“Useless, useless, useless! You useless trash! Pretending to go to work every day, where’s the money?”
“You can’t even afford the rent, and you expect me to sleep on the streets with you? I shouldn’t have raised you!”
“Trash! I knew you were a good-for-nothing since you were little. You’re utterly useless! I might as well kill you and end it all!”
Father was still lost in the blissful life of a young master and wealthy boss before his downfall.
He couldn't accept their current situation of being ridiculed by others.
So, he vented all his pent-up frustration on Mother and Min’er.
Every time the landlord came to collect rent, Min’er had to endure a beating.
Today was no exception.
Although he was a drunkard, and frail, appearing weak and vulnerable normally.
When he truly lost his temper, the punches landed on the body still caused considerable pain.
But Min’er didn’t cry, nor did she scream.
She had been beaten so many times that she knew crying or screaming wouldn’t elicit sympathy.
In fact, their antics might even draw mockery from onlookers across the way.
She just had to endure it.
As he was beating her, Mother, perhaps sensing the commotion or through some maternal instinct, suddenly rushed out from the basement.
Seeing Father hitting her precious daughter, she, in her deranged state, was driven by maternal instinct and shielded her daughter with her body like a hen protecting her chicks.
“Ah, who told you to hit my daughter? Don’t you dare hit my daughter!”
“Let go, you scumbag, you garbage! I’ll fight anyone who hits my daughter! Stop hitting her!”
How dare she obstruct him?
Father grew even more furious, pointing at Mother and cursing her vehemently.
“Good, you’re here now, saves me the trouble of looking for you!”
“You wretched woman, you jinx! Ever since I married you, I haven’t had a single good day! You were born to be my bane!”
“I spent so much money to marry you, only for you to give birth to a mere girl, and then you caused my bankruptcy!”
“Look at you, this mad, neither-human-nor-ghost appearance! I’m already sick of you! Today, not only will I beat her to death, but I’ll beat you to death too!”
“None of you should live! How can I ever turn my life around with a bunch of useless burdens dragging me down? Let’s just end it all today!”
Father continued to curse and hit Mother, while Mother fought back, protectively babbling to Min’er.
The room descended into chaos.
The landlord wasn’t new to them and knew their situation well.
He had seen these chaotic scenes countless times and was thoroughly bored.
Knowing he wouldn’t get any money from them today, he shouted after they had fought for a while.
“Enough, stop fighting!”
Father froze as if a switch had been flipped.
The landlord, looking at their panting figures, said with contempt.
“Every time I come to collect rent, you put on a melodrama. Will it ever end?”
“This is the last time I’ll show you any sympathy. Don’t say I’m heartless. Three days. I’ll give you three more days.”
“If you can’t pay the rent after three days, get out and don’t come back.”
The landlord left. It took Jiang Nan Fang a long time to calm her mother down and get her to eat and go to sleep.
The food in the room had gone cold, and the sound of rain outside had stopped.
Everything seemed to return to how it was before.
But Zhan Bei Jue knew that tonight was destined to be a sleepless night.
He certainly wouldn’t be able to sleep.
Before he got to know Min’er, he didn't feel such immense psychological pressure. The more he understood her, the more he realized how much she had suffered.
As a grown man, he was now a burden to her, draining her…
He felt so guilty he didn't know what to say.
When Min’er returned, she first asked Zhan Bei Jue to come out of the closet, and then numbly sat down on the edge of the bed.
Looking at the leftover food, her face was filled with despair.
“It’s cold. But I don’t want to heat it up. Please bear with it and eat as it is.”
It was already something to eat, so what right did she have to say it was a hardship?
Zhan Bei Jue didn’t mind the dirt on the floor. He slowly sat down by the wall, leaning against it, and quietly watched her.
“Min’er, can you tell me what’s going on with your family?”
Before, Min’er didn't want to tell him because she felt they weren't close enough for her to reveal so much.
After this long time, her intuition told her that Zhan Bei Jue was not a bad person.
Having brought him into her home, they were already friends, so there was no point in hiding things any longer.
She sat on the edge of the bed, facing the faint light from outside, and smoothed her short hair, which her father had pulled into disarray.
She let out a bitter smile.
“I don’t know how long it’s been since I’ve had long hair. Three years? Or four? I’ve forgotten.”
“But as far back as I can remember, I always had long, flowing hair.”
“Back then, my whole family had just moved to Switzerland. My father was in the import-export business and we lived in a big house in the city center.”
“Every day, I could not only go to school, dance, and learn piano, but I also had many toys.”
“But everything changed the year I was in my second year of high school. Due to my father’s mismanagement and a financial crisis, his company went bankrupt, and he was suddenly in tens of millions of debt.”
“We sold our house in our hometown, our house in the city center, and still owed millions to others.”
“My father didn’t dare to return to our hometown, feeling he had no face to return. So, he brought us to this town.”
“In the beginning, my father and mother still had the fighting spirit to make a comeback, and life was relatively normal. But after trying to invest for a while, their debts only grew, and they became despondent.”
“Especially my father. With debts in China and abroad, facing immense pressure, he vented it all on my mother. He would either scold or beat her every day.”
“My mother developed schizophrenia within a year due to the stress. My father refused to look for a job, and the household had no income.”
“To eat, to drink, and to pay for my mother’s medical treatment, we had to move into this low-rent apartment.”
“I don’t know if you’re aware, but Switzerland, due to its small land area, has very strict policies on issuing green cards. The chance for foreigners to stay is very small.”
“According to local officials, they only issue residency permits to those who can bring economic benefits to the region. There are also residency and age restrictions.”
“My father went bankrupt, so we naturally lost our permanent residency. I am now someone without legal status.”
“I can’t settle in Switzerland, my passport back home has expired, and my education level is not high. I can only do extremely low-paying jobs in nearby small restaurants to barely make ends meet.”
“Not only do I have to pay rent and buy medicine, but I also have to repay my parents’ loans…”
“Honestly, when I first met you, I didn’t intend to save you. Because with my own circumstances, I didn’t seem qualified to save anyone else.”
“But later, I really couldn’t stand it anymore. So sometimes you can’t blame me for being heartless, or for not being good enough to you. Blame my limited abilities.”
“Yesterday, I didn’t intentionally want to drive you away. I was in a particularly bad mood at the time, and I don’t know what possessed me to…”
Zhan Bei Jue could completely understand her.
Every word she spoke felt like a needle piercing his heart, causing him pain.