The little stray dog was hidden under the hem of her clothes.

Lin Shilan held it with both hands, walking straight ahead in a daze.

Aside from it, she brought nothing.

Heavy rain poured down, water droplets hitting her body rapidly and urgently.

After just a few steps, both she and her clothes were soaked.

Someone ran, chasing after her from behind.

A large umbrella covered Lin Shilan’s head.

“Come back with me.”

Lu Xiaorong’s voice was hoarse, revealing a helpless exhaustion.

Perhaps also because of exhaustion, she didn’t yell at her loudly anymore.

“Rui Rui, it’s pouring rain. Where are you going?”

Lin Shilan didn’t look at her and walked out from under the umbrella into the rain.

“You don’t need to worry about it.”

Lu Xiaorong followed and forcefully pulled her under the umbrella: “Don’t need me to worry? I’m your mother! If I don’t care about you, who will?”

“Let’s go.” She tugged at Lin Shilan with her hand.

She couldn’t loosen her grip.

Lin Shilan’s temper flared up. Her little arms were thin and slender, yet hard as steel plates. The force Lu Xiaorong used left bruises on her arms, but she didn’t move at all.

“I need to take the puppy to get its injury checked.”

Lu Xiaorong felt a surge of anger rushing to the top of her head.

“Is this dog your mother, or am I your mother?”

“A broken dog you picked up—can’t you just leave it alone?!”

The puppy kept trembling, its wet paws pressed tightly against Lin Shilan’s belly.

Lightning flashed and thunder roared, rain poured down in torrents.

Her heart ached, and suddenly she also felt cold.

If she didn’t care for it, it would die.

If she didn’t save it, it would also die.

Lin Shilan’s choice to save the dog was choosing to save her seventeen-year-old self.

Knowing disaster would come, knowing she wouldn’t stay here long, she had endured pain so many times that even dying didn’t matter.

She never forgot that her time with her mother was brief. So she forced herself to become better and better at enduring. Sacrificing all her own feelings, she wanted to please her mother, to make her mother happy. But no matter what she did, no matter how hard she tried to meet her mom’s requirements, her mother was never satisfied with her—there was always something still lacking.

And her own suffering didn’t end with the rainy season either.

Discomfort—she had felt so much discomfort since childhood. In elementary school, she thought if she could just endure until middle school it would be fine. In middle school, she thought if she could endure until high school. In high school, she thought if she could endure until college. In college, she needed medication and medical treatment to fight the pain, already in so much pain that she couldn’t even perceive the pain anymore. When would life’s rainy season ever end?

She didn’t want to endure anymore.

She wanted to surface from this ocean of rain and breathe air.

No longer worrying about future sinking.

Breathe one breath at a time, live as long as she could.

Without wasting words with Lu Xiaorong, Lin Shilan walked her own path. Taking the dog to get its injury checked—this was her decision, and even if her mom didn’t approve, she would still go.

The direction Lin Shilan chose ran contrary to what Lu Xiaorong expected.

She felt an unprecedented loss of control over her daughter.

Lu Xiaorong threw away the umbrella and pulled her with both hands, using all her body weight to try to hold her back.

The young girl faced forward, unwavering.

“Lin Shilan!”

“You come back here, do you hear me!”

Teenage children sprouted up tall like shoots.

She straightened her spine—she was already half a head taller than her mom.

Lu Xiaorong ultimately couldn’t overpower her and let go.

She watched helplessly as her daughter left.

Standing in the rain, she called out her name where she stood, but Lin Shilan didn’t turn back.

Watching as her daughter was about to walk out of the residential complex, Lu Xiaorong quickly stepped forward.

She kicked Lin Shilan from behind.

Using fierce force, she kicked her knee, bending it, pushing her into the bushes.

The dog let out a whimper. Lin Shilan protected it.

But Lu Xiaorong wasn’t going after the dog.

“You want to leave, is that it? If you want to leave, beat your mother to death first!”

She grabbed Lin Shilan’s hair and slapped her on the head.

“Aren’t you good at hitting people! Don’t you have great strength! Come on, hit me too!”

Lu Xiaorong pushed her own neck toward Lin Shilan’s hand.

“You’ve really grown capable! I raised you this big, taught you to read—all for nothing! Among your elders, you don’t listen to anyone, you’re not afraid of anyone anymore, right? You can grab and hit your uncle, so come grab my collar too, hit me! Come on!”

Lin Shilan’s ears were ringing.

Her glasses fell off. Inside her head, it was like insects had flown in, buzzing. Her mother’s shrill voice enveloped her from above.

The dog, frightened, struggled free from her arms. She couldn’t hold onto it. Her hands supported the ground, barely keeping her from passing out.

Raindrops fell into her eyes. She raised her hand to wipe them and found the water was bright red.

Her mom hadn’t expected to break her skin from hitting her.

Looking at her own palm, then at her daughter, her face turned deathly pale.

Blood flowed down from the young girl’s temple.

Blood mixed with rainwater—half her face was red.

“You only know how to scold me.”

“You only know how to blame me. In your eyes, I’m utterly evil, I’m the person who’s wrong the most in the whole world.”

“Mom, you’re always so generous with using the harshest words to criticize me, but I’ve never heard you scold anyone else this way. Would you talk like this to your students? If they did the same things as me?”

“You wouldn’t.”

The rain was too heavy. Only they remained here.

In the lonely rainy ground, her voice was compressed by the sound of rain until it was almost inaudible.

Lin Shilan hugged her knees, so cold, so lonely.

She kept talking, talking desperately as if she’d never spoken before.

“You clearly know I won’t hit you, could never possibly do it. Yet you want me to hit you?”

“When you say something like that, is it deliberate? To make me seem especially inhuman?”

“Even if it’s true that my behavior of hitting Uncle Tang was wrong, was his behavior of kicking the dog right? Is he a good person? Has he done few despicable things? In your eyes, am I worse than him?”

“I’m your only daughter. Why is it that you’re not this terrible to outsiders, but you have to treat me this way? Why don’t you take my side? Why use every method possible to humiliate me?”

“You know best what words will hurt me, yet you deliberately say them that way.”

“Mom, actually I also know how to hurt you. I also know what you don’t want to hear. Do you think that because I never say those things, I don’t know how to say them?”

Lu Xiaorong was so angry at her string of words that her whole body trembled.

Her palm covered her own chest, her expression pained.

Seeing her mom suddenly bend at the waist, Lin Shilan only then noticed something was wrong with her.

“Mom?”

Lu Xiaorong couldn’t speak. Lin Shilan sensed her breathing was especially rapid.

“What’s wrong?”

She hurried forward and put her arm around her mother’s shoulder.

Lu Xiaorong collapsed against her, so uncomfortable she couldn’t straighten her waist.

Lin Shilan caught her weight, supporting her, slowly helping her sit on the ground.

Lu Xiaorong breathed with difficulty, her windpipe making a hissing sound like air leaking. Lin Shilan remembered her mom had lung surgery before—this looked like she couldn’t catch her breath.

She rubbed her chest to help her breathe easier. After several attempts with no effect.

Lin Shilan told her to wait and quickly ran home.

The situation was critical. She wanted to find someone to help send her mother to the hospital.

Upstairs, the people at her house hadn’t left yet. As soon as Lin Shilan entered, she called for them to help.

Everyone looked at each other, but not one person stepped forward.

They were all Uncle Tang’s fair-weather friends. After what had happened earlier, without Uncle Tang’s authorization, no one wanted to wade into troubled waters.

Lin Shilan asked several people. They hemmed and hawed, looking toward the corner.

Over there, Uncle Tang was sitting in a chair with his legs crossed, applying ice to his face.

He met Lin Shilan’s gaze. She clearly saw the gloating in his eyes.

At this moment, he had probably recovered from his earlier fright. With people standing in front to block for him, Uncle Tang wasn’t timid either. He moved his mouth, mouthing the words “serves you right” to her.

Lin Shilan had no time to dawdle here.

She took her mom’s electric scooter key from the door, planning to ride it herself to take her mom to the hospital.

Anxious in her heart, her speed was lightning-fast—she wasn’t so much running down the stairs as jumping down them.

In a fluster, she straddled the little electric scooter. Before she’d settled into the seat, she immediately twisted the throttle to accelerate.

Lin Shilan hadn’t ridden this scooter in many years. Plus, without her glasses she couldn’t see clearly at all. She only focused on accelerating but had difficulty controlling direction.

The little electric scooter shot out like an arrow from a bow, carrying her racing toward the complex entrance.

In the rainstorm, this crazy scooter suddenly darted out. A sedan turning into the complex nearly collided with it.

Both Lin Shilan and the people in the car were scared out of their wits.

When she made out what that car was, the person inside had already gotten out to find her.

“Hey! Lin Shilan, don’t you value your life?” He ran over to help her steady the electric scooter.

“Tan Jin! Help me!”

Lin Shilan called out his name, her voice breaking with agitation.

He had never heard her call him in such a tone. The hair on the back of his neck stood up.

Not knowing what possessed him, he directly leaped onto her electric scooter.

“Please help me quickly! My mom can’t breathe, I need to get her to the hospital!” She hurriedly told him the rest of the sentence.

Seeing that Tan Jin’s feet had steadied the electric scooter, Lin Shilan immediately jumped off.

Just as she was about to run to the bushes where her mom was sitting, she was called by someone.

“Xiao Lan.”

A young man stepped down from the black sedan’s back seat.

“What happened to Auntie?”

The young man had a pair of attractive peach blossom eyes and a gentle voice.

“Do you need my dad and me to go with you?”

Lin Shilan recognized him immediately.

“Brother Ziheng…”

No time for reminiscing, she first asked him for help: “Yes! Come with me.”

Lu Xiaorong had no strength to walk herself. Fortunately, there were Uncle Tan and Tan Ziheng. They supported her on either side and helped her into the sedan.

It was a five-seater car.

Uncle Tan drove, with Lu Xiaorong in the passenger seat.

Tan Ziheng and Lin Shilan sat together in the back seat.

She got in after him.

After sitting down, Lin Shilan directly closed the car door.

Outside, in the wind and rain.

Tan Jin, still dutifully steadying her electric scooter, was left behind.

But Lin Shilan hadn’t forgotten him.

Rolling down the window, she instructed him: “Tan Jin, Jing Jing just ran off. It was kicked and injured, so it definitely can’t have gone far. Look for it around the complex and take it to the pet hospital…”

Tan Jin didn’t hear the rest of the words clearly.

Because his family’s car had already started and was gradually driving away.

He watched the sedan’s rear window.

Tan Ziheng was tilting his head, talking to Lin Shilan.

Clearly the back seat could fit three people, yet the two of them sat so close together, leaving an empty spot by the door.

Heavy rain poured on his head. Tan Jin’s hair was wet.

He kept staring at the departing car.

No umbrella, no attention, no Lin Shilan.

Even knowing there were extenuating circumstances, he still felt very unhappy.

Both Jinjin and Jing Jing had been abandoned.