“Girl!” When Mother Gu arrived and saw her daughter’s miserable state, she couldn’t help but rush over.
It was Dazhu who had seen things going wrong and gone to notify her. At first, Mother Gu hadn’t believed it. Her daughter had just suffered a major loss at Lin Qingyue’s hands—why would she possibly come back to provoke her again?
And yet…
Seeing her daughter’s face covered in blood, Mother Gu felt as if the sky had collapsed.
Her daughter’s temper was a bit spoiled, but… her nature was still good.
How had she suddenly been hurt like this? She wouldn’t be disfigured, would she?
“Mom…” Seeing her mother arrive, Gu Yunyun felt even more wronged, tears streaming down without restraint.
“Yunyun, you…”
Mother Gu didn’t even dare to touch her. “Who? Who hurt you like this?”
Mother Gu’s gaze was fierce as it locked onto Lin Qingyue.
Having lived two lifetimes, Lin Qingyue saw Mother Gu looking at her like this for the first time. In the past, she had always pretended quite well.
“Heh, Auntie Gu, you’re really something. Your daughter had nothing better to do and went and threw herself onto our firewood pile—who can you blame for that?”
Gu Xiaoyu wasn’t about to indulge her. She stepped forward to block Lin Qingyue, hands on her hips, speaking with a fierce expression.
“That’s right, Aunt Gu. I’d like to ask you too—our firewood pile was sitting fine by the wall. How did it get in your daughter’s way? Why did she go crashing into it?”
Auntie Liu also sneered: “Could she have been trying to steal our firewood?”
Mother Gu… It wasn’t as if there was none on the mountain. Her daughter wasn’t brain-damaged—why would she come in broad daylight to steal worthless firewood?
“You… all of you…”
Mother Gu gripped her daughter’s arm tightly, the pain making Gu Yunyun gasp again:
“Mom, it hurts.”
“You useless thing, what exactly happened? You’re not even twenty yet. If this face is ruined, how will you ever find a husband?”
Mother Gu was angry too, and her grip was careless of force.
“I… it’s all Lin Qingyue’s fault. She pushed me.”
Lin Qingyue hadn’t expected Gu Yunyun to bite back wildly like that, and she was directly laughed into anger: “Gu Yunyun, how exactly did I push you?”
“You… my face was hurt by you. You have to pay my medical expenses—at the very least, compensate me a hundred yuan.”
Gu Yunyun touched her face. It really hurt.
“Heh, Gu Yunyun, so you’ve actually got your eye on my hundred yuan.” Lin Qingyue let out a light laugh: “You say I pushed you—do you have proof?”
“What’s going on now? Day after day, are you all that idle? Go work in the fields.”
The Village Chief hurried over, running until he was drenched in sweat.
Seeing the few people present, then looking at the villagers who had followed behind to watch the commotion, his old face darkened even further.
“Why is it you again?”
The Gu family and Lin Qingyue—were they locked in a feud now?
Several times a day without even a break! And Gu Yunyun—look at that face, you could still see the bloody gashes. She was probably disfigured.
“Village Chief, Lin Qingyue pushed me! Dazhu can testify.”
Dazhu… He had just been watching the excitement. How had he become a witness now?
The Village Chief asked coldly: “Dazhu?”
“I… I suppose it was Youth Lin who pushed her?”
“Village Chief, you see, Dazhu has testified for me. It really was Lin Qingyue who pushed me. My face hurts so much. I want a hundred yuan for medical expenses.”
Gu Yunyun was full of confidence, secretly gloating inside.
So what if Lin Qingyue had temporarily gotten her hands on that hundred yuan? Wasn’t she going to have to give it right back?
“Lin Qingyue, look at Gu Yunyun’s face. The injury is quite serious. What do you have to say?”
The Village Chief couldn’t bear to look at Gu Yunyun—her face was too horrifying.
“I have nothing to say!”
Lin Qingyue let out a cold laugh. “I just want to ask Gu Yunyun, why were you by Auntie Liu’s firewood pile?”
“I… I was just passing by!”
Gu Yunyun felt a twinge of guilt, but she couldn’t show weakness now. She deliberately straightened her back.
“Passing by? You went all the way to Auntie Liu’s house and claim you were just passing by?”
“Ask them—do you think they’d believe that?”
“Gu Yunyun, don’t think no one saw you deliberately rushing over to knock me down when I was fetching firewood just now.”
“You’re lying! There was clearly no one around just now…” Gu Yunyun’s face turned pale, and she quickly shut her mouth.
“What, slipped up? You saw there was no one else in the yard, just me, a pregnant woman, fetching firewood, so you charged over, trying to push me down and make me miscarry. But you didn’t expect me to dodge, and you ended up face-first on the woodpile…”
“You… no, she’s lying! She’s lying!”
Gu Yunyun shouted frantically, but by now, what did the gathered villagers not understand?
Gu Yunyun’s words simply didn’t hold up.
“That Gu Yunyun really has a vicious heart. Even if Lin Qingyue and Gu Niancheng are divorced and she’s no longer her sister-in-law, the child in her belly is still a Gu family descendant. How could she bear to make her miscarry?”
“You wouldn’t know this, would you? It’s all to completely eliminate the threat, to clear the way for The Young Widow to take her place.”
“Tsk tsk, this is what they call on the radio ‘trying to steal a chicken only to lose the rice.’ She didn’t harm anyone else—she only harmed herself.”
“Serves her right! If you ask me, there’s not a single normal person in that Gu family.”
The crowd buzzed with discussion, their voices loud enough for all to hear. Mother Gu and Gu Yunyun’s faces turned black.
The Village Chief shot Mother Gu a fierce glare. “Why don’t you take her home right now?”
“No, I won’t! Village Chief, you can’t take her side…”
Gu Yunyun had suffered such a great loss—how could she be willing to slink away in disgrace?
“The pig-feeding duty is also assigned to your family now.”
Gu Yunyun’s face went white in an instant. She had already been reduced to a lowly person cleaning pig manure from the pigpen, and now feeding the pigs was also their family’s job!
What would the villagers say about them from now on?
“Village Chief, Yunyun is just a child! She didn’t mean any harm!”
Mother Gu was also panicked now. “I’ll apologize on her behalf. Can you…”
“No. Get out of here.”
The mother and daughter slunk away in disgrace, and the onlookers watched with lingering satisfaction.
“From now on, Lin Qingyue is my adopted daughter. Fellow villagers, you’d better look after her.”
Auntie Liu’s voice was naturally loud, and when everyone heard this, they were all stunned.
Adopted daughter? And a pregnant woman about to give birth at that? What kind of spell had Auntie Liu been put under?
The crowd dispersed with murmurs of discussion. Gu Xiaoyu looked guilty. “Sister Qingyue, I should have been the one to fetch the firewood.”
“It’s fine. I didn’t come out worse off anyway.”
Lin Qingyue smiled nonchalantly, but inwardly she was thinking—Gu Yunyun had indeed tried to make her go into early labor just now! So the Gu family still hadn’t given up!
They were still stirring up trouble even now. Could they still be trying to swap the child?
“Mom!”
Lin Qingyue turned to look at Auntie Liu, who was startled and hadn’t yet snapped out of it.
“How can an adopted mother compare to a real mother? I’ve never had a mother’s love since I was little. From now on, you’ll be my real mother.”
Lin Qingyue took Auntie Liu’s hand and spoke with heartfelt sincerity.
“Ah, my good daughter.”
Auntie Liu’s eyes welled up as she held Lin Qingyue’s small hand in return. “From now on, Mother will protect you.”
“Sister, Xiao Yu will protect you too.”
Lin Qingyue nodded with tears in her eyes. “Mother, there’s something I’d like to ask of you.”
“Yueyue, go ahead and say it!”
Auntie Liu had also changed how she addressed her—now that they were mother and daughter, calling her that felt so much warmer!
“When I give birth, no matter what unexpected situation arises, please don’t leave my child’s side. Can you do that?”