was she calling ugly?!
Before she could even react, the woman turned on her and jabbed a finger at her face rather rudely. "You! Do you feel no shame? Always clinging to your father and taking things that don’t belong to you. Greedy, useless girl!"
Her father’s expression turned pained. "Lan Lan is still a child," he said softly. "I have to take care of her."
But his defense only made the woman’s face twist uglier.
"Still a child?!" She screeched, throwing the hides onto the floor with a loud smack. "Look at her! Spoiled rotten by you. She can’t take care of herself, she’s greedy, she eats and wastes, and..." her voice rose and turned sharper, "...she hasn’t even given birth to a cub!"
The words hit the cave like thunder.
Su Qinglan’s lips parted in shock.
Her father’s face turned pale, then sadder than ever.
And the woman stood there, glaring at the two of them as if she’d just exposed the greatest shame in the world.
Su Qinglan stood there, stunned.
Her mind went blank as her gaze landed on the middle-aged female who had barged into the cave like a storm. The woman’s body was slightly fat, her posture stiff with arrogance.
Her face wasn’t anything pleasant either—an ugly mix of anger and disdain twisted her features, making her look even harsher under the dim cave light.
Su Qinglan’s first reaction was confusion.
Who was this aunty? And why was she acting like she owned the place?
But then...her ears caught one word.
Mate.
Her stomach dropped.
Mate...?
Her wide eyes darted to her father, who stood frozen with tense shoulders, face paling by the second.
Wait. Wait. Don’t tell her...
This woman... was she her father’s mate?
That would mean... This was her so-called mother?
Su Qinglan’s heart thudded painfully against her ribs.
She tried to dig through the original owner’s messy memories, flipping through them like broken pages in a ruined book. Fragments appeared like broken glass. A shadowy figure scolding. A hand raised to strike. A shrill voice that made a young girl tremble in fear.
Yes. It matched.
This female. This was the one.
The original owner’s tormentor.
The reason for the original owner’s change of character.
Su Qinglan’s body stiffened in reflex. It was as if her soul had inherited the original owner’s fear. Even though she wasn’t the same girl, her shoulders locked tight, and her breath felt heavy in her chest.
The female, Mu Lihua, didn’t even notice.
She didn’t stop there. Her voice grew louder and harsher. She threw insults at both Su Qinglan and her father without a care, her words ugly enough to make even the walls of the cave seem to shrink.
She scoffed and, with an angry motion, grabbed the pile of hides. She threw them back at him with a loud thud that echoed against the cave walls.
"Take care of her? You only know is to spoil her."
Su Qinglan’s breath caught.
Her father flinched, but he didn’t raise his voice back. His lips trembled, and he looked at Mu Lihua with a kind of helpless pain that made Su Qinglan’s chest ache.
He was begging without words.
And Mu Lihua’s eyes only filled with more disdain.
"If you keep taking care of her like this, I’ll remove your mark. Then you can spend the rest of your life taking care of her alone."
The air froze.
Su Qinglan’s breath stilled.
Her father’s face went pale in an instant. "No... no, Hua’er..." His voice cracked. "Lan Lan is still a child. And now... she already has beast husbands. They will take responsibility for her soon. Until then, let me...please..."
He sounded almost desperate.
Su Qinglan’s nails dug into her palms, her fists trembling.
Her anger surged hot and wild.
How dare she.
How dare this woman threaten her father like that? How dare she treat the mark like it was some toy she could keep or throw away whenever she felt like it.
What was he then? Her slave?
The longer Su Qinglan looked, the more her anger burned.
And her inherited memories only fueled it further.
She remembered now. This woman Mu Lihua is an earthworm female. Ordinary and has a nasty character, but behaves arrogantly as if she were a fox.
She really thought that marrying her father had turned her into some phoenix soaring above others.
Phoenix? Ha. She was nothing but a crow in fine feathers.
And what kind of "mother" was she?
None at all.
From the very beginning, she had done nothing but abuse the original owner. She scolded, beat, and starved her just because she was too beautiful, because her green eyes shone too bright, and because her hair had a lovely sheen.
That beauty had only brought her hatred.
And whenever her father tried to stop it? He got beaten too.
He had done everything to protect her, everything he could. But he wasn’t always at home. And every time he wasn’t... the abuse never stopped.
Su Qinglan’s chest tightened, her anger shaking through her bones.
No wonder the original owner had changed. No wonder her habits had twisted. She remembered now that the original owner, after going through endless abuse at her own mother’s hand, found a loophole: if she was dirty and smelly, her mother would not beat and scold her.
And after a period of time, this actually becomes a habit of the original owner to live an unkempt life.
And all of it was this woman’s fault.
Su Qinglan’s lips pressed into a thin line.
She could feel the rage bubbling so strong it nearly spilled out of her.
How dare she.
This Mu Lihua really deserved a good smack.