Deep down, I secretly hoped my mother would say a few words to comfort me.
I knew perfectly well those soft words were nothing more than empty promises.
Yet I still desperately wanted to hear something warm coming from her lips.
Most mothers in the world know how to soothe their children.
We are all all too willing to take a mother’s sweet lies and hold onto them as our most precious comfort.
Yet my mother had forgotten even that basic bit of gentle affection.
She had been terrified by hunger and poverty her entire life—I couldn’t blame her in the slightest.
After our reunion, she offered no soft words of sympathy.
Instead, she silently went through my things, carefully asking about my earnings and expenses.
She didn’t show a single trace of shock or surprise at the line of work I was in.
I took the initiative to tell her about my body, confessing that I had caught a disease and felt awful all over.
My heart longed for her to urge me to rest for a few days and stop pushing myself.
Yet not a single word of sympathy escaped her lips.
“I’ll go out and buy you some medicine,” she said flatly.
I couldn’t help but look at her and ask out loud.
“Do we have to keep doing this for the rest of our lives?”
My mother fell silent, offering no answer.
Yet I could see the ache in her heart—she truly felt for me and wanted to protect me.
She would carefully cook meals for me, constantly checking in on my physical health.
She often stole quiet glances at me, her eyes filled with the gentle tenderness of a mother watching over a sleeping child.
Except for one thing she refused to ever say out loud.
She would never ask me to stop, nor would she ever tell me to give up this trade.
I saw through it with absolute clarity.
Even if I felt a slight pang of resentment, I completely understood her helplessness.
Apart from this road, there was simply no second way for us to stay alive.
The two of us needed food, clothes, and shelter just to keep breathing.
Survival dictated every single choice we made, leaving zero room for anything else.
Motherly love, dignity, self-respect—none of it meant a thing in the face of basic survival.
Money was forever cold and unfeeling, ruthlessly steering our destiny wherever it pleased.