"Well, look at you, Hu Biao, you’ve even learned to beat up your wife now. Go ahead, beat me to death, kill your wife and your son. Or is it because you’ve got your eye on the white doctor across the way, huh? She’s prettier and younger than me, so are you thinking about killing off your own wife?" Wei Jianling clutched her face and started making a scene with Hu Biao, charging at him with such force that her hair flew wildly about her.
The child Huzi, who she was holding in her arms, was frightened into loud wailing by his mother’s aggression.
Hu Biao was infuriated by Wei Jianling’s words.
"Wei Jianling, what nonsensical things are you saying? The doctor is the Chief’s daughter-in-law. You’re being reckless with your words, do you realize the trouble you could bring upon our family?" Hu Biao was truly at his wit’s end with a wife who could neither be hit nor scolded.
That slap just now happened out of sheer frustration, and he couldn’t bring himself to hit her again, after all, she was the wife who had shared the bitter and the sweet with him.
Besides, a big man hitting a woman, that’s not the kind of person he was.
The curses that came out of his mouth were unsightly, a plete embarrassment if overheard by others.
"Hu Biao, what’s going on? What’s all this motion?"
Hu Biao was startled into turning around. He had been thinking that calling out to his wife and child to e over for dinner without even closing the door, and now there stood the Chief and Director Zhang at the doorway. Had they heard the argument?
If they had, he would be utterly disgraced.
"Chief, Director Zhang, please, I’m begging you to take my side. Do you think being a wife is easy? Working tirelessly to keep a household together, living each day alone with every chore. Huzi, he’s three years old now, ask Hu Biao if he’s ever washed a diaper or changed the boy’s clothes?
I’m swamped with chores inside and outside the house, looking after a child, farming, cooking, and doing laundry for him. I wait on him hand and foot, and when something goes wrong, he just smacks me. Was I wrong to plain about that? Director Zhang, it’s true your Zhang Han did take a container of dumplings back to her room just now. I was simply afraid of bringing the child over and being looked down upon. If you truly wanted us to join for a meal, wouldn’t it have been fine to give us a box of dumplings too?" Wei Jianling really was overstepping her bounds.
Hu Biao was beside himself with anger. How could she say such things in front of so many people!
"Shut your mouth!"
"I won’t shut up. Why should there be such unequal treatment? Just because Director Zhang has a higher rank, he deserves such privileges?" Wei Jianling’s mouth often got her into trouble, spouting nonsense without fear of offending anyone.
Zhang Han, who had been inside, came running out when she heard her name, only to overhear the conversation.
"Auntie, why must you say such things? Are you not aware of the situation with that box of dumplings?" The young girl’s face flushed with anger; her family’s circumstances were nothing like Wei Jianling’s.
How could Wei Jianling drag her own mother into this?
"Of course, I know your mother has done her part by lying in that bed!" Wei Jianling looked at Zhang Han unfazed, as if she had the thick skin of a pig that doesn’t fear scalding water.
Zhang Han was so outraged that tears began to fall. She rushed to her front door, fumbling with the key several times in her haste and agitation, unable to unlock it while mumbling to herself.
"If you find it so disagreeable, I’ll take the dumplings out, and neither of us will eat them. There’s no need for you to drag my mother into this."
User Comments
0 comments from readers