The weather is still gloomy, the sky is gray and the air is so stuffy that it seems to block people's lungs.

A little girl in a blue school uniform and a ponytail was walking on the wet mountain road with a backpack on her back, her cloth shoes covered in mud.

From time to time, she turned her head to look at the basket on her back, and every time she looked, the smile on her face deepened.

She took first place in her grade again in the final exam, and the school rewarded her with a piglet. The prize was sponsored by a local company and was given to the top three students in her grade.

She borrowed a backpack from the school janitor and carried the piglet back. She wanted to give her mother a surprise and tell her that she not only got first place in the grade but also got a piglet.

She also has to cut grass for the pigs herself to fatten them up so that she can sell them during the Chinese New Year, so that her parents don't have to worry about her tuition.

Perhaps because she was walking too fast, the little girl was suddenly tripped by a stone and fell to the ground, with her entire face buried in the dirty mud.

She screamed, and the little pig behind her also screamed like a pig being slaughtered because of the fright.

The little girl quickly got up, not caring about the dirt on her body, and quickly took off the backpack to check the piglet. After carefully checking the piglet's body and finding nothing unusual, she breathed a sigh of relief.

After wiping her face with her sleeve, she happily picked up the backpack and walked towards the village.

When she reached the door of her house, she found a group of people gathered around her. Somehow her heart suddenly tightened, and she had a bad feeling in her heart.

At this time, the neighbor Aunt Qiao saw the little girl carrying the piglets on her back, opened her mouth, and seemed to be hesitant to speak.

The little girl untied her backpack, pushed through the crowd and shouted, "Mom, I'm back."

These words were like a button that activated something, causing everyone to look at her. The gazes filled with curiosity, pity, and contempt made the little girl freeze involuntarily.

Then her mother, with disheveled hair and red eyes, rushed out from the crowd and slapped her hard in the face before she could react.

The force was so strong that it seemed to shake her brains out. A sharp ringing sound rang out in her ears, and the girl was knocked to the ground. She didn't react for a long time.

Her mother's mouth kept opening and closing, and her eyes stared at her fiercely, as if she was going to pounce on her and tear her to pieces.

Aunt Qiao and the others hugged the frantic mother tightly. Half of the girl's cheek was swollen, and a streak of blood flowed from the corner of her mouth. She called out in a stammering voice, "Mom."

"What a sin!" Aunt Qiao hugged her mother and said to another bystander, "Hurry up and take Ruonan away."

A pair of strong arms picked up the little girl from the ground. The little girl lay on the adult's shoulder, watching her mother gradually moving away, and shed tears.

I don't know if it was because my face hurt so much or because I heard someone in the crowd say, "Bury Taozi quickly. It's so hot now and he'll stink in a day."

The little girl's eyelids gradually became weak, and the world blurred into a black shadow in her eyes, but the hatred in her mother's eyes made her feel it so deeply and clearly.

When she woke up, the little girl saw her aunt who had married to the county town and could not return to the village once a year. She was sitting at the head of the bed with red and swollen eyes.

The little girl moved her fingers, opened her mouth, and said in a voice like a rusty saw: "Where's Daddy?"

The aunt wiped her tears. The little girl blinked her tender single eyelids and asked again, "Where's Daddy?"

At this moment, the curtain was lifted, and the mother with a sunken face and haggard face rushed in. She pulled the little girl out of bed and screamed, "Your father is dead, your father is dead, did you know that?"

The little girl helplessly let her mother rock her, her stomach churning as if she had been hungry for a long time.

The aunt beside her quickly hugged her emotional mother and shouted to the outside of the door: "Help, help!"

"Don't you want to study? Your father was hit by a car and died while trying to earn money for your tuition. Are you satisfied now?" The mother screamed madly, as if this could alleviate the grief of losing her husband.

Tears mixed with snot flowed down her mouth. Her chin trembled as she continued, "Why did I give birth to a bastard like you? Why would a little girl like you go to school? If it wasn't for your tuition, why would your father die? Why didn't you die? Why did Brother Tao and Xiaoqin die? You are the one who deserved to die!"

As she was speaking, her mother pushed her onto the bed again and grabbed her neck with both hands. Her aunt beside her pulled her hands hard and kept shouting, "Hurry up, hurry up, help!"

"Yes, you should be the one to die, you evil creature! I'm going to kill you!" Mother's eyes widened as she spoke frantically, "Only if you die will Brother Tao and Xiaoqin come back."

The girl kicked her legs hard. The pain of suffocation made her look frightened, and her pale lips kept making gurgling sounds.

There were frequent footsteps outside the door, and soon several tall and strong men came in and pulled my mother away. One of the tall men scolded her, "Li Fen, are you crazy? She's your own flesh and blood."

The mother was stunned for a moment and turned her head slowly, like a slow-motion movie shot.

The little girl covered her neck, curled up into a small figure in the corner of the bed, tears of fear filling her eyes.

After looking at her for a few seconds, the mother suddenly let out a heart-wrenching cry from her chest. She collapsed as if all strength had been lost, sobbing continuously: "Why am I so miserable? My little daughter drowned, and now even my husband is gone. How am I supposed to live?"

My dear, there is more to this chapter. Please click on the next page to continue reading. It will be even more exciting later!