Notes

- the chapter starts off with Mai working in the garden because she wants to keep herself busy. as a country girl, she's used to doing work and does so in order to keep her mind off of things, especially the recent events with Loc and such
- DUDEEEE LOC'S MOM CAME TO THE HOUSE AND WHEN MAI SAID THAT LOC WASN'T HOME, THE MOM WAS LIKE "I KNOW, THAT'S WHY I CAME" GG YOU KNOW SOMETHING'S GONNA HAPPEN :(((
- mai invites her in and they have a convo about mai's education or something
- the convo shifts to her dead parents and loc's mom has a khinh bi tone when talking about it, causing mai to tear up
- they continue talking about something LOL i have no idea what i'm reading
- the mom's all like "oh so did your parents love you" and mai was like "yeah" and ba an was like "oh so then you know what a parent's love is like" and basically uses that as the premise to kinda argue why mai should not be with her son
- mai argues back, saying "look at it from child's side - i love loc and i sacrificed "danh tiet cung tinh menh cua con" (idk what this means, but seems important - bottom of pg. 100) and when my parents died, the only person i loved was Huy but then i met loc too so that was great"
- mai summarizes her life and its struggles to ba an
- mai also talks about how loc entered her life and how he's always helped her and has thus improved her life by a lot
- mai talks about how love and sacrifice are more important than the values of nho giao
- ba an talks about the arranged marriage between mai and province chief's daughter, leaving mai in extreme shock
- ba an is like "i'm gonna marry loc off in august and i'm pretty sure the wife's family is not gonna be too happy if they find out that he's been living with someone else for a while. so, i'm gonna find you another place to live temporarily until loc is married and then you can become second wife"
- mai is like "i don't believe in that second wife stuff" and ba an is like "ok whatever, just know that no matter what, loc is gonna marry that girl in august"
- mai's like "i would never marry anyone else if you made me separate from loc because i love him and only him"
- ba an guilts trip mai: "loc has a long, bright future if he marries the girl that i want him to. however, if he's with you, he'll always be associated with bad people blah blah. if you are truly willing to sacrifice yourself (bc earlier in the convo, mai talked about how she has constantly sacrificed herself for the happiness of others, ba an took advantage of that), then you should sacrifice your relationship with loc so that he can have the bright future that was destined for him. this is the best sacrifice that can ever be performed"
- main can't find an argument for this, just says that she's not even a bad person and she even follows nho giao
- ba an: "outside people don't know that. k, you don't really love my son, blah blah"
- something happens but idk what but then ba an is leaving
- before she leaves, mai pleads with her one last time to reconsider, if not for mai and loc's happiness, but for the baby
- they talk some more about something, a phrase relating to nho giao
- AND THEN for some reason, mai decides to leave loc??? she says that she will leave the house that day
- and then ba an is actually halfway decent??? she says that she'll give mai some money to help her out and that if she ever needs help, to come to her house
- ba an asks what time mai's gonna leave, and mai's like "oh don't worry, i'm leaving. trust me on that"
- ba an leaves
- mai literally just sobs her heart out, poor girl :(
- huy comes home and sees his sister crying, she doesn't even need to tell him what happened because he can kinda guess at it. he's always known this day would come, and that's why he's always so unhappy
- she gathers herself enough to tell him what happened that day though
- the siblings talk about her decision (i think, didn't really understand what i was reading as usual LOL)
- when loc comes home, they agree not to say anything to him
- loc is as cold as always (bc he's still paranoid from the affair thing)