Arrogant Student Slapped An Old Woman Unaware Who She Was Until This Happened…-hongtran

But often, hunger distracted her.
Some days she went to school without eating. Her stomach would twist and groan while the teacher spoke. She would rest her head on her hand and pray the bell would ring soon.
After school, Fiona went to play.
Jenny went home to work.
She fetched firewood from the bush, washed clothes by the stream, and cooked the evening meal. Sometimes, when her aunt was in a bad mood, she was beaten with a broom or shouted at until tears filled her eyes.
“You eat my food and live in my house,” her aunt would say. “If you don’t work, who will?”
Jenny never answered. She had learned that silence was safer.
At night, when everyone slept, Jenny lay on her mat and stared at the roof through small holes in the zinc sheet. She could see stars blinking faintly. She often whispered to them, “Mother, Father, are you watching me?”
No one answered.

Sometimes she cried quietly, pressing her face into her mat so no one would hear. But even in her tears, she never allowed bitterness to grow in her heart. Her parents had taught her kindness when they were alive, and she held on to that lesson as if it were her last treasure.
“Be good to people,” her mother’s voice echoed in her memory. “Kindness will always find its way back to you.”
One afternoon, as Jenny washed clothes near the stream, two village women stood nearby and spoke in hushed tones.
“That girl is too gentle for that house,” one said.
“Yes,” the other replied. “Her aunt treats her like a slave.”
Jenny lowered her head. She did not want pity.
She only wanted peace.
When she returned home that evening, Fiona sat on a stool, eating roasted corn.
“Why are you slow?” Fiona snapped. “Mother said you should cook rice today.”
Jenny nodded and went straight to the kitchen.
Her aunt entered and looked around the compound.
“Why is the ground still dirty?” she shouted. “Jenny, are you blind?”
“I will sweep again, Auntie,” Jenny replied.
As she swept, her heart felt heavy—not because of the broom, but because she felt unseen. She was in the house, yet she did not belong. She was fed, yet she was always hungry for love, for kindness, for a soft word.
That night, as she prepared Fiona’s bag for school, Fiona spoke carelessly.
“Tomorrow, don’t walk too slowly,” she said. “You make me look poor.”
Jenny swallowed hard. “I will try,” she said.
Before sleeping, Jenny stepped outside and looked at the sky again. A cool breeze touched her face.
“I don’t need riches,” she whispered. “I just want to be treated like a human being.”
She did not know that her life was about to change.
She did not know that a simple act of kindness would soon lift her from the dust and place her in the path of destiny.
For now, she was only Jenny—the orphan girl, the servant in her own family’s house, the shadow behind Fiona’s bright figure.
But in her quiet heart lived a strength no one had noticed yet.
And that strength was waiting for its moment to shine.
The morning sun had not yet climbed high into the sky when Jenny and Fiona left their house for school. Jenny walked behind as usual, her cousin’s school bag resting on her shoulder along with her own. The strap cut slightly into her skin, but she did not complain. Her eyes stayed on the dusty path ahead, and her lips moved silently as she counted her steps, trying to ignore the ache in her legs from the chores she had finished before dawn.