Song Yao only discovered it when her phone ran out of battery one day, and she used her mother’s phone to call her classmate to ask about homework. It was then that the woman happened to text her mother to insult her.

  Anger crushed Song Yao’s rational senses. She directly used her mother’s phone to scold that woman back, using words a hundred, even a thousand times more vicious than that woman!

  But the third party complained to Song Yao’s father about the text. Without bothering to verify the facts, when Song Yao’s father saw that the message came from Song Yao’s mother’s phone number, he charged home and blew his top at Song Yao’s mother, slapping her across the face and accusing her of being vicious.

  Although one shouldn’t wash dirty linen in public, Song Yao couldn’t resist looking for her uncle to get him to investigate the number. She cried and told her uncle that her father had committed adultery with this woman and wanted to divorce her mother. She also told him that this woman had been sending her mother texts to insult her. After she replied… the mistress complained to her father, showing him the text, saying it was her mother who sent her this. After that, her father had returned home and slapped her mother!

  The minute her uncle heard how Song Yao’s father was bullying his older sister, he checked on the number using the public security system. He found out that his brother-in-law even used their family savings to buy that mistress a house!

  At the thought of how his sister had worked hard and scrimped and saved money, the young and full-of-vitality uncle charged to the mistress’s place without a second word and beat the mistress up in her house.

  This matter became the biggest fuse that made Song Yao’s father explode. He went home and hysterically accused Song Yao’s mother of being a ruthless and vicious woman that had murdered his child!

  Song Yao’s father said his mistress was pregnant, and after her uncle beat that woman up, she miscarried!

  That was the second child that woman was bearing for Song Yao’s father! The first child was a boy who was already two.

  Her father asked for a divorce again. The mistress gloatingly sent her mother a message telling her she wasn’t pregnant, that it was but a clever little tactic. She asked Song Yao’s mother to wise up and quickly get a divorce. That was an anonymous number to begin with, so even after Song Yao’s father saw it, he only felt that Song Yao’s mother was becoming more and more scheming and despicable!

  On the sixth day after Song Yao’s father left, the mistress called again and told her mother that when Song Yao’s father bedded her, he said that Song Yao’s mother was like a dead fish in bed, wearing tattered underwear, totally turning off his appetite.

  To have such a private affair exposed by the mistress, Song Yao’s mother, who was emotionally unstable to begin with, leaped from the balcony.

  That day, the sunset soaked the skies a vibrant shade of red. Song Yao’s uniform was splattered with her mother’s blood. She was quivering all over as she sat along the corridor in the hospital, her nostrils filled with the smell of disinfectant… covering up even the stench of blood on her body!

  It was clearly summer, yet as Song Yao sat there, she was so cold she kept shivering.

  For three whole days, Song Yao stayed at the hospital in those bloody clothes, and it was like she couldn’t hear anyone calling her.

  She sat by her mother’s bed and looked at her mother, whose face was drained of the color of blood. Her emotions went from feeling flustered to hatred for that mistress, hatred for her own father. She couldn’t wait to charge them with a knife right then, to chop them to death and perish with them!

  Her body and heart became numb…


  She only hoped that her mother would get well again. So long as her mother could get well again, she could do whatever!

  She could cut off ties with her birth father from now on. She only wanted her mother!

  She could stop herself from seeking that adulterous pair for revenge! So long as her mother could get well again!

  Song Yao spoke in her mother’s ear countless times, saying that so long as her mother could wake up, she wouldn’t be calculative about anything!

  But, three days later, Song Yao’s mother still didn’t manage to make it. Before she could say a word to Song Yao, she left. Song Yao also fainted…


  When she woke up again, Song Yao was already sent to her grandmother’s home. However, the smell of disinfectant seemed to linger in her nostrils.

  Her maternal grandparents’ hair turned white overnight. With the death of her mother, in a fit of rage, her uncle went to the mistress’s house and killed the mistress, injuring Song Yao’s father as well. Her uncle suffered some injuries himself and was hospitalized…


  Song Yao’s most vivid memory that summer was the smell of disinfectant in the hospital. She went to the hospital to visit her uncle, and her uncle told her… he wouldn’t be able to escape the death penalty. He asked Song Yao to take good care of her maternal grandparents when she grew up, to shower them with the filial piety that he and Song Yao’s mother were no longer able to shower them with.

  Her uncle’s verdict came very quickly, the death penalty!

  Song Yao’s paternal grandparents fetched the boy whom the mistress and her father gave birth to. Because Song Yao’s uncle had beaten her father into a disabled state, giving her father nothing to live for, he refused to fetch the “money-losing proposition”[1] that was Song Yao.

  This was a good thing for Song Yao’s maternal grandparents. They raised Song Yao like she was their treasure. But her maternal grandmother was in poor health and was hospitalized frequently. Song Yao would always bring food to her grandmother in the hospital and take care of her. Just like that, Song Yao became a frequent visitor to the hospital, and her results had deteriorated from second in the entire grade!

  Later, her grandmother passed away in the hospital…


  After that, her maternal grandfather also passed away in the hospital. It was as if Song Yao was the only person left in the world.

  This was why Song Yao hated the hospital, hated the disinfectant smell in the hospital, for it represented farewell in Song Yao’s heart!

  She really, really hated this smell!

  “Her emotions are crucial. Mrs. Cen’s condition is still unstable now, especially in the first trimester of her pregnancy… You need to be more careful!”


  “Okay, you’ve worked hard!” Cen Mo nodded at the doctor. “Saihand, send the doctor out!”


  Song Yao had vaguely heard the conversation between the doctor and Cen Mo. Her brows furrowed as she gradually regained consciousness.

  When she opened her eyes, she saw the white ceiling of the hospital.

  Frowning, Song Yao felt a bitter sensation in her mouth, and her throat felt hot and dry.

  “Cen Mo, water…” Song Yao said, her voice terribly raspy.

  Seeing Song Yao regain consciousness, the high-strung Cen Mo quickly raised the cup of water on the bedside table and helped Song Yao sit up, sending the water to her lips.

  After taking a few sips of warm water, the uncomfortable sensation in Song Yao’s mouth and throat finally got some relief. She placed a hand over her tummy, but before she could ask anything, she heard Cen Mo say, “The baby is fine. There was just a little bleeding. The doctor said your emotions shouldn’t fluctuate too greatly. From today onwards, you need to rest in bed quietly!”


  “Emotions shouldn’t fluctuate too greatly…” Song Yao swallowed her saliva with much difficulty and asked, “Can you let Su Huan return home?”


  Saihand, who was about to enter, heard this, so he remained outside, not daring to go in…


  Before he could open the door, Saihand already felt the sinister chilliness inside the ward. Wouldn’t he be seeking death by entering now?

  Saihand hesitated for a moment, then let go of the door handle and called Little Lu. He told Little Lu to inform Lin Nuan, who wasn’t aware that Song Yao had been hospitalized, asking Lin Nuan to hurry there and salvage the situation!

  [1] used in the olden days to describe girls, as sons were preferred to daughters