At Hopewell Hospital, a middle-aged couple sat on the other side of the ICU entrance, tears streaming down their pale faces.
"Honey, the tarot cards said there'd be hope. Our daughter will be okay, right?" the woman asked, clutching a tarot card tightly.
The man gently patted her back, worry etched on his face, but he still tried to comfort her. "She'll be fine."
If the tarot cards were right, their hope might not come true.
The card was the Five of Cups upright, showing a man in a black robe with his head down, three cups spilled in front of him, and two standing behind him. It was a card of hope, but only after despair. It meant facing reality and changing your sorrowful mindset to find hope in life.
This card probably meant their daughter had no hope of surviving.
Sophia thought about her late father again. Ten years ago, he was diagnosed and treated in the gastroenterology department on the fifth floor of this hospital, and later hospitalized in the building behind, until he passed away.
The morning they got the diagnosis, it felt like the end of the world.
Her father, holding a stack of test reports, wanted to go home. "No more treatment. There's no hope, so let's not waste the money."
He spoke decisively and left resolutely, but Sophia's heart was breaking. She cried and held onto his leg, not letting him go. "Dad, there's still hope. The doctor said there's still time."
"It's useless. Look at those undergoing chemotherapy. They all want to be cured. But only a few people get better," her father said. "I don't want to waste money on hopeless things. At least when I die, you'll still have a house to live in and money to live on."
Sophia cried even harder. "I just want you to live and spend more time with me," she pleaded. "I don't want to be alone."
She really didn't want to be alone, living this long, painful life.
They argued for a long time, neither convincing the other. Since Ella died, guilt and pain tormented her father. Their lives only got worse.
"Why didn't I come home earlier that night? If I had come home earlier to be with your mom, she wouldn't have gone through this and died. It's all my fault," he kept saying, slapping himself until his face was swollen and his mouth was bleeding.
Grief and guilt made him lose his appetite, and his health deteriorated year by year, resulting in both his physical and mental collapse.
Sophia secretly put their house up for sale online. The day the buyer came to see the house, her father cried his heart out.
After a lot of convincing, Sophia finally got her dad to agree to go to the hospital for treatment. She set up his hospitalization and surgery, even took a break from school to be with him.
But the day before he was supposed to start chemo, her dad snuck out of the hospital.
When Sophia realized he was gone, she immediately thought he might have gone to find those twins. She rushed over there.
Before she even got out of the taxi, she saw her dad pinned to the ground, getting beaten by a man.
That guy had grown taller and stronger, and his punches and kicks were brutal. It reminded her of how he used to abuse Ella.
In the crowd, there was another face identical to the man hitting her dad.
Kurt was yelling at Tony to stop, but he was secretly holding her dad's hand down, preventing him from fighting back. His eyes were filled with malice, like a venomous snake.
He said, "Stop it. Can you stop acting like a brute? Stop it. So many people are watching."
Every time Kurt tried to stop him, it only made Tony angrier.
Kurt, pretending to be the good guy, was trying to stop Tony, but as he watched Tony hit, the corners of his mouth curled up into a smile. Kurt was so insidious.
Tony's family stood nearby, not stopping Tony's violence but watching and blaming her dad and her. Some claimed their family was shameless, while others deemed them unlucky, as the ones suffering were not their kin.
Sophia's dad had no strength to fight back under the blows. He came with only anger, without any weapon.
He might not have come here for revenge, but to be killed. Because he wanted to use the remaining life to ensure that the twins faced legal consequences.
Because they were adults at that time. If they killed him in anger in public, they would definitely be punished and could no longer escape.
Sophia gradually understood the phrase "an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth," so she went into a convenience store and bought a knife.
She made up her mind. The best outcome would be that she killed them, then the police would take her away, and then take their bodies away, and she would make the news.
The worst outcome would be that she and they all died. But she didn't succeed because her dad pulled her away.
That night, her dad hit her for the first time. He slapped her in front of her mom's grave but then cried his heart out.
He forced her to kneel in front of the grave and swear. "Sophia, swear to your mom and me you'll never get your hands dirty with the blood of our enemies. If you kill them, your mom and I will never rest in peace."
"Dad, as long as you cooperate with the doctors, I'll promise you anything." She cried and wailed.
"No, don't just promise me. Swear to us that you will never do anything illegal, that you will never kill anyone!" Sophia's dad shouted.
"I swear!" She closed her eyes and shouted in despair.