"How can I not be anxious? I only have this one daughter. She's been missing for so long and we still can't find her. How can I, as her mother, not be frantic???"
"I'm not like you, with wives and concubines all over the place. Even if you don't have Xue'er, you still have other daughters and sons. Xue'er's life or death doesn't matter to you at all..."
"No, or maybe you're actually wishing Xue'er would just die, aren't you?"
"Xue'er was never very smart since she was a child, and I spoiled her besides. Among all those noble ladies she seemed all the more stupid and ridiculous, always laughed at by others, and later she did all kinds of foolish things—"
"So, do you think she ruined your reputation, and that if she died, your good name could be salvaged?"
Madam Su's eyes were red with anxious love for her daughter. Instead of being soothed by Su Jian's words, she seemed provoked, entering a mode of indiscriminate attack.
She lashed out at him with a storm of sarcasm.
