allendalepharm Chapter 429 Mother and Daughter in a Dire Situation
Chapter 429 Mother and Daughter in a Dire Situation
However, her face still retained the innocence and purity of a young girl, lacking the mature charm of a mother who had experienced the world and the sexy allure of a wife. Instead, it possessed a naivety and stubbornness untouched by the world, along with a burning, almost fiery, anger that seemed to be spitting fire!
That beautiful face, which had once captivated countless male students at Nanjing University and was hailed as the "Goddess of Dance," was now flushed red with extreme anger and worry. Her beautiful eyes, which always carried a cool or faint smile, were now filled with raging flames and boundless fear!
She broke through the astonished gazes of the crowd, like a cub protecting its young, and charged recklessly toward the scoundrel who was about to defile her mother!
The person who arrived was none other than Lu Bingxian's precious daughter, Wen Qi!
"Qiqi?" Lu Bingxian's pupils contracted sharply the moment she saw her daughter!
She felt as if she had been stripped naked in public; the overwhelming shame and protective instincts almost suffocated her!
She abruptly pulled Wen Qi behind her, her voice shrill and distorted with extreme fear and panic: "What are you doing here? This is none of your business! Go! Go home right now!"
All she wanted was to push her daughter away from this filthy place, as far away as possible!
Wen Qi clung tightly to her mother's cold, trembling body, as if grasping at the only piece of driftwood in drowning water.
Tears streamed down her face, her delicate features etched with disbelief, pain, and pleading. Her voice, choked with sobs, pierced the surrounding noise with uncanny clarity: "Mom! What nonsense are you spouting! What are you doing?"
She shook her mother violently, trying to rouse her from her despairing resignation: "How could we do this! How could we give up on ourselves! Let's sell everything we can! If it's not enough, I'll work my ass off after graduation! Ten years, twenty years... I'll definitely pay them back!"
She practically screamed, as if trying to bear the mountain of pressure with her frail strength: "Mom! No! Absolutely not! You can't do that!"
The snippets of conversation she had overheard outside the door—"go sell yourself," "two thousand a time," "serve people"—were like poisoned needles, piercing her heart!
She couldn't imagine it, and she couldn't accept it!
Her elegant, proud mother, who was pampered by her grandparents since childhood and shone brightly on stage, was actually forced to say such humiliating words!
This is even more painful than killing her!
Lu Bingxian felt her daughter's scalding tears soaking through the fabric of her clothes, and listened to her innocent yet heart-wrenching promise, her heart breaking.
She closed her eyes in anguish, a tear sliding down her cheek. Her trembling hand gently stroked Wen Qi's smooth ponytail, her voice hoarse with endless weariness and despair: "Silly child..."
She choked back tears, each word weighing a ton: "It's too late...it's all too late..."
She took a deep breath, as if she needed to use all her strength to utter this cruel truth: "The several houses in the family, the one that our grandparents gave us, the small apartment that Mom bought for you... even... the dance studio that Mom painstakingly built up over so many years..."
She paused, the immense pain making it almost impossible for her to breathe: "It was all mortgaged long ago... I lost it all..."
She opened her eyes abruptly, staring at her daughter's stunned face, her heart breaking: "Mom really has no other way..."
Boom!
Lu Bingxian's words struck Wen Qi like a bolt from the blue!
She froze instantly! Even her tears seemed to freeze on her face.
During this time, she did notice that something was wrong with her mother.
Frequent overnight absences, evasive answers on the phone, increasing neglect of his care, and the occasional sighting of her humbly borrowing money from relatives and friends... all these signs point to a dangerous abyss.
She worried, she tried to dissuade her, and they even argued. She knew her mother owed Lin Qingyang one million yuan because debt collectors had come to their home and threatened her with cold words.
It was this unease that made her extra vigilant this weekend.
The resolute yet desperate look in her mother's eyes as she left terrified her; her intuition told her her mother might do something foolish! That's why she chased after her without hesitation...
But she never expected that the truth would be a hundred times more cruel than she had imagined!
What we lost was more than just a million!
It's the whole house! It's the house that holds all her childhood memories and the fruits of her grandparents' labor! It's the dance academy that her mother dedicated half her life to, a place she considered her career and pride! It's the very foundation upon which they, mother and daughter, depend for their livelihood!
It's all gone!
Utterly, utterly, nothing!
The overwhelming amount of information, like a cold tide, instantly engulfed her.
She felt as if she had lost all feeling in her limbs, her ears were ringing, and the world before her eyes began to spin and blur.
She stood there blankly, like a jade sculpture that had lost its soul, her grip on her mother's hand unconsciously loosening.
It's over...
This time, it's really over...
This realization, filled with utter despair, crushed her last shred of hope.
Her mind went blank, and a huge sense of emptiness and coldness shot from the soles of her feet to the top of her head.
The surrounding laughter, Lin Qingyang's cold gaze, the lewd looks from Huang Mao and the others... everything became distant and blurry, leaving only his mother's words, "I lost it all," echoing repeatedly in his mind.
The air seemed to freeze.
At the card table, even the sound of betting stopped.
Everyone was watching the mother and daughter who were in dire straits.
Lu Bingxian held her stunned daughter tightly, her body trembling like a candle in the wind, her eyes filled with a deathly despair.
Wen Qi, once a dazzling campus belle at Nanjing University, is now like a flower that has been suddenly broken and thrown into the mud, losing all its color and vitality.
The deathly silence in the courtyard was broken by Lin Qingyang's slightly teasing voice.
He leaned back in his chair with an air of nonchalance, his gaze sweeping across Wen Qi's young face, which was etched with fear and despair.
A fake smile, tinged with condescending pity, curled at the corner of his lips: "Little girl," he said, his voice not loud, but clear enough to reach everyone's ears, "in the old days, according to the rules of the underworld, this matter wouldn't have been resolved so easily."
He spread his hands and looked around in a pretentious manner: "However, nowadays we talk about the rule of law, and I, Lin Qingyang, am a respectable businessman who values rules."
He picked up a card and tossed it casually: "My request is simple and legal—"
His gaze suddenly sharpened as he locked onto Wen Qi: "Take back the money your mother borrowed from me."
"Paying back debts is a matter of course!"
He slammed his cards down on the table with a loud "crack," his eyes blazing. "No matter where you put it, I'm right!"