Breaking Point

Yu Qingkong raised her eyes, locking her gaze firmly onto her. Seeing this, Mother Lin let her lips curl into another cold smile. “Why are you staring at me like that? Didn’t I just ask you a simple question?”

“You ask if she’s worthy? Then let me ask you—what right do you have to ask such a question, and what right do you have to interfere in my life?!” Lin Wanzhao suddenly snapped her head around to glare at her mother, her gaze cutting like a knife.

“What right do I have? I am your mother! You tell me whether I have the right or not!” Mother Lin fired back, keeping her arms tightly crossed.

Hearing this, Lin Wanzhao couldn’t control herself and took a sharp step forward. Sensing that her emotions were spiraling dangerously, Yu Qingkong immediately reached out and grabbed her wrist.

Then, Yu Qingkong looked back at Mother Lin. “Since you have doubts about me, Auntie, we might as well sit down and have a proper conversation.”

Mother Lin turned her gaze back to Yu Qingkong, her brows knitting together. The sheer composure this young woman displayed in the face of such a demeaning question caught her slightly off guard.

“Fine. Let’s have a detailed chat then.” Mother Lin let out a cold smile, turning around to walk back through the front door.

Lin Wanzhao turned to Yu Qingkong, opening her mouth to protest, but Yu Qingkong gently pressed her index finger against her lips to silence her.

Leaning down, Yu Qingkong whispered softly into her ear, “This was bound to happen eventually. Since it’s come to this, let’s just talk it out first. Try to stay calm, okay?”

Lin Wanzhao clutched her hand tightly, lowering her head as she whispered back in a trembling, fragile voice, “But I can’t stand her talking to you like that. Who does she think she is? I don’t want you to suffer this kind of humiliation…”

“Wanzhao,” Yu Qingkong exhaled a quiet sigh, looking into her eyes as she murmured gently, “I’m not that fragile. The moment I decided to be with you, I already anticipated the absolute worst-case scenarios. I’m mentally prepared for this. Be good, don’t worry.”

Hearing those words, Lin Wanzhao nodded reluctantly, even though a suffocating weight remained tightly lodged in her chest. She knew exactly what kind of person her mother was—highly controlling, utterly immune to reason, and completely set in her ways. It was impossible to communicate with her; their ways of thinking existed on entirely different wavelengths, with no hope of ever intersecting. If there had been even a shred of mutual understanding possible, their relationship wouldn’t have deteriorated to this point.

This explosive confrontation hadn’t happened out of nowhere. It was the volatile result of years of failed communication, an accumulation of micro-aggressions that had finally reached a tipping point and shattered.

Lin Wanzhao walked to the door with Yu Qingkong, casting a cold glance at her mother before pulling out her keys and unlocking the apartment.

The moment they stepped inside, Qiuqiu stood up from the sofa and stretched. The cat stared at Mother Lin with absolute vigilance for a few seconds before suddenly bolting and squeezing itself securely beneath the couch.

“You’re even keeping a cat?” Mother Lin asked, casting a disdainful glance toward the sofa.

“Yes,” Lin Wanzhao replied through gritted teeth, kicking off her shoes and slamming the door shut, her voice devoid of any warmth.

“Filthy creature,” Mother Lin spat out thoughtlessly.

“Whether it’s filthy or not has absolutely nothing to do with you! I didn’t ask you to raise it, nor did I invite you here to live with it!” Lin Wanzhao spun around to confront her fiercely.

Yu Qingkong instantly stepped in, grabbing Lin Wanzhao’s wrist to hold her back.

Mother Lin shot her daughter a look of profound displeasure.

After a moment, Mother Lin walked over and sat down on the sofa. Yu Qingkong quietly poured a glass of plain water, walked over, and offered it politely. “Auntie, please have some water.”

Mother Lin glanced at the glass but made no move to accept it.

Seeing this, Yu Qingkong calmly placed the glass on the coffee table and sat down right next to Lin Wanzhao.

A few moments passed before Mother Lin turned her head, evaluating Yu Qingkong with a critical sweep. “What do your parents do for a living?”

Yu Qingkong met her gaze directly, answering honestly, “Since you already know my name and are so utterly certain that I don’t match your family’s status, you must have already investigated my background. Am I wrong?”

A sharp twitch pulled at the corner of Mother Lin’s mouth. “You’re certainly clever. But since you put it that way, you clearly understand exactly how massive the divide between us is. I assume I don’t need to waste my breath spelling it out for you?”

Lin Wanzhao’s fists clenched so tightly her knuckles turned white. Detecting the movement, Yu Qingkong slid her hand over Lin Wanzhao’s, applying a firm, steady pressure to ground and comfort her.

“I admit there is a massive socio-economic gap between us. However, Auntie, you could also look at my actual achievements, couldn’t you? If you analyze what kind of presence I’ve been at the company over the past few years, you’ll easily see whether I’m someone who lacks ambition or someone who strives to move forward. If I were a lazy, useless loafer, then I would naturally agree that I’m unworthy of her. But I know how to work hard. Even though I haven’t achieved massive success just yet, I have full confidence that I will build a secure and stable life for Wanzhao in the future.” Yu Qingkong’s voice remained remarkably calm and measured.

Mother Lin let out a mocking laugh. “And how can you be so certain about what you’ll achieve in the future?”

“Having confidence is surely better than having none, wouldn’t you agree, Auntie? It’s true that I cannot predict exactly how far I will go, but Auntie, could you have predicted the exact life you enjoy today when you first started out? Yet, here you are, possessing all of this. Nothing in this world is absolute. A low starting point doesn’t mean a person is incapable of growth, does it?” Yu Qingkong countered smoothly.

Lin Wanzhao looked between Yu Qingkong and her mother, her hands trembling.

Mother Lin stared at Yu Qingkong for a long, heavy moment before suddenly bursting into a sharp laugh. “You certainly speak with an impressive amount of logic. Con artists sound exactly this convincing when they’re trying to spin a narrative. You really know how to target the right talking points, don’t you?”

Hearing that, Yu Qingkong finally understood why Lin Wanzhao had lived such an incredibly exhausting life all these years. It was genuinely impossible to have a rational conversation with this woman. Mother Lin was a person who absolute chose to believe only what she wanted to believe. No matter how logical or reasonable another person’s words were, and no matter how much they exhausted themselves trying to explain, it would always be entirely useless against her.

When Lin Wanzhao heard her mother equate Yu Qingkong to a con artist, the final thread of her restraint snapped. She had never been able to communicate with her mother without it devolving into a screaming match, and right now, she felt pushed to the absolute edge.

Mother Lin ignored her daughter’s rising fury, standing up to smooth down her elegant clothing as she looked back down at Yu Qingkong. “A person of your background approaching our Wanzhao can only have two possible motives. Either you’re trying to use her as a stepping stone to climb the social ladder, or… well, just name your price. How much money do you want to leave her?”

At that exact accusation, Lin Wanzhao exploded. She surged to her feet, grabbing her mother’s wrist with an iron grip and yanking her back away from Yu Qingkong. Her eyes were completely bloodshot as she glared at her.

Mother Lin’s brows knitted in pain. “That hurts! Let go of me!”

“Mother?” Lin Wanzhao’s eyes brimmed with unshed tears, yet a deeply mocking, bitter smile pulled at her lips. “Let me ask you—over the past twenty or thirty years of my life, how many times have you actually fulfilled your basic responsibilities as a mother?”

“I haven’t?! Let go!” Enraged by the question, Mother Lin twisted her wrist with a sudden, violent burst of strength, breaking Lin Wanzhao’s grip. The sudden force caused Lin Wanzhao’s body to stumble backward.

Seeing her lose her balance, Yu Qingkong quickly stepped behind her, catching her firmly by the shoulders and pulling her securely against her chest.

“Shut up? No, I absolutely won’t!” Lin Wanzhao let out a wild, breathless laugh, wetting her dry lower lip as she tilted her chin up to glare at her mother, her lips pulled back in a raw, emotional grin. “Whenever the other kids had parent-teacher conferences, their parents were always there. Me? I had no one. You came back maybe once a year, and the moment you walked through the door, all you did was interrogate me about my grades and check my holiday homework. The second you found a single mistake, you’d point at my face and scream that I was a useless, parasitic burden! A waste of space! When I was thirteen years old during the Lunar New Year, simply because I struggled to solve a single problem for hours—and because I made a similar mistake on a parallel question after you explained it once—you literally grabbed me by my hair and slammed my head against the wall!”

Mother Lin swallowed hard, her arms tightening around herself as she tilted her chin a fraction higher. “If it weren’t for my strict standards back then, would you ever have become the successful person you are today?”

“Whenever I performed well, you treated it as nothing more than my baseline duty. But the moment I made the slightest mistake, you deemed it an unforgivable sin,” Lin Wanzhao laughed bitterly. “Oh, absolutely. If it weren’t for you, how could the current me ever have been created? Do you have even the slightest clue what the current me is actually like? You only care about the flawless surface, but you will never know how completely rotten and broken I am on the inside!”

Holding onto Lin Wanzhao’s shoulders, Yu Qingkong could feel her body trembling violently, the tremors racking through her in unpredictable, chaotic waves. Feeling utterly helpless in the face of her trauma, Yu Qingkong could only tighten her embrace, desperately trying to convey through her touch that she was right here, that Lin Wanzhao wasn’t alone anymore. But Lin Wanzhao was thrashing with such a desperate, agonizing strength that Yu Qingkong felt she could barely hold her back; this was no longer a simple emotional outburst—it was a full-blown panic response.

“I see you’re just completely ungrateful. Other children practically beg for their parents to pay attention to them and guide them. But you? You’ve wanted nothing more than for us to wash our hands of you so you could run wild, haven’t you?” Mother Lin continued relentlessly.

“It’s like talking to a brick wall! Is that what I meant?! Is it?!” Lin Wanzhao suddenly shrieked, her emotions completely spiraling out of control. “Doesn’t my point clearly mean that the way you ‘guided’ me was fundamentally abusive?! And besides demanding that I achieve absolute perfection in every single metric, what exactly did you ever guide me through? When I desperately needed my parents, were you ever by my side? When I starved for a shred of warm familial affection, did you ever give it to me?! When I could no longer dance and was drowning in absolute despair, did you ever act as my safe harbor?! You literally told me that I couldn’t even take care of myself, that I was useless for destroying my own future! Instead of offering a single word of comfort, you drove a knife straight into my back! Do you honestly think you deserve to call yourself a mother?!”

At this point, Lin Wanzhao’s hands shook uncontrollably as she reached back to grasp Yu Qingkong’s hand. She turned her head slightly to look at her before turning a fierce, blazing glare back onto her mother. “What right do you think you have to look down on Yu Qingkong?! The warmth and safety that you and father never gave me, she gave me all of it! Yes, she doesn’t have as much money as you right now because her starting point was low, but her vision and character are miles ahead of yours! Do you honestly believe you’re inherently superior to everyone else? Let me tell you—stop being so disgustingly self-righteous!”

“I think you are completely insane!” Mother Lin’s eyes flushed an angry, volatile red.

She thrust a finger directly in front of Lin Wanzhao’s face. “Your father and I worked ourselves to the bone every single day, fighting and sacrificing out there just to support this household! You only whine about us not having time to accompany you, but what do you know about the sheer magnitude of hardships we encountered?! We slept later than dogs and woke up earlier than chickens, taking endless knives to the back, but we clenched our teeth and pushed through every single time just to make this family powerful! Just so you could live a life completely free of financial worry! Have all our sacrifices simply been thrown away on an ungrateful wretch like you?! Not only do you refuse to appreciate it, but you turn around and bite the hand that fed you! I would have been better off raising a dog than you—at least a dog knows how to be obedient and remains fiercely loyal to its master!”

“The one who earned the wealth was my father, so please get your facts straight! Do you have absolutely no self-awareness regarding how many business ventures you completely ruined because of your stubborn, domineering ego?! Furthermore, since raising me is worse than raising a dog, then go raise a dog! Spend the rest of your life with dogs! Why did you even give birth to me?! What did you bring me into this world for?! Did I ever give you consent to give birth to me?! Did I?!” Lin Wanzhao screamed, thrashing wildly against Yu Qingkong’s hold like a cornered, wounded cub, her eyes entirely wild and bloodshot.

“Wanzhao…” Seeing that she was on the absolute verge of a psychological collapse, Yu Qingkong wrapped her arms tightly around her waist, pulling her flush against her chest as she pressed desperate, soothing kisses against her hair. She knew with absolute certainty that if Mother Lin remained in this apartment for another minute, Lin Wanzhao would break completely. These two individuals simply could not coexist within the same space.

“Look at the state of you. What, are you planning to raise your hand against me next?” Mother Lin mocked, scanning her daughter’s frantic form before letting out a sharp, derisive laugh. “You truly are a piece of work. If I had known you would turn out to be this kind of vile creature, I would have smothered you the moment you were born!”

“Then why are you still standing in my apartment spouting this absolute garbage?! Stop putting on a pathetic act! Why are you still trying to control me?!” Lin Wanzhao roared, her fists clenched so hard her entire body shook uncontrollably.

“You—”

“Auntie, please leave,” Yu Qingkong interrupted, tightening her embrace around Lin Wanzhao as she raised her eyes to glare coldly at Mother Lin. “…If you possess even a single shred of actual love for her.”

If these two remained in the same room any longer, it would end in an absolute tragedy.

“Who are you to tell me what to do?!” Mother Lin snapped, her furious gaze instantly whipping over to lock onto Yu Qingkong.

Yu Qingkong stared down at the floor for a brief second before her brow smoothed out, a dangerous calm settling over her features. “You may be her mother, but I am her girlfriend. You tell me whether I have a say or not.”

Hearing those words, Lin Wanzhao kept her eyes trained on the floor, appearing entirely drained of life. Endless tears spilled silently down her flushed cheeks; her throat felt completely blocked and her chest suffocatingly heavy as her body continued to shudder against Yu Qingkong.

“Please leave,” Yu Qingkong repeated, her voice dropping an octave.

Mother Lin let out a sharp, incredulous laugh. “The one who needs to get out is you.”

“You have absolutely no right to say that,” Lin Wanzhao screamed at her again through her tears, her voice cracking under the strain. “No right at all!”

Hearing her daughter completely reject her authority, Mother Lin finally snapped. She lunged forward two steps, raising her hand high into the air. However, right as her hand swung down toward Lin Wanzhao’s face, Yu Qingkong caught her by the wrist with an iron grip.

“You…” Mother Lin glared at her in shock.

“Do you honestly wish for your daughter to date a piece of garbage who cowers in a shell the moment trouble arises, too terrified to speak a single word to defend her? I refuse to believe that a woman of your standing possesses such a simple-minded capacity for logic,” Yu Qingkong stated, ice dripping from her tone as she forcefully flung the woman’s hand away. “Furthermore, I love her. Therefore, I will never allow anyone to inflict even a single millimeter of harm upon her—even if that person happens to be her mother…”

Yu Qingkong firmly pressed Lin Wanzhao’s head against her chest, her voice dropping into a dark, unyielding register. “I will absolutely never allow it—”