It was the middle of the night when Li Hua woke up.
She opened her eyes, dazed and unsure of her surroundings.
Her mind was a blank.
It took a while for her to slowly come to her senses.
She felt a pounding in her head, as if someone were hammering it from the inside. The pain was excruciating. Slowly, her memories returned. She remembered her husband coming home and announcing he had sold their daughter to an old gambler.
Her daughter had cried and thrown a fit. 'My eldest is already gone,' she thought. 'If my second daughter is sold to an old gambler, what future will she have?'
So she had told her husband no. She never expected him to strike her so brutally.
The memory made Li Hua shudder.
That slight shudder was enough to startle Gu'er, who had been dozing by the bedside. Gu'er's eyes fluttered open, and she saw that Li Hua was awake.
"Mom? Mom, you're awake?"
Gu'er exclaimed in pleasant surprise.
At the sound of Gu'er's voice, Sun Jiaming hurried over.
