Shocking! The actress was dragged to the regent's bedchamber every night.

Su Wuli quickly added, "I can wait, but..."

She paused, her gaze falling on Zhou Ruoying's face, "I don't know if your wound can wait."

As soon as the words were spoken, the two of them, dressed only in their underwear, trembled slightly.

Seeing this, Su Wuli asked again, "Or do you think this isn't sincere enough, and you want to go down and apologize to my mother in person?"

The two, who had been struggling with their decision, instantly turned pale.

"Going to jail is better than bleeding to death, isn't it?" Su Wuli looked at her and offered her a choice.

"You have a choice: either watch the blood flow from your face every day until you die of weakness, or bear the consequences and get the antidote."

"You...you're threatening me." Zhou Ruoying's voice trembled.

"I learned it from your mother, one time each, so we're even."

Su Wuli stood up as she spoke, walked to the window, and turned her back to them.

"I'm giving you one day to think it over. By this time tomorrow, if I don't see you at the police station, or hear any other rumors about me..."

She turned her head and her gaze fell on the thick gauze on Zhou Ruoying's face.

"By the way, doctors can't help you; you can only watch your life force slowly drain away."

She spoke slowly, each word crystal clear, "Until death."

The room was deathly silent.

Only Wang Zhou Ruoying's barely suppressed gasps of fear could be heard.

Wang Xin opened her mouth, but looking at Su Wuli's calm and unwavering eyes, and the strange wound on Zhou Ruoying's face, she hesitated.

All the words stuck in his throat.

Su Wuli stopped looking at them, sat back down in front of the mirror, picked up a comb, and slowly combed her hair.

"The door's over there," she said. "No need to see me off, old classmate."

The two stood there like stiff stone statues for a long time.

Finally, Wang Xin picked up her clothes, helped the nearly collapsed Zhou Ruoying, and fled the room as if escaping.

The door closed.

Su Wuli stopped combing her hair and looked at herself in the mirror.

Then, Lin Liwen came in. "How are you? Are you alright?"

Su Wuli breathed a sigh of relief and shook her head. "It's nothing."

It started raining heavily on her way back to the apartment, and she stared blankly at the rain curtain that blurred the streets.

When we arrived at the apartment, the rain had stopped.

But the apartment windows still had a layer of water droplets on them.

She took a shower and sat at her desk, the lamplight illuminating a stack of yellowed old photos in front of her.

The woman in the photo is very young, in her early twenties, and looks somewhat like Su Wuli now.

Everyone says that daughters resemble their fathers more, but Su Wuli clearly resembles her mother.

Her fingertips caressed the photograph.

"Mom, I miss you so much..."

The phone screen lit up beside me and started buzzing.

Su Wuli put down the photo, glanced at it, and saw it was from an unfamiliar number.

She stared at the string of numbers for a few seconds before slowly picking it up and holding it to her ear.

He didn't say anything.

The first sound on the other end of the phone was a slightly rapid breathing, followed by a middle-aged woman's voice that tried to soften her tone but still carried a condescending air.

"Is this... Su Wuli?"

Su Wuli didn't respond, her fingers unconsciously picking at the edge of the photo.

The other party waited for two seconds and had no choice but to continue.

"I am Zhou Ruoying's mother. We...we spoke on the phone before."

"Hmm," Su Wuli responded faintly.

"Kiri." The other person's voice softened a little.

There was an awkwardness to it, as if it was deliberately trying to get close.

"Auntie knows you've suffered all these years. Yingying and the others were immature when they were young and did many wrong things that hurt you and indirectly led to bad consequences. Auntie apologizes to you on their behalf."

Su Wuli didn't reply, her gaze fixed on her mother's gentle face in the photo, her fingertips icy cold.

"My aunt called today not to try to defend them."

The person on the other end of the phone suddenly changed the subject, their tone becoming serious.

"I genuinely want to resolve the issue and make it up to you."

Su Wuli remained silent.

The other person seemed a little anxious and spoke faster.

"Auntie knows it's not easy for you all by yourself. We're also very sad about what happened to your mother... but the dead can't be brought back to life, and those who are alive must always look forward, don't you think?"

Upon hearing this, Su Wuli's breath hitched, and her fingers curled up.

The other party was oblivious, or rather, didn't care, and directly threw out their real bargaining chip.

"Auntie also heard... that you've had a tough time these past few years and have accumulated a lot of debt?"

Upon hearing this, Su Wuli's fingers gripping her phone tightened suddenly.

"Auntie didn't mean to pry into your privacy," the voice on the phone quickly explained.

His voice, however, carried a confidence that he had finally found the other party's weakness.

"We're just concerned about you. You're still young. How will you manage with all this debt? If I remember correctly, you entered the entertainment industry to pay off your debts as quickly as possible."

She became more and more composed as she spoke.

"The entertainment industry is lucrative, but the money is substantial. Yingying made a mistake and deserves punishment, but there are many ways to be punished; it doesn't necessarily have to escalate to a point of mutual destruction, right?"

She lowered her voice further, making it even more seductive.

"Here's what I'm saying: Auntie has some money here that's enough to pay off all your debts, and there'll still be a lot left over so you can live a good life, or even go abroad to study and start over."

She paused as she spoke, and then stated her demands.

"As long as you... solve the problem on Yingying's face, and... let bygones be bygones. You pay to avoid trouble, and we'll pay to avoid trouble. It's a win-win situation, okay?"

The phone went silent.

Su Wuli looked at her mother's eyes in the photo; those eyes were especially beautiful and warm when she smiled.

The advice Yu Chen gave her in the dream echoed in her ears.

My throat felt blocked, and it was painfully choked.

She opened her mouth, only to find her voice terribly hoarse, "Auntie."

"Yes, go ahead," came the immediate reply from the other end of the phone, filled with anticipation.

"The day my mother died..." Su Wuli said slowly, enunciating each word clearly, "the weather was fine, unlike today, with this torrential rain."

The breathing on the other end suddenly stopped.

"You just said that the dead cannot be brought back to life," Su Wuli continued. "Then tell me, how much is justice worth for the dead?"

"you……"

"You've investigated very thoroughly. Our family is in debt, a lot of debt," Su Wuli interrupted her, her fingertips digging deeply into her palms.

The pain kept her conscious. "I really need this money. With it, I won't be woken up in the middle of the night by debt collectors, I won't have to beg people, and I can... be much more relaxed."

Although those things happened before.

Since she entered the entertainment industry, she has been able to pay back some of her money every month, and those people have become much more polite to her.

The person on the other end of the phone seemed to breathe a sigh of relief. "That's more like it, let's be realistic..."

"But what about my mom?"

Su Wuli's voice suddenly rose a little, then immediately fell back down, trembling slightly.

"Who will buy her life, her justice? With the blood-stained money you give me?"

"That's not charity, it's compensation, it's a transaction." The other party's tone became urgent.

Her feigned kindness was also revealed: "Su Wuli, do you know who those creditors are? We can make your life even harder."

The threat was laid bare, without any attempt to conceal it.

Su Wuli's hand holding the phone trembled uncontrollably. "Auntie, do you remember how my mother died?"

The other party was speechless.

"He was scared to death," Su Wuli answered for her. "He was so frightened by your daughter's carefully planned prank that he lost control and was hit by a car."

She took a breath, feeling a pain spreading from her waist to every part of her body.

This made her more clear-headed. "You're right, we're also in a transaction now, but what I want isn't money."

Her tone became more hurried.

"I want them to turn themselves in, confess in person, sign and affix their fingerprints. Every missing word, every day of delay."

She paused, took a deep breath, and clearly uttered the last few words, "None of them will work."

"Su Wuli, you—"

"There's more," Su Wuli interrupted again.

His tone was weary and bored.

"Stop investigating me, and stop trying to test me with money. You can't buy justice for my mother."

............................................................