"Nanxing, you don't understand. You don't know..." Mai Qi withdrew her hands to cover her mouth. She suppressed her cries.
I reached out to hold her. "Mai Qi..."
"Nanxing, my mother has sacrificed a lot of me. I can't just give up on her because if I do, no one will care about her anymore. We're mother and daughter. Since I can't stop her, then I will help her to fulfill her wish. I need to help her hold her head up high before my father and brother. She is right. She gave birth to me, so I owe it to her!"
"So you owe her your life?" My voice was cold. Mai Qi stopped talking. We looked at each other silently.
Mai Qi took a long breath.
"My mother has been trying to cultivate her force because she doesn't want to be a woman who has to rely on a man. She needs to be able to stand up to my brother because he has been unfriendly to her since he was young. She was worried that one day when my father was gone, we would be left at the mercy of others.