If
She quickened her steps again, as if being chased by the Fosak people.
Finally, before those men could approach, Jasmine dashed into the apartment building and shook them off.
Whew... The young girl patted her chest, silently deciding to go out less often at night from now on.
Only then did she realize that extraordinary beauty also had its downsides.
Calming down, Jasmine climbed the dim stairs to the third floor, reached her own front door, and used the key she had with her to open it.
She approached her parents' bed cautiously, once again examining their faces by moonlight.
Compared to when she had left earlier, her father's and mother's faces had become quite ruddy, their gray hair and wrinkles much reduced, and their snoring almost nonexistent.
They had really recovered their health... Jasmine couldn't help but smile, sighing with evident relief.
Sensing something, her mother's eyelids fluttered, then slowly opened.
Jasmine held her breath, suppressed her smile, ready to surprise her mother.
Her mother half‑sat up and looked over, her expression suddenly turning extremely terrified.
"Who are you?" the woman asked with a sharp voice, and gave her husband a hard push.
Who am I? Jasmine was a bit stunned by the question, momentarily not knowing how to answer such a simple question.
By then, her father had also woken up, looking at the beautiful young woman in front of him with confusion and wariness.
"Get out! Or I'll call the police!" Jasmine's mother left the bed, grabbed the candlestick placed nearby, and brandished it as a weapon.
"We don't welcome thieves." Jasmine's father issued the eviction order quite politely.
He knew that when facing a burglar, one should try not to push too hard, or they might choose an extreme response.
If he didn't have a wife and child, he wouldn't be too afraid to fight a burglar, but now he had the weight of an entire family on his shoulders.
Jasmine finally snapped out of it and hurriedly spoke.
"Dad, Mom, I am..."
Before she could finish, her mother shoved her without listening, and her father, grabbing her by the shoulders, pushed her out of the room.
As for what she had said, under such circumstances no one paid any attention.
Bang!
Her own door slammed shut before her, leaving Jasmine confused and helpless.
She wanted to pound on the door, wanted to use her key to prove her identity, but just then she heard her mother at the window opposite speaking to a patrolling policeman below.
"There's a thief! A thief!"
Thief... Mom and Dad didn't recognize me… Would they think I had killed myself?… Would the police believe the "fully automatic wish machine"?… Jasmine's heart tightened, and she instinctively decided to leave the apartment first, avoid the police, and wait until dawn to explain to her father and mother one by one, using shared memories to convince them.
Clomp clomp clomp, keeping her head down, under the gaze of neighbors who had come out at the noise, she quickly descended the stairs and bolted out of the building.
Running all the way to a nearby alley, avoiding the police who were approaching from the main street, Jasmine stopped, panting, and tears involuntarily streamed down her cheeks to the ground.
Suddenly, a hand reached out, covered her mouth, and dragged her to a secluded part of the alley.
"How much? I'll pay anything…" A drunken, slurred voice sounded in Jasmine's ear, as if he had mistaken her for a streetwalker and couldn't resist her allure.
Jasmine struggled hard, shocked, scared, and desperate.
Just as she felt she was about to break down, the drunkard's hand loosened.
"Miss, are you okay?" A hoarse male voice followed.
Jasmine first quickly moved away from the drunkard's area, then turned around and saw a policeman in a black‑and‑white checkered uniform.
"He, he wanted to…" Jasmine started crying as she spoke.
The policeman looked at her with pity and said, "We'll take him to the magistrate's court, but miss, you need to come with me to the police station to give a statement."
Jasmine was in an extremely frightened and confused state and nodded subconsciously.
Soon after, she was sitting in the statement room of the local police station, opposite the same policeman and his colleague.
"So, did he ever ask you if you were a streetwalker, and did you ever give any hint of soliciting customers?" The policeman weighed his words.
He was worried that being too blunt would hurt the beautiful young woman before him.
Jasmine held a coffee cup, lowered her head, took a sip, and said, "Mm, I had just arrived in that alley."
"Alright, that's enough for now. Miss Jasmine, could you tell us where you live? We'll send someone to take you back." The other policeman asked ingratiatingly.
Thinking of her parents' reaction and those disgusting looks, Jasmine couldn't help but shudder, and said as if about to cry, "I had a conflict with my parents and can't go home for now. Maybe you could take me to the nearest hotel…"
As she said this, she remembered she only had a few pence on her, nowhere near enough for a decent hotel, and cheap lodging was almost synonymous with danger for her.
The first policeman was taken aback and said, "Okay."
On the way to take Jasmine to the nearest hotel, this policeman hesitated several times before finally speaking.
"If, I mean, if you plan to become a streetwalker, you can come directly to me. You don't need to, need to go through all that trouble…"
Hearing this, Jasmine felt her spirit about to shatter, much like when she first saw her own face after being burned.