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She turned back to Michael His sht “Yes, Hulan, I’hter”

“How do you know about her?”

“You were after us, Hulan It was i about you”

Hulan knehat she was dealing with now Michael Quon was not a psychopath He’d gotten to this point with the cold and deliberate plotting of a mathematical mind

“You should have done more,” he said “You should have protected her”

She’d been trained never to be tricked into giving personal revelations, but she couldn’t stop herself “I did everything I could”

“Why didn’t you take her to the hospital sooner? Did you not want to irl child is worth it?” He paused, then recited, “‘When a girl, obey your father; when a wife, obey your husband; when a , obey your son’”

Hulan could al those words into her as a child “I never thought that way about Chaowen”

“No, because you’d been too corrupted by the West,” he said in a ht the whole world was open to her”

Why didn’t he just kill her and get it over with?

“You’re a thoughtful person, analytical in your oay,” Michael continued “Think about that night Were you ehter was sick?”

Each word he spoke smashed deeply into Hulan

“Were you afraid people would think you weren’t a good mother?”

Her heart ached and she felt utterly defenseless, yet so to relive those last days She was seeing therief had warped them

“Did you delay in going to the hospital because you didn’t want people to see you fail again?”