Ming Yue didn’t rush back to her room; instead, she waited until Uncle and Grandfather had walked far away before returning. There, Jiang Feng was still holding onto his younger brother, Ming Yao, while their mother, huddled in the corner of the wall as always, kept her hands clasped over her ears, sobbing softly in that tight little space.

Ming Yue slowly approached and sat down beside her mother once more. This time, however, she didn’t sit on the stool—she sat on the edge of the bed, right next to her mother. Yet unlike before, her emotions were no longer so agitated; still, her words cut like a sharp blade, slicing through the layers of pain her mother had stubbornly kept hidden for years, refusing to expose them.

She took a deep breath and raised her eyes to meet her mother’s, which were still trying to evade hers. “Mom, you can blame me or hate me all you want, but there are some things I need to make perfectly clear to you.”

Ming Yue’s voice had grown much softer. Gently, she took one of her mother’s hands and held it firmly in her own palm. “Back then, your older brother told you time and again to leave—that you should get a divorce, stay far away from those two people, and never get involved in their dirty business again. But you wouldn’t listen even once. You always clung to some faint hope about that man, believing he might change his ways. You just refused to admit that he never truly cared for you at all. And even less could you bring yourself to believe that… you were nothing more than prey in his hunt—once his purpose was served, the prey was simply discarded when its time came.”

“Yueyue, Mom’s wrong! Please stop talking—please, just stop! I’m begging you!” Song Hui Yun wept like a child, shrinking deeper into the corner, her hand tightly gripped by Ming Yue struggling to pull away.

After all these years, this was the first time she had ever called out “Yueyue” again.

Ming Yue’s eyes welled up, but she refused to let a single tear fall. Of course, she didn’t release her mother’s hand either.

After catching her breath for a moment, she went on: “If I don’t speak up, how on earth can you ever wake up? How can you possibly snap out of that absurd, ridiculous dream you’re living in? And if I don’t tell you, how will you ever know just how much those who loved you deeply have suffered because of your naivety and foolishness?”

“Grandmother!”
“Grandfather!”
“Uncle!”
“Yaoyao!”
“Myself!”
“And Da Ge too!”

“The people who love you most, care about you most, and hold you closest to their hearts—they’ve either died or been injured, their hearts broken beyond repair. Life and death collide, and death narrowly escapes. Even now, barely clinging to life, they still can’t live openly and honestly, hiding here and there like rats in the gutter, afraid that one careless mistake might trigger another catastrophe.”

“Mom!”
“It’s time to wake up!”
“Even if you won’t do it for yourself, please think about all those who still love you, okay? If you get better, we’ll have one less worry to bear; Grandfather will live a few more years; Uncle’s burden will be a little lighter; and Yaoyao will be able to focus more peacefully on his own recovery. And as for Da Ge and Grandmother—if there really is an underworld, they’ll at least be able to rest a bit easier in the afterlife; and if they’re reborn, at least they’ll be free of attachments and able to move forward with peace of mind!”

At this point, Ming Yue finally released her mother’s hand—but she didn’t get up right away. Instead, she looked straight into her mother’s eyes and said calmly, “And me…”

“Mom, if you can return to normal and stop constantly threatening to take your own life, then I’ll be able to focus on doing what I need to do without any more worries.”

“Oh, by the way, you probably don’t know yet: I went back to Ningcheng recently and did something—I even got some money.” A cold smirk played on her lips. “You know what? Thanks to my efforts, that pair of dog-like men and women’s daughter is completely ruined now. Her situation is even worse than yours.”

End of Chapter 129: Counterattack 55