The pain in the shoulder was easy to endure, but the malice coming from the gaze and voice was like a cold winter wind and could not be ignored.
The girl raised her head and looked at her mother's expressionless face, but in the depths of her eyes, a glimmer of fear could be seen flashing.
Yuko Moritani saw the flashing light and felt satisfied. Fear was awe and a manifestation of power. After she became addicted to gambling, she rarely saw such emotions in others.
"No money." The girl turned her head away.
"What do you mean nothing? Didn't I ask you to get it from grandma's bedside? That old lady likes to put her money there!" Yuko Moritani was not satisfied with her daughter's answer, and she increased the strength of her palm again.
The girl clenched her teeth and almost cried out when the pain increased, but then she quickly adapted to the suffering.
She looked at her mother's face and pleaded, "Don't steal anymore, or grandma will find out."
"What do you mean by stealing? That old woman's money belongs to us. How can it be called stealing if we take our own money? Even if we can't get it, you can tell that old woman that the school needs to pay fees. Money for magazine subscriptions, money for visiting activities, and that you want to buy something with your classmates. Didn't I teach you how to make excuses? Why don't you do it?"
Yuko Moritani's words became increasingly angry. Thinking that she had no money to sit at the gambling table today, her smile became stiff and her facial expression control was on the verge of collapse.
The girl was keenly aware of the atmosphere before the rainstorm. Her shoulders trembled and she hurriedly explained, "I really have to hand in lunch today..."
Before she finished speaking, she realized something was wrong and covered her mouth, but it was too late. She had already leaked the aroma of meat, and the jackal came after her.
Yuko Moritani showed a bright smile. It was no longer a fake smile, but a genuine happiness, the happiness of playing mahjong, the happiness of opening the poker cards.
"You have to pay the lunch fee today, right? The money is in the school bag?" Yuko Moritani let go of one of her daughter's shoulders and reached out to grab the red school bag.
"No!" The girl broke free from her hand, took two steps back, and hugged her schoolbag behind her with both arms.
Her voice trembled: "It has to be handed in today!"
"If mom knows, will she still ask for your lunch money?" Yuko Moritani looked at the people around her and waved to her daughter, "Come back soon. Mom wants to help you check to make sure you don't lose the money."
"I checked it."
“When was it checked?”
"I checked it with Grandpa before I left."
"That was before you left. Now that you've been gone for so long, you should check it again. If you lose it on the road, it will be too late to find it when you get to school."
Yuko Moritani looked concerned and her voice was soft, as if she was really worried about the girl.
Under her guidance, the girl started to worry whether the money was still in the small bag of her schoolbag. This worry distracted her attention and lowered her vigilance to a dangerous level.
She took off the shoulder strap of her schoolbag, and Yuko Moritani came to her side and looked into the schoolbag with her.
They both saw a small white cloth bag with the mouth of the bag tied with a rope.
The girl just breathed a sigh of relief when a hand reached out into her field of vision and took the bag away.
"Mom!" She quickly hugged that arm.
"What are you calling? I'll help you check if there's anything in there. If it's empty, the teacher will think you stole it and used it for yourself."
Yuko Moritani once again made reasonable remarks that could arouse her daughter's suspicion.
The girl hesitated.
"Let go." Yuko Moritani said sternly.
The girl hesitated for a moment, but finally shook her head.
"Why are you so nervous? Mom will never take your money. Let go!" She shook her arms.
"You took the money for the school trip last year." The girl refused to let go, tears sparkling in her eyes.
Yuko Moritani was speechless. Her mind was filled with dice and cards. She had no idea how much money she had cheated from her daughter, nor did she want to remember how she had cheated the money.
After a pause, she came up with another idea. She said to her daughter, "Mom is just helping you check if the money is in there. Hold my hand. I can't untie the bag, so let go of your hand and hold my waist tightly."
The girl had no doubts. She loosened her arms and quickly hugged her mother's waist.
Her waist was thicker than her arms, so she had to press her whole body against her mother's to hug her tightly. Her face was therefore buried in Yuko Moritani's belly. Even if she raised her head and tried hard to look at the white cloth bag in her mother's hand, her vision was extremely limited.
Yuko Moritani waved her arm, adjusting the angle to block the girl's sight, and quickly inserted her fingers into the bag and pulled them out.
The hand speed she practiced at the gambling table seemed immature in front of her gamblers, but it was like incredible magic in front of her daughter.
"Yes, the money is all in there." Yuko Moritani closed the cloth bag, tied it up, and put it into her daughter's schoolbag.
The girl looked at this scene in surprise. She didn't expect that the bag could really come back to her.
"Okay, go to school quickly, you're going to be late." Yuko Moritani quickly helped her daughter put on her schoolbag, patted her head and urged her.
The girl's remaining doubts were dispelled by the fear of being late. She grabbed the shoulder straps of her schoolbag, waved to her mother, and ran to school.
There was joy on her face and her steps were cheerful. This was the first time since she came to her grandparents' house that her mother did not ask her for money or tell her how to cheat or steal her grandparents' money.
Her mother even showed concern for her and helped her check the money in the bag.
She thought that her mother was getting better than before, and if she continued to get better, she would be able to go back to two years ago and buy the house back. Her father had passed away, but she could still live with her mother.
She turned around and saw her mother's smiling face. She stretched out her hand and waved. Her mother responded to her enthusiastically. She felt that today was a happy day.
Watching her daughter's back disappear around the corner ahead, Yuko Moritani stopped staring and spread out her hands, with a roll of money tucked into her palms.
What a stupid daughter.
Yuko Moritani smiled proudly. She felt that she had performed a perfect trick in the bet with her daughter.
Putting the money into her pocket, she hummed a little tune and walked quickly towards the road.
She met the man when she walked out of the alley and came to the avenue.
The man was sitting in the back seat of a Bentley on the side of the road, looking at her through the open window, his eyes calm and his face without any obvious emotion.
She instinctively restrained her somewhat unbridled smile and gait, and gave the other person a proper smile that had become somewhat unfamiliar.
The man didn't respond to her, and the car window slowly closed, but the driver's door opened and the driver walked towards her.
[Yuko Moritani never dreamed that she would meet a young, handsome and wealthy man like you on the roadside, and she never thought that your driver would pass a message to her, asking if she was willing to marry you.]
How could she refuse such a good thing? She stared at the car logo greedily, thinking back to the expensive clothes and watches she saw through the car window. These things turned into colorful chips in her mind, and her fingers made the action of pinching the chips.
(End of this chapter)