Battered Young Miss

Sheeng Jinzhe a.s.sisted his daughter with pulling out a comforter to lay on the pink rug of the room, since the bed was too small for her to sleep on, a pillow was placed on top of the comforter which was spread out on the rug. Too tired and emotionally drained to give the room much thought, Sheng Liena took to the makes.h.i.+ft bed, turning her back to her father, as she closed her eyes to sleep.

"Good night Liena."

"..."

There was no response from the young woman. At first when she placed the call to a man she thought to be her father, Sheng Liena was filled with excitement, despite the sadness that came from knowing that she could never meet her mother, the thought of knowing that her father was a phone call away made her dial the number without any hesitation, but the happiness soon died when she knew that her father didn"t sound as excited as she was to meet her.

Sheng Jinzhe watched his daughter for a short while before making his way out of her room, shutting the door firmly behind him.

On getting inside his room, Sheng Jinzhe pulled out his phone to dial his mother"s number.

"h.e.l.lo Mom."

"Jinzhe why are you calling so late, is anything the matter?"

Madam Sheng was in the living room watching the evening news when her phone rang.

"Mom, it"s Liena!"

"What is with Liena?"

"She is back!"

"Wan"t she supposed to be with the in-laws?"

Madam Sheng avoid mentioning "grandparents" since it still stung that the Luos had taken Liena from her and her son.

"They are both dead, one died of cancer and the other died from grief."

"How did you know they were dead, or have you being in touch with them all this years?!"

Madama Sheng could not hide the tone of indignation as she spoke to her son on the other line.

"No mom! Liena just called me for the first time, I didn"t know who the person on the phone was until she introduced herself to me as my daughter!"

Sheng Jinzhe felt upset that his mother was suspecting him of keeping in close contact with his late wife"s parents and daughter.

"I and your father will come to your house tomorrow. By the way how does she look? I hope she isn"t as tacky as her mother?!"

What Madam Sheng meant was that she didn"t want to meet with a granddaughter that looked poor nor dressed in the way people of caliber clothed themselves.

"When I saw her, she looked like she lost a lot of weight."

"I thought the in-laws made good money working for the government, shouldn"t they be able to provide something as basic as food on the table?!"

"Mom, I"m sure is because she was grieving from their death, I doubt if it was because they didn"t give her enough food."

Sheng Jinzhe tried to reason with his mother, to her anyone that was not in their cla.s.s had to be poor. It didn"t matter if they were highly educated or not, to her money was the equivalent of success. Therefore, if a person didn"t have money then they weren"t seen as successful.

"We should be at your house at five in the evening. Make sure Liena isn"t looking unkempt by the time we show up!"

"Yes mom, I will have the driver take her to do some shopping in the morning, before leaving for work, that way I"ll be sure that she is well prepared."

"She should be twenty or twenty two by now? Is she attending university?"

"We get the chance to talk at length when she came in, but she should be about ready to go to University. She"s nineteen mom!"

"Don"t bite my head off! I wasn"t the one that gave birth to her, so why should I know her exact age?!"

Madam Sheng wasn"t pleased with her son, but also not equally happy with the fact that she didn"t know how old her granddaughter was, if anyone had stopped her on the road to ask, she would have told them the exact same thing, the thought made her cheek burn with embarra.s.sment, which she had to cover with a tone of anger.

"Alright mom, I"m not going to hold it against you. Goodnight!"

"Goodnight son!"

The two said their farewell to each other as the phone call ended.

________

Sheng Liena could hear the pounding sound that came from the door of her room.

"Liena! It"s morning already! Wake up!"

It took a while for the young woman to realize that she was back at the house where she spent part of her early childhood.

"I"m coming!"

Sheng Liena with much difficulty rose from the tangled make s.h.i.+ft bed to open the door for the person that was knocking.

"Good morning papa."

Sheng Jinzhe in a collarless blue s.h.i.+rt and black pants, with a face that was cleanly shaved, stared in horror at the sight that met him at the door.

"Go clean up and come downstairs for breakfast! You are following the driving to get yourself some clothes and any other thing you may need."

Sheng Liena was not yet fully awake, therefore she missed the look reflected in her father"s eyes.

"Huh...uh!"

"Stop standing there and go take a bath! I have to be at the office!"

Sheng Liena didn"t understand what her having a bath so early in the morning had to do with her father going to work.

"...."

Sheng Jinzhe stormed downstairs, heading for the dinning room to where his breakfast was served, while his daughter slowly turned around to head back in to pickup her bath essentials to take with her to the bathroom.

----------

At around six in the evening, a car pulled up the driveway of the home of Sheng Jinzhe. Stepping out of the car was an elderly couple in their 70s, as the driver that brought them ran ahead press the door bell for them.

"Good evening Sir!"

"Good evening Madam Sheng!"

They were met at the door by the maid, who greeted the couple and their driver before stepping back to let them into the house.

Sheng Jinzhe and his daughter stood up to greet their guests, while the maid waited to the side to usher everyone into the dinning room, the driver went back to the car after the Shengs were shown in by the maid.

"Jinzhe! I can"t believe that she looks so much like me when I was around the same age as her!"

Madam Sheng sounded looked thrilled when she saw the uncanny similarity between her and her granddaughter.

The rice that was on Sheng Liena"s plate was sprinkles with snow peas and carrot. Not the type that ate peas, she began taking them out one after the other. Madam Sheng and Sheng Jinzhe sat at each end of the table, while Sheng Liena sat in the middle across from her grandfather.

"I was waiting for you to say so."

Their granddaughter was really paying attention to the flow of the conversation, her eyes were so focused on getting each pea out of her food with the stainless silver chop stick onto the napkin by the side of her plate.

"What is she doing?!"

Madam Sheng called the attention of the rest to what her granddaughter was doing to her food.

"Liena! Why are you taking the peas out of your rice?!"

Sheng Jinzhe reprimanded his daughter right in the presence of his parents, especially his mother.

"Papa I don"t like seeing peas in my food."

"Do they taste bad? Ms Buo is a fine cook, why don"t you try it first?"

The father asked his daughter to eat the peas in that she was getting rid of, but the young woman kept on taking them from her plate not paying heed to the words of her father.

"See! Such a disgusting habit that daughter-in-law had! I"m sure they taught their daughter the exact same thing that having peas in a food in some sort of bad luck!"

"Honey, don"t let us carry it too far, I"m sure Liena would explain to us why she doesn"t like peas. Isn"t that right Liena?"

Sheng Henian gave a pointed look at his granddaughter, as he waited for her to explain to the family the reason for her behavior.

"I don"t like the way it looks and it has nothing to do with whether or not grandma or grandpa said it was good or not, so mama didn"t also like to have peas in her food?"

All three pairs of eyes looked at the young woman who although looked like her paternal grandmother, but had the eating habit of her mother. When the saying, "blood is thicker than water" or that the "apple doesn"t fall far from the tree" depending on the context the two could be seen as the same, because when a person is related by blood they tend to show similar characteristics to the people they shared the same blood with regardless of which side of the family.

"That does not make any sense at all, how can you hate what you have never even tried before?"

"It"s okay! It"s okay! Let us all calm down."

This time the husband of Sheng Ying was the peacemaker, he knew that anything that reminded his wife of their late daughter-in-law made her vent in anger.

"No!No!No! This is absolute nonsense! You didn"t cook the food, neither does the reason you gave make any sense to any of us. If we don"t correct her now, she would start growing wings and become very rebellious!"

"Rebellious! I"m not a child anymore okay?! I don"t know what you and my mama had going on, but you better watch the way you talk to me, I don"t respect anyone that talk down to me like the way you all do. I don"t care how old you are, you better not insult me or my mama! That also includes my grandpa and grandma!"

"See this thing! Tell me that I should respect her! Your mother was a gold digger, who lured my son into marriage by tying him down with her pregnancy! If not because she kept begging us to let her marry my son, do you think you can hold the name of Sheng! Do you know what people call children like you?!"

Sheng Liena was full of fury, she couldn"t believe that her grandmother could talk to her mother that way, despite knowing she was no longer alive.

"Don"t you have any fear! Speaking ill of the dead, I pray lightening strikes you down for what you said!"

"Did you hear her?! Did you hear what she said?! Cursing her own grandmother!"

"Liena! Apologize to your grandmother right now!"

Sheng Jinzhe looked very angry, while staring at his daughter in disbelief.

"I will not apologize to her until she does!"

"..."

Madam Sheng stared with her mouth hanging wide open, she couldn"t believe that this was the child born from her son and the daughter-in-law she despised. It was almost as if she was looking at a young version of herself, in the past people knew her to be a spit fire and even after many years the fire still remained in her. It was there, the reigning terror finally understood that she was about to be overthrown by her granddaughter whom she couldn"t beat in youth and agility.