Mia Grant had a long, long dream.
It was another rainy summer.
Even in the rain, the streets of the small northern town were bustling with activity.
A crowd of people, huddled together under umbrellas, were eager and agitated. The air was filled with an endless cacophony of arguments, curses, and overlapping attempts to break up fights.
"Let go!"
"Don’t you touch my daughter!"
Mia Grant saw her younger self, pale-faced, nestled in her mother’s arms.
The thin clothes on both of them were soaked through by the rain.
At their feet lay scattered clothes and toys.
Mia recognized them. They were birthday presents from her father.
Her father only came back once in a long while, and each time, he would bring her many gifts.
The last time they parted, her father told her she would see him again on her birthday.
Her father had asked what gift she wanted this time.
She had thought about it and said she wanted a little dress prettier than the one the big boss’s daughter next door had. A princess dress. Pink, with lace.
Her father promised, and on her birthday, he did indeed bring her a princess dress. For a time, she was the prettiest little princess in town.
Now, that little dress was being trampled into the mud by her grandpa and grandma. Anyone who passed by could step on it.
Just like the mother and daughter who had fallen to the ground, enduring every humiliation.
In front of everyone, her grandpa and grandma began to slander her mother. They accused her of cheating and berated her for being indecent, claiming that their son had just died and she was already shamelessly looking for her next husband.
Her mother’s attempts to defend herself seemed so feeble, quickly swallowed by the noise of the crowd.
Her grandpa and grandma, probably tired of arguing, finally made a harsh demand: "You can get lost, but leave my granddaughter behind!"
The other townspeople began to chime in, trying to persuade her mother. "She’s a daughter of the Grant Family. Ace is gone, and the old couple only has this one granddaughter left. You should just go and leave the child."
"Let the old couple have something to remember him by!"
"Besides, how are you going to remarry with a burden like her in tow?"
"Mia is still so young. Can you even support her if you take her? Can you give her a better life than what she has now?"
These words seemed to strike a nerve. In the middle of the crowd, the woman’s expression became dazed, her eyes vacant.
’That’s right,’ she thought. ’All the compensation money is in that old couple’s hands.’
The woman glanced at the daughter in her arms, struggling, wanting to let go.
The little girl seemed to sense something. She forced open her rain-stung eyes and clutched her mother’s sleeve. "Mom..."
The woman wailed.
Few people left the small town that day, held back by the downpour. The mother and daughter were among them.
They took nothing with them.
Watching their retreating figures, Mia sat stunned in the rain, suddenly remembering what her mother had said to her.
"If you come with Mom, life will be very hard for you, my dear Mia."
"That’s okay, Mom."
"From now on, Mom might not be able to buy you lots of pretty little dresses and toys like Dad did..."
"That’s okay! Mia doesn’t want them! Mia won’t eat little cakes anymore either!"
"Mia will be a good girl!"
"Mia isn’t... a burden..."
Her mother hugged her as if trying to cry herself dry. "That’s right. Mia isn’t a burden. Mia is Mom and Dad’s treasure."
The scene before her shifted. Her mother took her everywhere, trying to seek shelter with relatives. But when you’re living under someone else’s roof, you can’t call the shots, and life was not easy for the mother and daughter.
Later, her mother had no choice but to follow a relative’s introduction and marry a local repairman.
He had a young son, and she had a young daughter.
Everyone thought they could form a complete family.
Little Mia thought so, too.
It was a blended family, formed without a wedding ceremony or a banquet. They just hastily registered their marriage.
Her mother was quickly bound by domestic duties, her responsibility shifting from caring for one daughter to caring for three people.
Mia stood in the distance, watching her mother’s body grow thinner by the day and the white strands in her hair multiply, her own expression dazed.
’From this perspective, Mom’s life was so much harder than I remembered.’
’But at least Mom must have found someone who really liked her, right?’
Mia’s memory of the story that followed was crystal clear, which was why she didn’t want to face it.
She tried to wake up...
The damp, rainy season swept over her again. Mia couldn’t escape the dream.
She stood at the bedroom door and saw her stepfather arguing with her mother while she and her stepbrother were at school. He was straddling her mother, grabbing her by the hair, and slapping her face viciously.
Mia froze. She subconsciously started to move forward but saw that her mother wasn’t fighting back.
He tired himself out after a while and stopped. Her mother, arching her body in pain, spoke with a trembling voice. "You’ve had your fill of hitting me. Mia hasn’t been well this month. I want to take her to..."
Her stepfather spat and cursed, "Useless money pit."
Mia was stunned. She turned her head to look for the faded wall calendar.
When she saw the date, her heart began to sink.
She remembered clearly: after school that day, she had noticed the cut on her mother’s cheek.
But her mother had quickly covered it up.
She told her it was just an allergic reaction.
"Mom..."
"Go back to your room and do your homework!" her mother interrupted, her tone harsh.
And in her peripheral vision, her stepfather walked in with a smile, greeting her affectionately.
The image flashed, and the sound of a piercing argument threatened to shatter the confines of the dream.
Mia looked up and saw the familiar figures.
Her mother and stepfather were arguing again, fighting again.
Mia didn’t want to watch, didn’t want to listen anymore. She got up, wanting to run far, far away, just like she did back then—leaving her mother all alone and running far, far away!
But the voices coming from behind her were like a demon’s whisper in her ear—
"So what if she ran off? She’s just a useless money pit anyway."
"Damn it, I almost got to sleep with her."
"What did you say?"
"Get lost!"
"What did you just say?! Say it again!"
"I said that daughter of yours is a damn jinx. I was this close to..."
Behind her, the woman’s crazed screams erupted. Mia clapped her hands over her ears and squatted down wretchedly.
Soon, the screams were replaced by the sounds of the man’s savage beating.
Mia’s shoulders trembled. Then, she shot to her feet.
’I can’t leave Mom again...’
She turned around—
"Die! Die! Die!"
The dying woman on the floor grabbed a knife and stabbed furiously at the man in front of her.
Mia’s eyes widened. She stood rooted to the spot, stunned.
Until the shoes at her feet were soaked by a scarlet liquid.
She stumbled back in shock, collapsing into the rain with a SPLASH.
She only remembered that before the downpour stopped, a police car had pulled up in front of the apartment building.
And just a second before the police broke down the door, a fleeting shadow by the window leaped down.
THUD.
It felt like a shot to the heart, a bloody hole tearing wider and wider.
Mia scrambled up from the ground, trying desperately to see the figure lying in the pool of blood below—
It was her mother, who had never abandoned her, from beginning to end.
In the operating room, the monitors blared with a piercing alarm. The blood pressure of the anesthetized figure began to drop rapidly.
The frantic shouts of doctors and the chaotic shuffle of footsteps filled her ears.
The girl’s eyelashes fluttered, but she remained oblivious to everything around her.
She stared blankly at the glaring light above, as if she could see her mom and dad coming to take her home.
Then, she smiled.
The bouncing line on the monitor was like the endless streams of falling rain in summer.
This rain had been falling in the depths of her memory for a long, long time—so long that she could no longer remember how many years it had been.
And so, she slowly closed her eyes.
On the monitor, the bouncing line settled, suddenly stretching into a cold, flat line amidst the clamor of the operating room—
In that moment, the world stood still.
And the downpour from so many years ago, the one that had fallen like a collapsing galaxy, finally stopped.
—[End of Main Text]—