Bai Xue Mei hobbled back home, and the light in the north room had been extinguished; it seemed An Shuchao had fallen asleep.
She hadn’t figured out how to deal with An Shuchao yet, so she went straight to her daughter Bai Yanjiao’s room.
At this late hour, Bai Yanjiao had already woken up once, she got out of bed to use the bathroom and bumped right into Bai Xue Mei as she pushed the door open.
"Mom! It’s a ghost!" Yanjiao, still drowsy and disoriented from sleep, couldn’t make out the creature standing before her, looking neither human nor ghost, and instinctively grabbed the enamel tea mug from the table and smashed it onto Bai Xue Mei’s head with a clang.
"Yanjiao! It’s Mom!" she cried out, clutching her head as she staggered and fell towards the ground.
"Mom!" Yanjiao’s nonchalance vanished in an instant, shocked, she dropped the enamel mug with a clang to the floor and hurried to support Bai Xue Mei.
"Mom, how... how did you end up ..." Bai Yanjiao was in disbelief that the woman before her eyes was actually her mother.
Apart from the clothes which were recognizable, no other part seemed the same.
Her hair was in complete disarray, as if it had been chopped like leek sprouts, uneven with patches long here and gaps there, it was a sight unbearable to behold.
Her face was swollen as if stung by bees, her eyes narrowed to slits, and a large bump had risen on her forehead. In her drowsiness, she had struck hard, and now the bump had swelled even larger.
Could this figure really be her mom? Bai Yanjiao was on the verge of tears!
"Your hair... your face... and the bump on your forehead... Mom, what happened to you? How did you end up after playing mahjong?" Bai Yanjiao’s heart ached as tears fell.
"Mirror, get me a mirror!" Bai Xue Mei wanted to know just how bad she looked to have frightened her daughter this much.
"Mom, you better not look!" Bai Yanjiao could not bear to let her sustain another blow.
"Go get it!" Bai Xue Mei demanded.
Seeing her insistence, Bai Yanjiao reluctantly walked to the table, opened the drawer, took out a small mirror, and handed it to Bai Xue Mei.
Bai Xue Mei, upon seeing the face that appeared in the mirror, trembled and dropped the mirror.
Was this person still her?
Bai Xue Mei covered her face and started sobbing, cursing An Hao and An Ping in her heart a thousand times over, and not forgetting to curse Li Wangfu, that cowardly bastard, just as much.
How could she face anyone in this state?
How could she face An Shuchao!
"Mom, don’t cry! These wounds are just superficial; they will heal, and your hair will grow back. You’ll return to the way you were!" Bai Yanjiao held her, fighting back her tears as she comforted her, but the more she spoke, the harder Bai Xue Mei cried.
After a long while, Bai Xue Mei’s tears had dried, and her emotions had calmed somewhat.
Bai Yanjiao went to the kitchen to fetch a basin of water and dampened a towel to gently wipe Bai Xue Mei’s face, asking, "Mom, didn’t you go out to play mahjong? How did you end up ? Who bullied you? I’ll go take revenge for you!"
"An Hao and An Ping!" Bai Xue Mei said, and the tears started flowing again.
Her current mood was heavy with sorrow, rage, shame, and all kinds of emotions intertwined, creating a complex mixture!
"What?" Upon hearing this, Bai Yanjiao threw the towel back into the basin with a splash, grabbed her clothes to put on and headed out, "I’m going to settle things with them today!"
"Enough!" Bai Xue Mei caught Bai Yanjiao by the wrist, "Don’t cause more trouble. This is my fault for having no ground to stand on. It’s my bad luck to have fallen into their hands! What’s most important now is not revenge, but how to get past An Shuchao first!"