The town was bustling with people today, but Shen Wuqiu was still more concerned about the baby in her belly, so she didn't go herself. Her father and Zhao Jiujiu volunteered to go in her place.
Shen Wuqiu trusted these two people to handle things, so she stayed home with Su Yunzhi to prepare Dragon Boat Festival gifts for the people in charge.
People like Uncle Zheng would come to collect their holiday gifts themselves, but for Shen Xianghua's family, since Shen Zhipeng was hospitalized and the two families lived not far apart, Su Yunzhi personally delivered the gifts to them.
Unexpectedly, Su Yunzhi excitedly delivered the gift, only to return with a lot of trouble.
Chapter 52 Seeking Death
"Auntie, what's wrong with you?"
Shen Wuqiu was sitting in the corridor wrapping zongzi with Daiying when she saw Daiying return looking disheveled and limping. She quickly put down the zongzi she was wrapping and went over to help her.
The zongzi were prepared yesterday, but Su Yunzhi didn't make many chestnut zongzi. As a result, Zhao Jiujiu and the others liked them, so they started making more zongzi today.
Su Yunzhi used her help to climb the steps and sat down on the bamboo chair in the corridor. She rolled up her trouser leg to reveal her swollen ankle and said irritably, "Pengzi and his wife were fighting. I kindly helped them up, but Pengzi pushed me and I bumped into their cabinet."
"Isn't Brother Peng still in the hospital?"
"Isn't it Dragon Boat Festival today? I was discharged from the hospital last night and came back."
Shen Wuqiu brought out some liniment from the house and was about to bend down to apply it to her when Su Yunzhi stopped her, saying, "You're pregnant, I can do it myself."
Shen Wuqiu didn't hesitate. He unscrewed the cap of the liniment before handing the bottle to her, glancing at her noticeably swollen ankle. "Shouldn't we go to the hospital to get it checked out?"
"If there's no bone broken, why bother going to the hospital?" Su Yunzhi poured some medicated oil into her palm, rubbed it around her ankle, and handed the bottle to Shen Wuqiu, still feeling somewhat annoyed.
"It's like blaming the latrine for not being able to excrete. I never realized they were such a family before. They've done something terrible themselves, and now they're blaming us, saying we've caused chaos and unrest in their family."
Shen Wuqiu knew that Shen Zhipeng's matter wouldn't be resolved so quickly, so she wasn't too surprised. "Brother Peng and sister-in-law are arguing about this?"
“Isn’t that right?” Su Yunzhi said angrily, “Ever since Pengzi had that incident, Li Chanchan has stopped caring about anything when she got home. She goes out to play mahjong every day and doesn’t care about the children. Yesterday, when Pengzi was discharged from the hospital, Li Chanchan was out playing mahjong until dawn before she came home. This morning, the couple was arguing and talking about getting a divorce.”
Shen Wuqiu said, "I guess my sister-in-law can't swallow this insult..."
“I think she’s determined not to live like this anymore. It’s all Pengzi’s fault. I heard he hasn’t been taking care of the two kids at home much these past few years, and he’s given all his money to other women.” Su Yunzhi sighed, looked down at her ankle, and was furious again. “Come to think of it, I never realized before that my sister was such a shrew.”
He Meiji is Shen Zhipeng's younger sister, Shen Zhihe. As for "Li Huo," that's not a compliment; it's a local dialect term used to describe a girl with a fierce and shrewish personality.
Compared to Shen Zhipeng, Shen Wuqiu disliked this younger sister even more. Shen Zhihe was only half a year younger than her, and the two had been in the same school and class from preschool to junior high school.
Logically speaking, since the two grew up together and are relatives, their relationship should be closer.
In reality, the two had never gotten along well since childhood. Shen Zhihe was vain and competitive from a young age, and liked to form cliques and small groups. Shen Wuqiu and she were simply not on the same wavelength.
Before junior high school, Shen Zhihe would occasionally talk to her. But when they entered junior high school, the boys and girls began to experience the first stirrings of love. Shen Wuqiu was not very popular among the girls, but she became the goddess of many boys and received a lot of things like chocolates and love letters.
For Shen Zhihe, this was undoubtedly stealing her thunder, and he talked badly about her behind her back. It's easy to imagine how cold their relationship became.
Thinking of this, Shen Wuqiu frowned in disgust. "What did she say?"
"When others encounter this kind of situation, they should try to smooth things over and help the brother and sister-in-law reconcile. But she's the one who's stirring things up. I think she'd love for her brother and sister-in-law to get divorced. Today when I brought them some things, they didn't give me a friendly look and even spoke ill of me."
"Who's saying who's wrong?" Gu Lingyu was just taking dried fish out of the kitchen. She hadn't heard what she said before, but she heard this last sentence. She had been craving it all day yesterday, and her teeth were feeling better today, so she had been chewing on dried fish whenever she had nothing to do.
Su Yunzhi didn't hide anything from her, "It's about Uncle Wuqiu's daughter. Right now, because of that little thing at the dam reservoir, their whole family is in chaos. They're blaming Wuqiu for being nosy and causing all this trouble."
"They're so shameless!" Gu Lingyu cursed, still feeling unsatisfied. "They're blaming me for this? No way, I have to go and confront them."
This cat is unpredictable and capable of doing anything.
Shen Wuqiu quickly grabbed her, "Where are you going?"
“I have to help you get revenge, otherwise who knows what they’ll say about you behind your back.”
Looking at her indignant little face, Su Yunzhi couldn't help but laugh, and also advised, "You're quite protective of Wuqiu. But you're a young girl, you can't be so talkative about this, otherwise you'll get a reputation for being shrewish and won't be able to find a good husband in the future."
Gu Lingyu tilted her head and thought for a moment, then asked Shen Wuqiu, "Sister, really?"
"What..." Before she could finish speaking, Shen Wuqiu noticed the look Dai Ying was giving her and immediately realized what was going on. She pursed her lips and, in order to appease this little darling, could only nod, "Yes, really."
Gu Lingyu pouted, "So you just let them talk about you like that behind your back?"
Su Yunzhi was also holding back her anger, "This matter can't be blamed on Wuqiu at all. Besides, she's a married daughter of He Meiji, and she's the younger sister. Her sarcastic remarks are really annoying."
Shen Wuqiu was easygoing and didn't take these words to heart. What she was worried about was that if Shen Zhipeng and Li Chanchan really caused their family to fall apart because of this, her cousin Shen Xianghua would probably blame her.
However, what you fear most is what comes to pass.
At noon, Yang Shuitao returned the things that Su Yunzhi had sent over that morning, along with Shen Zhihe.
Su Yunzhi invited them inside, but the mother and daughter ignored her. Yang Shuitao simply placed her things in a rattan chair in the hallway, and only spoke when she saw Shen Wuqiu come out:
"Wuqiu, we can't accept the gifts you've given us. Please find someone else to handle the reservoir matters in the future."
Her words were blunt and merciless, leaving Shen Wuqiu speechless for a moment. After a few seconds, she smiled and said, "My aunt is my elder, so it's only natural for me to give you a gift for the holiday."
"Sending holiday gifts was just a pretense; your real intention was to see us make a fool of ourselves," Shen Zhihe sneered. "Now that you see our family in complete chaos, are you satisfied?"
Yang Shuitao did not stop Shen Zhihe from being aggressive, which clearly indicated that she approved of her actions.
Su Yunzhi couldn't stand it anymore. She had already been humiliated by this junior at her house that morning, and now he was even coming to their door to curse her. If she didn't teach him a lesson, he would either think they were pushovers or that it was their fault that things had turned out this way.
Su Yunzhi stepped forward, shielding Shen Wuqiu behind her, and sneered at Shen Zhihe: "Aren't you afraid of making a fool of yourself? Are you afraid of being laughed at?"
Shen Zhihe was rendered speechless by her retort, but he was still unwilling to give up. "Mind your own business. No matter what kind of joke our family makes, it's our family matter. Why are you meddling in our affairs?"
"We find these sordid affairs unlucky enough, but if your brother hadn't been so incorrigible, embezzling so much money and still trying to falsify accounts, would we have revealed all his secrets?" Su Yunzhi was too lazy to argue with this scoundrel and looked directly at Yang Shuitao:
"Did we let Pengzi take the money to keep a mistress? Your son did something wrong and you didn't scold him, but you came to my door to yell at him. Do you think we're easy to bully because Lao Le isn't home today?"
Yang Shuitao knew, of course, that it was her son who had done wrong, but what mother in the world wouldn't be biased? And with Shen Zhihe fanning the flames from the sidelines, she finally developed resentment towards Shen Wuqiu.
Right now, Su Yunzhi was pressing her with every word, making her feel so ashamed that she lost all face. But when she thought about her family's current situation, she couldn't shake off her resentment. "If I hadn't entrusted the reservoir to him in the first place, none of this would have happened. I've heard that this reservoir is ominous, and I think it's true. Pengzi must have been out of his mind to take over it."
That's a rather unreasonable statement.
Su Yunzhi was so angry that her lungs ached. She had thought Yang Shuitao was a polite person, but she hadn't expected her to be so unreasonable.
"So your whole family is planning to pin all the blame for Pengzi's situation on us?"
"If it weren't for your meddling, would my brother and sister-in-law have gotten into this mess?" Shen Zhihe looked Shen Wuqiu up and down and sneered, "I haven't heard that Sister Wuqiu has found a boyfriend. Judging from her belly, she's at least four or five months pregnant. Could this be the illegitimate child of some big boss?"
The moment she said that, the expressions of the women present changed instantly.
Dai Ying was ruthless and taciturn. Taking advantage of a moment when no one was paying attention, she blew a breath at her daughter and said, "Wangcai, go for it."
The next second, a white cat rushed out of the hall, jumped up, and gave Shen Zhi a beautiful slap.
It happened so suddenly.
After a few seconds of silence.
The burning pain on Shen Zhihe's face finally arrived. She reached up and touched her face, looking at the specks of blood on her hands. Then she looked down at the white cat standing next to Shen Wuqiu and instantly broke down, "You beast..."
She screamed and grabbed the zongzi gift box from the rattan chair, throwing it towards Shen Wuqiu.
Su Yunzhi and Shen Wuqiu were caught off guard and stood frozen in place, forgetting to dodge.
Gu Lingyu, the kitten whose power had been imprisoned by her mother, had no way to deal with this large gift box.
Just as the gift box brushed past Su Yunzhi's arm and approached Shen Wuqiu behind her, at that critical moment, Dai Ying, sitting inside, turned cold and said, "You're courting death..."
Time seemed to freeze for a moment. The gift box stopped one centimeter away from Shen Wuqiu, but then it was pushed in the opposite direction by a great force and finally landed in front of Su Yunzhi.
At the same time, Shen Zhihe, who was standing still, suddenly took a few steps back and then sat down heavily on the ground.
It wasn't until she let out a cry of pain that Su Yunzhi and Yang Shuitao, who were stunned in place, finally reacted.
“Zhihe…” Yang Shuitao quickly helped her daughter up.
Shen Zhihe sat there for a while, until the dull pain subsided, before he stood up with the help of Yang Shuitao. He pointed at Shen Wuqiu and then burst into tears, "Mom..."
It really hurts so much.
Yang Shuitao glanced at her daughter, then turned to Su Yunzhi: "Sister-in-law, even if Zhihe is wrong, you don't need to be like this."
Su Yunzhi was still a little confused: "What do you mean by that? We didn't move at all, and your daughter was pointing at Wuqiu and cursing, and throwing things. Why are we the ones being treated like this?"
Everything just happened too fast, and eerily without a trace. The only thing that could be found was the cat crouching next to Shen Wuqiu.
Shen Zhihe wiped away his tears: "Is this beast from your family? If my face is scarred and disfigured, Shen Wuqiu, you won't have an easy time either."
Dai Ying came out, bent down to pick up Gu Lingyu, stroked her fur, then looked up, her cold gaze fixed on Shen Zhihe: "Oh? How do you want Qiuqiu to suffer?"
For some reason, Shen Zhihe felt a strange fear of her. "You...who are you?"
Dai Ying smiled gently, then glanced at Shen Wuqiu's belly. "I'm the grandmother of the child in Qiuqiu's belly. Who do you think I am?"
As she spoke, Daiying's eyes suddenly turned cold again. "I don't know what you're capable of making Qiuqiu suffer, but I do know that I have plenty of ways to make you suffer. Today you said that the child in Qiuqiu's belly is an illegitimate child. I hope this little injury on your face will teach you a lesson."
After saying that, Daiying bent down and put the cat in her arms down. "Wangcai, see the guest out."
Having received her mother's instructions, Gu Lingyu immediately rushed fiercely in front of Shen Zhihe and her daughter, meowing at them menacingly.
Shen Zhihe was scared, but unwilling to give up. Before leaving, he didn't forget to throw down two harsh words: "Shen Wuqiu, getting pregnant out of wedlock, you're shameless..."
"Meow~"
Wangcai is getting restless again.
Shen Wuqiu quickly called out, "Wangcai, come back."
Gu Lingyu then reluctantly retreated.
After the mother and daughter left, Shen Wuqiu leaned against the door frame, clutching her stomach, and said, "Aunt Dai, my stomach hurts a little."
Chapter 53 Protection
Upon hearing her say that her stomach hurt, Daiying and Su Yunzhi became anxious and quickly helped her sit down on the sofa.
Daiying took her hand, checked her pulse, and her expression turned slightly serious. "Does it hurt a lot?"
"A little." Shen Wuqiu's forehead was covered in a fine layer of cold sweat from the pain, but she was more worried about the babies in her womb. "Aunt Dai, the babies..."
"Don't be nervous," Daiying interrupted her, tearing off a tissue to wipe her sweat. "The baby is fine."
Seeing Shen Wuqiu's pained expression, Su Yunzhi was extremely anxious. "It hurts so much, we should take her to the hospital right away."
“No need.” Daiying refused without even thinking. “I’ll take her back to her room first.”