Love at Duskfall

No one thinks Sophia is a good girl. She herself also believes she is a bad girl. Her biological father vanished from her memory, and her mother is an ordinary p********e, like a commodity for men. Each time, a few banknotes slipped into her b*a are enough to unlock the door to a secret world, where fleeting, meaningless pleasures are found. Growing up in this environment, Sophia learned early how to trade her body for survival, becoming a shadow of her mother--a bad girl destined to never escape. She inherited her mother’s breathtaking beauty. Her long, jet-black hair was as deep as the night; her skin was the color of sweet honey, warm as if coated in syrup. Her lips, slightly upturned, always drew countless gazes. Even her mother's customers often forgot to look into her eyes, instead staring at her lips. Every time, her mother would sternly scold her, “Stop being so flirtatious!” But Sophia didn’t care, thinking her mother was just jealous of her beauty. She was a crude, thoughtless, but stunningly beautiful bad girl. At eighteen, this bad girl experienced her first setback in life. Before that, her life hadn’t been smooth—though her family wasn’t wealthy, they just scraped by. Her mother would occasionally run off with men, leaving her alone. Fortunately, whenever her mother ran off, she would always leave behind a stack of bills. Sophia got by with that money. She never thought about getting a job—her mother wouldn’t be gone long; typically, two weeks later, she would be abandoned by the man and return home, her tail between her legs, to live with Sophia again. So, Sophia always remained calm when her mother left. But this time, it was different. Her mother seemed to have found real “love” and hadn’t returned for two months. Sophia even began to wonder if her mother had truly found her own world this time, or if she had been abandoned by the man and had died in some remote corner. This thought would flicker in her mind, only to be quickly pushed aside by other distracting worries. With her mother gone, Sophia suddenly lost her financial support. Not only did she have no money for school fees, but even daily meals became a problem, and her stomach growled more fiercely at night. At this point, Sophia suddenly realized that her mother had actually done something good. Despite being a p********e, her mother had never intended for her to follow in her footsteps. Even though her life was miserable, her mother always tried to provide her with another choice, however insignificant that choice might seem. Whenever a customer glanced at her, her mother would throw a tantrum—although she yelled at her, calling her a flirt, Sophia knew this was her mother’s way of protecting her, so she wasn’t angry. Her mother, though not very bright, often had naïve and laughable romantic fantasies. Despite being repeatedly deceived by men, she still believed in warm, beautiful love. That longing was her hope, one she couldn’t abandon even after countless heartbreaks. Though her mother often screamed and yelled at Sophia, occasionally even contemplating ending it all together, she still used her earnings to send Sophia to school and make her look like a youthful movie star… Even though, in the end, she ran off with a man, when Sophia thought of her, tears would still fall. Of course, if Sophia had liked school, she might have cried even longer. Unfortunately, the child of a p********e was never meant to be a scholar. When her mother left, Sophia mourned for a while, but then a guilty sense of relief clouded her mind. She was finally free from that damn school! Her mother couldn’t afford private school tuition, so she sent her to a public school. Sophia learned to smoke, fight, and curse, but never learned how to study. Occasionally, her mother would ask for her report card, and Sophia would present a carefully forged one. She didn’t dare to show her mother a completely fake report, so she deliberately left two failing grades, making her mother believe it was her true performance. After deciding not to attend school anymore, Sophia didn’t hesitate to sleep until noon the next day. The school called several times, but she pretended not to hear. The teacher wouldn’t come to this filthy place to save the education of a failing student. Two weeks later, Sophia received her expulsion letter. When she opened the envelope, there was no reaction in her heart. She was too young to understand the consequences of losing her chance to study. She only felt liberated, free, like a bird breaking out of a cage, soaring into the open sky. Free, Sophia sighed for a moment, then threw herself into the business of reckless fun. A week later, her fun business went bankrupt due to lack of funds. She used her small, not-so-sharp mind to think for a while and decided she needed to work to earn money. But where to find a job, and what kind of work to do—Sophia had no idea. Her mother had always thought she would have raised a smart, ambitious daughter who could go to college. Instead, she was just a pretty, empty-headed girl—beautiful, but without direction, and without the ability to face the harsh realities of life. While looking for a job, the empty-headed Sophia met another empty-headed girl—Ava. At that time, Sophia was wandering the streets, troubled about what job to take. She had her hair in a high ponytail, wearing a pink dress, looking like a pure, innocent angel, but everyone on the street knew this angel could fight fiercely and curse like a sailor—things no other young girl could even dream of. Sophia thought this was normal, and her mother thought the same—any young, beautiful girl who wanted to grow up safely in this world had to have some means of self-protection, or else beauty would become a sharp blade aimed at them. Ava knew this rule, but never thought to following it. She thought she wasn’t beautiful enough to need self-protection. However, she didn’t realize that “beauty” wasn’t the necessary condition for her to be harmed—“weakness” was. That day, not particularly beautiful, she fell into trouble and was surrounded by a group of petty thugs. Sophia passed by, saw the scene, and, like an angry little cow, put her hands on her hips and chased the thugs away. Ava stared at the beautiful face of the “little cow” for a while and then said, “Thank you… for saving me.” Sophia waved her hand, “It’s fine, go quickly. There are plenty of idle thugs around here. I helped you this time, but next time, there may not be anyone to help you.” Ava, a little embarrassed, said, “I... I’m looking for someone. I’ve been searching for her apartment for a long time but couldn’t find it.” “Who are you looking for?” Ava tightly clenched her hands, murmuring, “Mrs. Smith...” Sophia thought she had heard wrong. “Say that again?” Ava’s cheeks flushed, “I’m looking for Mrs. Smith.” Sophia widened her eyes in surprise and whistled. Mrs. Smith was the most famous madam on the street. If her mother hadn’t already made a name for herself in the world of s*x work, she probably would have had to go through Mrs. Smith to get clients. This girl, who looked so proper, wearing a white shirt and black skirt, unexpectedly came asking for Mrs. Smith. Sophia didn’t want to meddle, “Mrs. Smith is at 245 Brook Street. Go straight, turn left, and then right, that’s her apartment. If you’re fine, I’ll leave now. Be careful.” But Ava grabbed her arm, pleading, "I must be home by 6 PM… Could you take me there tomorrow? I… I can give you money, or bring you food. I work at a fancy restaurant. I can bring you fresh cream cakes… They’re expensive, five dollars each outside… Please, help me, I have something important to talk to Mrs. Smith about.” Sophia hadn’t eaten expensive cakes and wasn’t interested in cream cakes. But she caught a key word, “You said, you work at a fancy restaurant?” Ava nodded. Sophia thought for a moment, then straightforwardly said, “I’m looking for a job. If you can help me get into the restaurant, I’ll take you to Mrs. Smith.” Ava hesitated but agreed, “I can take you to meet the manager, but I can’t guarantee the manager will hire you…” Sophia gave her a sly look, “It’s fine, that’s enough.” Sophia’s interview went very smoothly, thanks to the gender of the restaurant manager. Any man would be unable to resist such a beauty walking in. Moreover, she had done her makeup lightly that day. Sophia wasn’t gifted in studying, but she knew how to attract men—this was her real talent. She lengthened her eyelashes, brushed a little blush on her nose, and painted her lips into bright red cherries. The restaurant manager was immediately smitten when he saw her, decisively hiring her on the spot. Finding a job so easily made Sophia a little smug, thinking she was much smarter than her mother—both mother and daughter lacked education and brains, yet the daughter had found a more respectable job than her mother. Isn’t that what it means to be smarter? That same day, she took Ava to Mrs. Smith’s apartment. Though she was curious about what Ava wanted with Mrs. Smith, she didn’t want to walk into that luxurious tomb. She lit a cigarette outside, holding it between her fingers, occasionally taking a puff. The white smoke curled up, blurring her dark brows and bright red lips. Ava came out just in time to see this. It was hard to imagine that this sexy woman was only eighteen years old. Ava took a deep breath, suppressing a fleeting jealousy in her heart, and walked over, whispering, “Let’s go...” Sophia looked at her expression, still unable to hold back her curiosity, “What’s going on with you?” Sometimes, sadness is so overwhelming that even a casual question becomes hard to face. Ava, with red eyes, collapsed into Sophia’s arms, sobbing, “I… I’m done… my life is over!”