Smack!
Su Qinghua was pulled back to reality by a sharp pain on her face.
Despite the turmoil in her heart, her expression did not change much.
Her lack of expression seemed to be painful to her mother’s eyes, but it was because she saw her as being extremely disrespectful.
"What? Are you going to ignore my words now, too?!"
Su Qinghua sighed. "Mother, can we talk first?"
The woman crossed her arms and narrowed her eyes, tone full of contempt. "Speak. You better say something good. You’ve wasted so much of my time already."
Su Qinghua was wondering if she should give her mother one more chance. This was her mother, after all, so unless she really had no choice, she didn’t want to lose her mother.
The woman was selfish in nature. This had been worsened by being spoiled and pampered when she was still growing up in a rich family.
Despite this, Su Qinghua didn’t particularly hate her. She reckoned that one of the reasons she became so crazy was likely due to post-partum depression. This was something she realized much later in life. After all, psychological issues weren’t really explored in this era yet.
When Su Qinghua died in her past life, mental health was still being explored, and in the 70s, it was pretty much not thought of at all. When she heard about its existence, she immediately thought of her mother’s situation.
Pregnancy was torture to the mind and body, and this woman carried her for nearly a year. During this period, her whole family was destroyed, and her husband was killed.
Then, when she gave birth, her body was permanently damaged, and she could no longer give birth. She would also often have body pains at certain times of the month. This was going on even before Su Qinghua died, barely relieved by various medical procedures.
There was no husband, no family, and no support system that helped her out, leaving her all alone with a premature baby. She also suffered the negative moniker of ’capitalist,’ which was akin to a dirty curse in this era.
To be honest, when Su Qinghua put herself in her shoes, she didn’t know how she’d have fared.
It was why, in her past life, though she had cut off most funds coming from her own accounts, she still made sure that her mother had enough to eat and to wear.
Not that she ever appreciated it, of course.
Back to the present, Su Qinghua foolishly still hoped to be able to speak with this woman on reasonable grounds.
"I don’t want to get married to that man. Can I...can I choose my own husband?" she asked.
Slap!
This was followed by the woman grabbing her hair, pulling her closer. She leaned forward, drew a slow breath, and spoke quietly between gritted teeth. "So you think your wings have hardened, hmm? You dare to have these thoughts now? You think that you’ve grown up?"
"Where are the items?" the woman continuously pressed, grabbing her arm with her free hand, burying those sharp nails into her thin arm.
"I didn’t take them," she said. "I could barely carry my own weight at the time, let alone carry anything with me."
She left the door open on purpose for this, framing a mysterious thief from taking advantage of the open door.
Slap!
"Talking back!?" "Now let’s go see your father—
"Mother, I...I don’t want to go back. My life would be destroyed if I married into that family."
"What destroyed? You’re overreacting! On the contrary, your father is about to get fired because of your selfishness! How can you be like this?!"
"I don’t want to get married! This is illegal, you know—"
Slap!
"SHUT UP AND FOLLOW ME!" she commanded, and there was no care in her eyes or in her tone.
Humiliatingly, Su Qinghua’s eyes heated up, and not from the physical pain.
Once upon a time, a lot of her emotions were controlled by this woman as if she were her puppet.
She wasn’t always a doormat. She remembered that when she was young, she was quite popular and even had little followers.
She started to hide herself when she was punished for staying out for too long, for returning with stained clothes, or for being too noisy in the neighborhood. Eventually, bit by bit, she started to curl into herself.
Her entire family often told her she was and would never be enough, that she was cursed, and she needed to work to be worth the life she was given.
When Su Qinghua died, this woman was still alive. While she had ignored the other enemies and watched them fall, she kept her own mother alive and well-fed.
She even gave her a house and a nanny. She even found a psychiatrist. However, whenever she visited, the woman still blamed her for all the suffering she had gone through.
Maybe, right now, Su Qinghua still hoped that because they were all still young, and before all those things happened, the relationship could still be mended.
She was still naive in the end.
She simply wanted to have control of her own future, but suddenly to the woman who gave birth to her, it was a blasphemous thought.
She knew she had been fooling herself. Whether or not it started with post-partum depression, her treatment wouldn’t get this bad unless real hate was involved.
Her mother truly hated her, from the bottom of her heart, and that might never change. To the former Su Qinghua, this realization would’ve broken her heart and would have taken a toll on her health.
However, to the current Su Qinghua, she realized that she no longer cared as much as she thought she did.