"How dare you hit !"
Mrs. Wang was about to charge forward, but very quickly...
Aunt Wu saw Mrs. Wang being kicked away by Shunzi, just like the wooden door earlier.
Mrs. Wang felt her insides churning, collapsed to the ground and couldn’t say a word.
As she opened her mouth, she vomited blood.
But nobody cared about her.
Yu Tingwan looked at Mrs. Wang as if she were looking at a dead person.
"The widow in the neighboring village was insulted and called a loose woman. But I respect her."
"It wasn’t easy for a woman to raise a child alone; she didn’t want her husband’s lineage to end, so she struggled desperately, sacrificing her dignity to survive."
"When the famine passed and life got better, she stopped doing those things."
"Yet, when her son grew up, no one was willing to marry their daughter to him. She cried until she went blind, saying she was a burden to her son. They said it was retribution for what she did, and she deserved it. She turned and ended her life with a white silk ribbon, just hoping her son could live with dignity."
"She had no other choice, no man or in-laws to rely on."
Yu Tingwan: "My mother was only seventeen back then. She did have both parents and an elder brother, but each was a blood-sucking demon."
"How could the Hu Family treat her as a commodity so brazenly?"
Hu Dazhu ignored Mrs. Wang, squatting with his hands on his head, looking pained.
"Stop talking."
"Wan Niang, let’s not ntion that matter anymore."
Hu Yaozu witnessed all this.
He actually felt nothing.
After all, he never t Mrs. Yu.
But he felt troubled.
After all, Yu Tingwan might hate him even more now.
In contrast, Hu Dalang stood there, dumbfounded, unable to believe any of this.
No wonder...
No wonder Hu Dazhu once said.
["Your aunt is gone, kowtow three tis to her."]
["Dalang, rember, our family owes your aunt, never forget it your whole life."]
["You must be as good to Wan Niang as you are to Erlang."]
Hu Dalang was sowhat shaky, unable to believe any of it.
He even felt guilty, ashad, unable to face Yu Tingwan.
Yu Tingwan looked down at Hu Dazhu squatting on the ground: "Not ntion?"
"Not ntion what?"
"Not ntion my mother’s futile resistance and family betrayal?"
"Where were you then?"
Hu Dazhu’s fingers trembled.
Where was he?
He was sitting in the yard, listening to the sounds from Yu Niang’s room, her cries, her calls for her brother, her cries for help.
Then...
He held an empty bowl, waiting for the people inside to co out and collect the grain...
At that ti, he didn’t actually agree with it.
But Dalang was starving, thin as a monkey, crying all day.
He was scared too.
Every day, he could hear about soone in the village dying.
Yu Tingwan sneered, "Or is it that before my mother’s previous fiancé knew of this, he couldn’t bear to see her suffer, so he ant to et her at the village entrance, and she wanted to run but was stopped by you just outside the Hu Family."
Hu Yuniang was already filled with countless wounds.
She couldn’t walk, couldn’t escape.
But it wasn’t her fault, yet she was sullied.
She wanted to die.
But why should she die?
She still held so hope for her brother.
"She asked you for a way out."
"What did you do?"
Hu Dazhu closed his eyes.
He said sorry, said he was useless, then turned around and locked Yu Niang back in the room.
Hu Dazhu didn’t want to hear another word.
"At that ti, if it were soone else, they would have done the sa. I had too much to consider, that’s why..."
"I also regret it."
"Every ti your mother looked at , it was as if I were an enemy."
"She never thought of taking her back ho; she had completely lost the will to live."
In the end, she tried to kill herself by hitting the wall.
Luckily, he stopped her.
Hu Dazhu was completely terrified.
He wasn’t sure if he was more scared of Yu Niang’s death or about not being able to reap the benefits if she died.
"I begged your grandparents, only then did they not continue to tornt your mother..."
Yu Tingwan expressionlessly: "So, you settled for second best and brought in a Human Trafficker to sell her."
Hu Dazhu fell silent.
Because that was indeed the case.
Yu Niang hated them at the ti, also feared the traffickers, but she left without ever looking back.
If they had sold Yu Niang from the start, she might not have held so much resentnt.
After all, so many were sold, she wasn’t an exception.
But it was during her most helpless ti, at the Hu Family.
And she got the deepest wounds from the closest people.
"Outside, everyone says you were kind to your sister, even wanted to take her daughter ho to raise."
How ridiculous those words sound.
"Also, you could clearly have ignored it."
Yu Tingwan’s words were filled with sarcasm, like a sharp blade hidden among turbulent waves, piercing through Hu Dazhu’s hypocrisy.
She went straight to the point: "But your son needed to study."
The matters of the famine years were things few would investigate deeply. Robberies, food raids, murders – in ten households, eight saw such things.
Human nature is the weakest in trials, and hardly anyone is clean.
With the Village Chief stepping in, how many in the village dared to talk about it openly?
"You used the rice and money from selling my mom to survive the famine. Your days were lively, you acquired a few acres of land, and raised a scholar. Wherever you went, you received complints, becoming a person of status within a ten-mile radius."
"No wonder during her life, my mother never ntioned her family even once."
"You pushed her into the fire pit with one foot, and then can keep quiet in front of , pretending innocence."
Hu Dazhu suddenly stood up, his voice hoarse: "Wan Niang, I treated you like my own daughter at least."
Yu Tingwan showed disdain: "Indeed."
"I nearly mistook a thief for a father."
"Shows how foolish I was."
Hu Dazhu treated her well, feeling guilty, but more so for shows to the villagers. Sotis he argued with Mrs. Wang over her, but wasn’t it all a heartfelt effort?
Otherwise, why did everyone say she had a good uncle?
They even advised her not to act on whims.
Let her know gratitude.
Yu Tingwan said all this, trying her best to keep her voice from trembling.
Yet, even so, her eyes turned red.
Suppressing sobs and desolation.
"The room I stayed in was the one my mom lived in back then, wasn’t it?"
A room carrying her mom’s nightmares, the place her mom struggled hard to escape from, yet she had stayed there for so many years.
How laughable.
Yu Tingwan: "How could you have the face to let live there?"
The Village Chief arrived at this mont.
Just reaching the Wei Family’s door, he heard Yu Tingwan’s words, his eyelids twitching.
He walked in with large strides: "Wan Niang, you..."
Yu Tingwan turned around.
"I was never an easy person to deal with, you should know that."
Her tone was airy, as if she couldn’t find a place to land: "When I accidentally learned these things back then, I was both hateful and disgusted, but matters of those years, the Governnt Office wouldn’t care, nor were there any laws to restrict."
"At that ti, insignificant as I was, there was nothing I could do, just had to swallow my grievance."
Moving out of the Hu Family.
But things were different now.
Soone told her, since you can’t stand the Hu Family doing well. Never mind that the Hu Family sinned deeply, even if they hadn’t, they must still pay a price.
Even if Wei Zhao didn’t say it, Yu Tingwan would definitely do so.
Would a girl even bother to be polite with Wei Zhao?
Yu Tingwan muttered: "I’ll tear this place down."
"I want each and every one of them to receive retribution."
"Shunzi."
"I’m here."
"Get to it."
Yu Tingwan: "Be ruthless."
Aunt Wu’s eyelids twitched fiercely: "Wan Niang, don’t lose your head."
Shunzi’s strength was one that could cost lives!
Yu Tingwan curved her lips into a smile, yet her smile was icy, not reaching her eyes.
"These days, perhaps even killing doesn’t require a price, Aunt, do you want to see?"
User Comments
0 comments from readers