"What are you looking at? Haven't you ever seen a woman cry? Beat it, all of you!"
Who would want to be treated as a spectacle? Liu Sisi began chasing people away directly.
Having waited until the surrounding crowd dispersed, she slowly got up and started to make her way back. Her legs had gotten numb from crouching for too long, and all along the way, she inadvertently drew curious glances from passersby.
She kept her back straight as she walked to where she had abandoned her manuscripts, only to find that the surface of several pages had been smudged by rainwater and would need to be discarded and rewritten. Luckily, the content inside was undamaged, which was some good news.
Moving on, she went to where she had left her oil-paper umbrella, but after searching around for quite a while, it was nowhere to be found. It must have been blown away by the strong wind or picked up by someone; limping, she headed back towards the broken house.
