her, shielding her own head with her hands, enduring the man''s blows and abuse without a word.

She heard her father rush in from outside, picking up a long wooden stick from the corner, swinging it with force towards the perpetrator.

"Abject thing! Are you tired of living?!" The portly man, never expecting this small-built peasant to actually fight back, stood frozen in astonishment for a moment. Though menacing threats continued to pour from his mouth, his arrogance had faded.

"The rats in the gutters bite back, sir!" Seizing the opportunity, the father landed another solid blow on him. "Beware, you privileged lords! Each violence will be paid back one day! Each sin will soon face the day of Judgment!"

"Madman! Just you wait!" The rich man dropped the sentence in panic, then scurried out with his head in his hands under the assault of her father.

Fiona hadn''t heard many tales of heroes, but in that moment, her father became a true hero in her eyes.

But Father vanished from that day onward. When he returned home, he had grown even thinner, his beard unshaven for a long time, bloodshot eyes staring out from his face marked with two unsightly scars.

Fiona thought her mother would rush to embrace papa in tears of joy, yet as soon as he entered the house, Mother spat at his feet, and her voice angrily trembled as she shouted, "You idiot! Brute! You''ve played hero, feasted in jail, contented yourself! It could have passed just with me taking a beating still, but now we two must endure four months of helpless tough days!"