The middle-aged woman immediately rushed into the house after hurriedly apologizing to Su Zhinian and Song Qingchun. Song Qingchun stood where she was for a while before she gave chase after the middle-aged woman. When she stepped into the house, she saw a young girl who kept ramming her head into the wall. There was already a large stain of blood on her forehead, but it was as if she didn’t understand pain; she kept banging her head against the wall.
The middle-aged woman who was called Sister Yang and the younger woman who came out to get her earlier tried to pull the little girl away from the wall, but the girl seemed to have lost her mind. Her head lolled back and forth until the younger woman gave the girl a tranquilizer shot, and the little girl gradually fell asleep.
Sister Yang bandaged the girl’s head before she stood up to apologize to Song Qingchun. Then she led her out of the house.
“That was Xiao Duo. I forgot to introduce her to you earlier. Her parents are biological siblings.”
That one sentence from Sister Yang caused the blood to drain from Song Qingchun’s face. Her teeth chattered for a moment before the power of speech returned to her. “Does she often have outbursts like that?”
“Yes, thankfully, it’s morning when we have people looking after her, so we can stop her in time, but sometimes she acts up at night, and she will knock herself unconscious before we even realize what happened.”
The rest of what Sister Yang said failed to register in Song Qingchun’s mind. When she came to, Su Zhinian already had his arm around her shoulders, leading her away from this orphanage that catered specifically to defective children.
Song Qingchun sat in the chair with a blanched face. She didn’t utter a single word as Su Zhinian drove them back to the city.
When the car reached the city, Song Qingchun finally recovered from the nightmarish scenes. Her hands reached toward her stomach involuntarily. Her pupils darted about with panic before she slowly lowered her eyes. Eventually, her gaze fell on the document that Su Zhinian had placed on her lap earlier. Song Qingchun frowned before she picked up the envelope to open it.
She saw two plane tickets inside, for herself and Su Zhinian, from Beijing to Shanghai. Other than that, there was a hospital bill for an abortion operation at Shanghai Main Hospital. The date was next Wednesday.
Song Qingchun stared at the term ‘abortion operation’ for a long time before it registered in her mind the meaning of those words. Then, her tears fell without warning.
She didn’t know whether it was from fear or from anger, but a ball of fire rose up her heart. She turned around to glare at Su Zhinian, who was still driving. With a voice shaking with fury, she yelled, “Su Zhinian, is this what you call discussing it with me? You’ve prepared everything, haven’t you? It doesn’t cross your mind to respect my opinion at all!”
Facing Song Qingchun’s interrogation, Su Zhinian pursed his lips but didn’t hurry to answer. He parked the car by the roadside before turning around to look at Song Qingchun. “Tingting, don’t get too agitated. You’ve seen for yourself how pitiable those children are, do you wish such a fate for our child?”