In a certain household lived a mother and her daughter. The mother had once been young and beautiful, but time and life's hardships had worn her down. The one belief she clung to most obsessively was that "thinness is beauty." In her eyes, only a bony figure was elegant—any trace of flesh was ugly and shameful.
From a young age, the daughter was engulfed by this belief. In truth, she wasn't fat at all—she was even thinner than most of her peers. But in her mother's eyes, her body seemed magnified under an invisible lens, appearing "chubby" no matter where she looked.
"No breakfast. You'll gain weight," the mother said coldly."No dinner either. If you're hungry, drink water," she snapped like a blade cutting through air.
Whenever the daughter secretly cooked noodles or fried an egg, the kitchen would erupt with the mother's scolding. She would bow her head under the harsh words, hands trembling as she held the food—like a criminal caught stealing.
As days passed, the daughter's complexion grew paler, her frame more fragile. Her clothes hung loosely off her body, and a gust of wind could nearly knock her over. At school, her classmates whispered, "Is she sick?"Yet her mother remained adamant: "Look, still not thin enough."
The girl went from resisting, to falling silent, to complete numbness. She stopped sneaking food. She simply lay in bed, her eyes hollow. Hunger, like a venomous serpent, coiled around her stomach day and night, slowly hollowing out her soul.
One morning, sunlight poured through the window, casting a glow on her gaunt face.She didn't wake up. Her breath had already ceased.She lay there like a flower drained of moisture—finally withered away in the name of her mother's obsessive love and control.
The neighbors murmured, some sighing, "Such a healthy, beautiful girl… how could this happen?"
But the mother sat motionless by her daughter's bedside, her gaze blank.Perhaps, at last, she realized she had been the one to push her daughter into death.But it was all far too late.