In the corridor of the Junagadh Royal Palace, the wildfire of blood-red hatred was still burning with equal intensity. Seeing Snigdha's extreme vulgarity and her vile habit of speaking without any restraint, Queen Arohi could no longer hold herself back.
With a powerful jerk, she gripped Snigdha's hand tightly. Flames of rage were practically leaping from Arohi's eyes!
Arohi roared, "Come on! Enough is enough! I have tolerated far too many wrongs, and you have learned to utter far too many atrocious things! You were so much better when you were little, Snigdha! Now that you've grown up a bit, you think you've grown wings of extreme arrogance, don't you? That's why your head is spinning and you're acting with such low-class vulgarity right before your elders!"
With utter contempt and hatred, Snigdha gave a violent jerk to throw Queen Arohi's hand off her!
Curling her lips into a hideous posture, she said, "Agh! Leave it, Mother! Go attend to your own work from here! You couldn't hold onto your own husband... that's why he didn't care about you and went on to marry another, and before our eyes, this stepmother's daughter Prabhasa was born and raised her head! Otherwise, your face wouldn't be disgraced in a full palace today, nor would I have to endure the daily nuisance and pain of this stepmother's daughter!"
Hearing such utterly hideous, unprincipled, and abominable words directed at a birth mother from her own flesh and blood, Arohi felt as if she were sinking into the earth in shame, humiliation, and intense disgust! Her entire body began to tremble in fury.
Arohi did not wait for another second—raising her hand, she delivered a thunderous, stinging slap right across Snigdha's cheek!
"THWACK!"
The loud crack of that slap echoed across every single wall of the royal palace! Hearing the sudden sound of the slap, King Aditya came rushing out from the adjacent room. Unlocking the door of their closed room, Prince Prafulla and the sweet princess Prabhasa also rushed outside in a hurry.
King Aditya rushed over in extreme distress and said, "What happened, Arohi? Why did you hit her like that? What has she done again?"
Queen Arohi was panting, pressing a hand against her chest. Under the deep shadow of humiliation, tears of embarrassment streamed down her face.
Turning toward Aditya, Arohi averted her face in disgust and said, "Ask... ask this beautiful, virtuous daughter of yours! Standing right before her mother, what hideous, uncouth things she has learned to say about her mother's character and family dignity! Shame! Today I feel utter disgust even identifying her as my daughter! A curse upon you, Aditya, and a curse upon my carrying her in my womb!"—saying this, Arohi set off toward her bedchamber in tears.
Aditya turned to face Snigdha, glaring at her with stern eyes.
He said in a furious tone, "What happened, Snigdha? What kind of filthy words did you speak to your mother that forced her to slap you like that?"
Rubbing her cheek, Snigdha looked at her father with venomous eyes and roared, "Agh! Be quiet, Father! Getting caught between the two of you—you and Mother—my life has been turned upside down! I am going completely insane now! At any given time, the two of you come and beat me up! Although you don't raise your hand yourself, I cannot tolerate this drama of you playing the good man for another second! You could never manage your own wife! Though Mother couldn't manage you either... if Mother had managed you properly, would you have casually gone off to marry a second time? And falling into the trap of that second marriage of yours, did this nuisance of a stepmother's daughter Prabhasa have to come into this world for me to endure? You have brought an inauspicious trouble into existence just to bug everyone in this world! Everything happened because of you! A devil of a father... no father fails to stay loyal to his own righteousness! Instead, you married a second time and burdened a massive trouble onto my head! And now you people have stripped my own beloved, Rupanjan, away from me too! Supposedly the two of them are going off to marry in secret? I feel like killing both of them with a single whip!"
Hearing such fiendish abuse directed at a father and the desecration of family integrity from Snigdha's mouth, King Aditya stood there frozen in utter shock! His eyes bulged in disbelief.
Holding his forehead, Aditya said in a trembling voice, "What... what did you say, Snigdha? Standing right before your biological father, you could utter such hideous words? I could never imagine even in my dreams that my own blood offspring would hurl abuses at me as a 'devil' and 'unrighteous'! Are you truly my daughter, or has some evil spirit possessed you? Is there not even a fraction of basic knowledge left inside your head about how to speak to whom? I couldn't manage your mother, so I got married a second time... what is the meaning of these ugly words of yours? And what did you say? Prabha's marriage with Rupanjan has been fixed? Who told you this top-secret matter, Snigdha? Answer me!"
Snigdha let out a toxic, fiendish giggle and said, "Ha! Who else would tell? Your overly pampered, precious daughter Prabhasa told me! She is utterly foolish... coming this morning, she blabbered and revealed everything herself with a broad smile!"
Prabhasa had been standing there silently with her head bowed, weeping all this while. Hearing her name brought up before her father, she could not utter a word, standing frozen in shame and remorse.
Prafulla stepped forward, looking at Snigdha with fierce eyes, and roared, "Good thing she told you! If she hadn't told you, would you never have found out? Would you really never know? A devilish child like you shouldn't even be invited to Prabha's wedding! The real culprit here is Snigdha... Prabha doesn't hold the slightest fault! How do you possess such nerve, Snigdha, that waking up in the morning, you landed a hard slap right across my little sister's face in the middle of a full corridor? By what courage did you lay your hands on Prabha? Good thing Mother slapped you hard! This is precisely what a disgraced daughter like you truly deserves!"
Right at that moment, Queen Arohi came rushing back down the corridor in sheer distress.
Panting, Arohi said, "What happened, Prafulla? What are you arguing about again? What bad things did she say now?"
Looking at his mother, Prafulla seethed in anger and said, "Will you listen, Mother? This devilish girl stood right here and told Father that you supposedly couldn't manage Father properly, which is why Father was forced to marry a second time! And as a result of that second marriage, a 'nuisance' like Prabha was born into this world to annoy her! She was saying all these hideous things standing right in front of Father's face!"
The moment those words hit her ears, the poison of rage spread through Arohi's chest!
Her eyes turned blood-red as she charged toward Snigdha and roared, "Bravo, Snigdha! Bravo! You spoke such a hideous thing to your father as well? You didn't feel a single shred of shame or hesitation speaking about the character of your own birth mother and father? I didn't know you would turn out to be such an utterly low-class creature!"—saying this, Arohi raised her hand and delivered another heavy slap across Snigdha's other cheek—"THWACK!"
Red handprints now sat visibly on both of Snigdha's cheeks!