The first ray of sunlight in the early morning shone through the small window and fell across the pale face of the little girl lying on the small bed, outlining her delicate features and making them appear even more exquisite.
The little girl slept fitfully. Her tiny brows furrowed from time to time, and her forehead was covered in cold sweat, as though she were enduring some kind of pain.
Suddenly, the little girl opened her eyes. Streams of dark green data flashed across her clear black-and-white eyes, then vanished without a trace in an instant.
The little girl blinked, and her gaze gradually cleared. She looked toward a certain point in the empty air, where a semitransparent light screen was floating.
【Livestream countdown: 3, 2, 1.】
At once, lines of scrolling comments swept across the light screen.
【Oh my, is this little one the streamer? What an adorable little one. Mwah~】
【She’s been looking at us the whole time. It seems so.】
【Well, here’s the question: how can there be such a tiny streamer? Minors are forbidden from working. Which company is bold enough to challenge the law so openly, without even trying to hide it?】
【Reported.】
【Oh my, girl, you acted way too quickly. At least give me a little time to study this livestream. Judging by the background and the furnishings, this should be the twenty-first-century Earth plane, right? This is a pretty rare type of livestream.】
Huahua stared blankly at the lines of flickering text.
On the one hand, she knew very clearly that, as a three-year-old, she should not be able to recognize these words. Yet she could recognize them. She simply could not understand the content above, and instinctively did not want to pay attention to it.
On the other hand, there were a series of unfamiliar memories that had suddenly appeared in her mind.
They were all about her, but the contents were disjointed, like individual fragments of cut-up scenes. She could not link them together and organize them into a complete event.
Huahua felt that she was very strange now. It was as if she had slept for a long time and had only just awakened. Everything around her felt both familiar and unfamiliar.
The little child thought in confusion that she seemed to be Huahua, yet also seemed no longer to be Huahua.
She reached out to touch the words when, all of a sudden, the commotion outside the window seized her entire attention.
A shrill, spiteful voice rang out from outside. “You you worthless little burden actually dared to sneak into my room and steal my money! Let’s see if I don’t beat you to death!”
Then the sound of slaps rang out, followed by a weak woman’s cries of pain.
Hearing her mother cry out, the fragments in Huahua’s mind automatically arranged themselves into order, playing scene after scene of herself and her mother being scolded and beaten. An instinctive surge of anger rose in her chest.
Without time to think, she immediately rolled over, climbed down from the bed, and ran barefoot out of the room.
In the courtyard, her broad and heavyset maternal grandmother, Wang Fang, had one hand twisted into her mother’s hair, forcing her head up, while the other struck her mother’s pretty face with all its strength.
“I’ll teach you to steal money! I’ll teach you to steal money!”
Huahua screamed furiously, “Mom!”
She raised her tiny fists and ran to protect her mother, but before she could get close, her uncle, who had been standing to the side watching the spectacle, grabbed her.
“Let go of me! Don’t hit my mom!” But she was small and weak, and could not break free no matter how hard she struggled.
When Mu Qingrou saw that her daughter had finally woken up, she was happy, but she did not want Huahua to see her being beaten. She desperately shielded her head and face and pleaded through her tears, “Mom! Huahua has been suffering from headaches, and she had a fever yesterday. The doctor in town couldn’t find anything wrong. I want to take her to the county hospital for an examination. Give me the money and my ID card. That money was earned by me in the first place.”
Wang Fang spat at that. She viciously pinched the flesh on Mu Qingrou’s body and cursed, “Didn’t it cost money to give birth to you and raise you? Don’t you and that bastard eat my food and live under my roof without costing money?”
“Mom, I promise I’ll come back as soon as she’s been treated!”
Mu Qingrou’s tears poured down. Even in such a disheveled state, she remained beautiful and refined, and her pitiful weeping stirred Wang Fang’s jealousy, making her strike even harder.
“You little slut! Back then, I let you go out to work. How long had you been gone before you came back pregnant by some wild man? You’ve disgraced our entire family. It’s lucky your father died early and didn’t have to live through everyone pointing fingers at him.”
“And you still want to go into the city? Dream on! Who knows whether you’ll run off with some improper man this time? I can’t afford to lose face like that again. Your younger brother still needs to marry a wife!”
Mu Qingrou’s body instantly stiffened, and her face turned deathly pale. Unable to offer any explanation, she was left with nothing but pain filling her eyes as her own mother cursed her.
The accusations of a family member pierced the heart more deeply than physical pain. She looked at her daughter, who was crying her eyes out, and pleaded once more.
“Mom! Huahua is your own granddaughter. Can you really bear to watch her die of illness?”
Wang Fang did not care in the slightest. She only wanted to teach the money-losing wretch who had dared to steal her money a profound lesson. Without even thinking, she said, “She’s just a bastard, a little girl. It would be cleaner if she died!”
When the maternal grandmother actually uttered such words, not only were the livestream viewers shocked—even Mu Qingrou, who had always known that her mother disliked Huahua, stared at her in disbelief.
There was not the slightest trace of softness in Wang Fang’s eyes when she said those words. She truly meant them. Mu Qingrou felt cold from head to toe.
Wang Fang could treat her however she wanted, but she could not hurt her daughter like this—not even with words.
Unable to bear it any longer, she shoved Wang Fang away, snatched the ID card and two thousand yuan from her hand, then turned around, intending to grab her daughter and leave.
But one obstacle was followed by another. Mu Qingrou’s twenty-two-year-old younger brother saw her push their mother and cursed before moving to hit her.
“You think you’re so great now, daring to hit Mom!”
A heavy kick struck Mu Qingrou’s body, sending her rolling across the ground. She could not get back up for quite some time.
“Ah! Mom!”
Seeing that her uncle was about to kick her mother again, the conviction to protect her mother filled Huahua’s mind. Like a little leopard, Huahua launched herself at him and rammed her head straight into the one place no man ever wanted to be hit.
Accompanied by a shrill scream and Wang Fang’s soul-shaking cry of alarm, applause erupted in the livestream.
【Huahua hit him perfectly! What a precious little baby protecting her mother. My fists are clenched just watching this. I haven’t seen someone I wanted to hit this badly in a long time.】
【Why doesn’t this livestream have a tipping button? That’s so strange.】
【Even stranger is that the livestream still hasn’t been shut down after being reported all this time.】
【Oh no! Huahua, run!】
After Huahua struck her uncle in the groin, she turned around and saw her grandmother pouncing toward her like an evil ghost. Scene after scene of the abuse she had suffered in the past automatically appeared before her eyes, and the impact caused a sudden, violent stabbing pain to erupt in her head.
Huahua clutched her head and crouched on the ground, crying out in agony.
“Ah—!”
The little girl’s clear, piercing voice carried far into the distance, and an invisible sound wave—unseen by ordinary people—spread through the air.
The chickens, ducks, and geese that had been hiding in the courtyard seemed to receive some kind of signal the moment they came into contact with the sound wave. They all rushed out of their shelters at once and charged toward Wang Fang, biting her.
“Ah! What’s happening? Ahhh, it hurts!”
Led by the big goose, the chickens and ducks viciously seized Wang Fang’s flesh with their stiff beaks and tore downward. Before long, blood appeared, making the scene extraordinarily bizarre.
The pain drove Wang Fang out of her mind. She waved both hands frantically and screamed that she would stew them, but the chickens and ducks, which were usually none too clever, dodged with surprising agility this time. Before long, they charged forward again and continued tearing at her.
The scene did not last long. Once the pain in Huahua’s head subsided, she rolled her eyes back and fainted. At once, the chickens, ducks, and geese stopped attacking, then wandered back to their shelters as though nothing had happened.
Seeing this, Mu Qingrou staggered over, picked up Huahua, and shook her with trembling hands. When Huahua showed no response at all, she immediately panicked.
“Huahua, Huahua, don’t scare Mommy!”
The neighbors, who had been hiding nearby and listening to the commotion, realized that things had become serious this time and came over one after another to see what had happened. Some tried to break up the fight, while others began making arrangements.
In the confusion, someone stuffed money and an ID card into Mu Qingrou’s hands. She raised her tear-filled eyes and saw that it was the auntie from next door.
“Xiaorou, go now while you still can!”
Mu Qingrou came back to herself, clenched the ID card and one thousand yuan in her hand, picked up her daughter, and left without looking back.
The viewers who had watched the entire thing were both furious and bewildered.
【Guys, can anyone tell me what this livestream is supposed to be?】
【Don’t ask me. I remember that before I clicked in, the title said “Ripped Streamer Battles a Dark Organization.” All I’ve seen is a poor mother and daughter being bullied. Where’s the ripped streamer? Where are the intense gunfights and undercover missions?】
【It startled me so much that I looked at the title and cover again. The cover clearly shows that ridiculously reassuring handsome face of a ripped man. How is the actual livestream worlds apart from the title?】
【Everyone, stop guessing. Go look at the post the ripped guy made. His livestream was hijacked!】