“Still, they called me a thief!”

She continued to cover her face as she bawled her eyes out .

She seemed to have returned to that time at the orphanage when she was surrounded by the other children and their cruel finger-pointing .

The memories she had suppressed for a decade and a half surged through her inner defensive walls and overwhelmed her . She could hear and see the deafening accusations, evil gossips, and hideous faces around her . Accompanied by images of the harsh beatings and serious scolding she had received, all of them played on a loop in her mind . The way they tormented her heart was akin to the grinding of a saw chain .

The reverberating white noise pushed her to the brink of sanity . She attempted to block out the suffocating noise by covering her ears and screaming, “I"m no thief! I"m really no thief! Mu Wanrou is the thief; she stole my thing! That"s my thing…”

Qin Zhou looked up to see the service crew standing beside them sheepishly; the polite smile on their faces had gradually frozen over . They looked at one another before shaking their heads at him cluelessly . This crew just came moments before him, so they were naturally clueless on what had transpired here .

By the time they made it to the scene, she was already woodenly muttering to herself in this despondent state .

He bowed his head to look at her again . Her eyes were tightly shut as she shook all over from an undulating, insurmountable terror . Kneeling on the floor, she carefully curled herself into a ball as she rocked back and forth in great distress . Her helpless and desperate appearance triggered an inexplicable surge of pain inside his heart .

He did not know what had happened, but seeing her looking fearful and panic-stricken, he unreservedly grabbed her shoulders and consolingly pulled her into his arms .

He stroked her head lightly with his palm as he gently rea.s.sured, “Shishi, I believe you . Don"t be scared; I"m here!”

She clenched her lips very tightly as the imaginary voices nearly tore her last shred of consciousness .

With her recovered memory, the accusing voices in the past had broken loose inside her head and tormented her ceaselessly . If someone, anyone, had stood by her side, believed her, and defended her, she would not have felt trapped in h.e.l.l back then .

She tried her best to forget those nightmarish scenes, but with her memories mostly back now, the long-suppressed fear and suffering crushed her with their weight .

He saw her depressed look . Clenching his teeth in firm resolve, he tried to guide her away from the place . Her legs had gone soft and weak, however . In the end, he had to carry her himself .

He drove her back to his apartment instead of the office .

Once he carried her into his place, he let her lie in the bed and covered her with a comforter .

She burrowed in the quilt and defensively curled herself into a ball, looking totally helpless and insecure .

Sighing in resignation, he knew that there was nothing else he could do . He had tried in vain to coax information from her along the way, but she had remained in a defensive stance with her head buried . She did not seem to hear his questions and stayed unresponsive to him .

He had never seen someone so out of control before .

He sat on the bed"s edge and suggested gently, “Shishi, why don"t you take a rest first?”