Aomame liked that about her. “At my age, there’s no special need for self-defense,” the woman said to Aomame with a dignified smile after class. “Age has nothing to do with it,” Aomame snapped back. “It’s a question of how you live your life. The important thing is to adopt a stance of always being deadly serious about protecting yourself. You can’t go anywhere if you just resign yourself to being attacked. A state of chronic powerlessness eats away at a person.” The dowager said nothing for a while, looking Aomame in the eye. Either Aomame’s words or her tone of voice seemed to have made a
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