Chapter 4
I peered out the window. My father said something to Leo, who then returned Rose to him.
As Leo was leaving, he suddenly turned and looked at me.
When our eyes met, that inexplicable sense of familiarity washed over me again.
Did I know him from before? Why couldn’t I remember?
As I was preparing for bed, my father suddenly entered my room.
I tensed up, my hand unconsciously clutching my clothes.
Since I had been disfigured, my father had never entered my room.
But now he barged in, and those terrible nights from the past flashed through my mind like a movie.
My father was holding a bowl of soup, approaching me with a kind expression.
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“I was in a bad mood earlier and shouldn’t have hit you. I made you some egg drop soup. Drink it while it’s hot.”
I stared at the soup, clenching my fists.
When I was ten, my mother married this man named Jack Smith and brought me along.
The first time he saw me, he smiled and said I was cute, promising to treat me like his own daughter.
Jack would make me a bowl of egg drop soup every night, and I was always touched by the gesture.
But one night, after drinking the soup he gave me, I passed out.
When I woke up, Jack’s figure was pressing down on me.
His eyes gleamed with a terror–inducing light.
As I struggled and screamed, I saw my mother standing in the doorway.
I desperately reached out to her, but she just stood there silently, her eyes eerily calm.
At that moment, I felt a despair I had never known before.
Tears and sweat mingled, blurring my vision.
Afterward, I cried and asked my mother why she didn’t help me.
She told me to endure it, saying that staying here meant we’d at least have food to eat, and leaving would mean starving to death.
Moreover, with my beautiful face, she said things would be even worse if we left.
My mother’s words stabbed me like a knife. For the first time, I hated my face.
Heaven had given me breathtaking beauty, but it had also brought me endless misery.
With red eyes, I knocked the bowl of soup out of Jack’s hands.
“I will never drink anything you give me again. If you dare to have impure thoughts about me again, I’ll die with you.”
If I hadn’t listened to my mother and stayed here back then, perhaps what happened later wouldn’t have occurred.
“You…” Jack raised his hand to slap me, but seemed to think better of it and took
deep breath instead.
a
“That man earlier is called Leo. He’s a loan shark. He wanted to take Rose to pay off the debt. Can you help me with something?”
I was also curious. Leo had been about to take Rose away, but then he gave her back to Jack. And the way Leo looked at me when he left made me uneasy.
“Leo said if I can’t pay back the money, I can use a vase maiden to settle the debt. Rose also said that the uglier a woman is, the more beautiful she becomes when turned into a vase maiden. All girls want to be pretty. If you’re willing to become a vase maiden, Rose said she can help you.”
I couldn’t help but laugh bitterly at his words.
He clearly wanted to use me to pay off his debt, but he made it sound like he was doing me a favor.
“Now I realize you’re not just a beast, but a shameless scumbag. If I really cared about my looks, I wouldn’t have deliberately scalded myself with boiling water back then.”
Jack flew into a rage and slapped me hard.
“You ungrateful brat! Do you think I’m really asking for your opinion? I’m telling you as a courtesy. Don’t take my kindness for granted.”
I fell to the ground from the slap. Seeing the broken bowl pieces on the floor, I picked one up and slashed at Jack’s thigh.
