Before the mother and son could even put on their airs, whoosh a broom flew straight in from the doorway and smacked into both of their heads.
Lu’s mother immediately cried out in pain. She already suffered from chronic headaches, and that blow made it feel like her skull was about to split open.
She collapsed onto the ground, feeling like half her soul had left her body.
“Shen Wei, what are you doing?!”
Lu Cheng hadn’t expected her to be so rude and violent. Hitting him was one thing but she had even hit his mother!
“What’s going on? I should be the one asking what you two are up to,” Shen Wei said. “Lu Cheng, since there are so many people here today, explain to everyone why are you telling people we’re about to get married?”
“Two days ago, we went on a blind date. I made it very clear at the time that I wasn’t interested in you.”
“Yet your mother keeps telling the neighbors that I’m in a relationship with you. What are you trying to achieve with all these rumors?”
The neighbors watching the scene immediately began exchanging opinions:
“Isn’t it obvious? This mother and son have taken a liking to the girl and want to force her into it with rumors!”
“They say spreading rumors takes one mouth, but clearing them takes running your legs off. Good thing Shen Wei has guts she came straight to their house!”
“So shameless! They have daughters themselves, yet they’re doing something so immoral. If anyone dared scheme against my daughter like this, I wouldn’t stand for it!”
Lu Cheng’s eyes reddened with anger as he listened. “Shen Wei, I’m a man with principles. I would never say such things.”
As for what he said among his friends that didn’t count. Back at the blind date, Shen Wei’s look had been different, complicated surely she had fallen for him at first sight.
She only said she didn’t like him because of Liu Qingqing.
Shen Wei knew his “double-standard principles” all too well.
“Then why don’t we report this to the police?” she said. “Let them go door to door and find out exactly where these rumors started.”
Hearing that she wanted to take it that far, Lu’s mother panicked.
Their family was already poor if more trouble arose, how would her son ever find a wife?
“Girl from the Shen family, cough cough,” Lu’s mother broke into a fit of coughing. “Even if it’s our fault, let’s just drop it. Everyone’s busy you’re wasting people’s time like this.”
She hadn’t expected Shen Wei to go this far. A young girl willing to throw away her reputation did she still plan to get married in the future?
She used to seem so obedient and sensible.
Watching his mother lower herself like this, Lu Cheng silently made up his mind after Shen Wei married him, he would make her apologize to his mother.
“If it’s your fault, then admit it’s your fault. What do you mean ‘even if’?” Li Na scoffed. “Isn’t it just because you got scared the moment she mentioned the police?”
“Let me make this clear today,” Shen Wei said coldly, staring at the mother and son. “In this lifetime, I will never be in a relationship with you, Lu Cheng let alone marry into your family.”
“I, Shen Wei, am not someone you can bully. If I hear these rumors again from anyone, I’ll drag them straight to the police!”
Her words rang out with force.
The Mother Lu and son’s faces darkened not just from anger, but from the humiliation of being publicly exposed and shamed.
Regardless of their reaction, Shen Wei turned around, took Li Na’s hand, and left.
In this life, she would have absolutely nothing to do with the Lu family ever again. They would go their separate ways.
As Shen Wei sat on the back of Li Na’s bicycle and turned onto another street, she saw Fu Xiao.
He had run all the way there. After hearing what happened at the Lu house, he was worried she might suffer but he had still arrived too late.
“Shen Wei!”
The man’s phoenix eyes were deep, his expression full of concern. “Are you alright?”
Shen Wei shook her head, guessing that it must have been Uncle Fu who was worried about her and asked Fu Xiao to check on her. “I’ve already cleared up the rumors. Tell Uncle Fu and Aunt Tian not to worry.”
Fu Xiao: …
He wanted to say what if I’m the one who’s worried about you?
He didn’t want to keep using his parents as an excuse anymore. Gathering his courage, Fu Xiao said, “Shen Wei, I want to pursue you with marriage as the goal. Do you agree?”
He was so nervous that his palms were sweating.
Shen Wei: …
It would be a lie to say she wasn’t surprised. Fu Xiao actually liked her?
In her previous life, she hadn’t noticed it at all.
She remembered that Fu Xiao had remained unmarried in her past life. People around him including Lu Cheng had said he had some kind of physical issue, and she had always assumed he simply wasn’t interested in women.
She never expected that in this life, this man would confess to her on the street, in front of her best friend and with marriage as the intention.
To be honest, after what she went through with Lu Cheng in her previous life, she had no real longing for marriage anymore. She only wanted to live her own life well.
But Uncle Fu had treated her kindly. Rejecting Fu Xiao outright like this felt too cold.
Under Fu Xiao’s hopeful gaze, Shen Wei finally gave a slight nod.
Whether he pursued her was his choice but whether she accepted him in the end would be hers.
“I’m heading back to the army tonight. I’ll have half a day off in a week can I ask you to watch a movie with me then?” Fu Xiao said quickly, taking advantage of the moment now that she had agreed.
His eyes, inherited from his mother, were bright and striking.
Shen Wei hesitated. “I have to get up early every day to sell buns. I might not have time.”
“That’s okay. I can wait.”
Only after he said that did Shen Wei reluctantly agree.
“Then…” Fu Xiao waved at them. “See you!”
Watching the girl’s figure disappear into the distance, he silently wished time would pass faster.
Li Na, having witnessed everything up close, was thrilled. “Weiwei, this guy is way better than Lu Cheng he’s handsome and a military officer. You two look perfect together!”
Leaning against her back, Shen Wei said, “Do we women really have to get married?”
That question startled Li Na so much she slammed on the brakes, almost throwing them both off the bicycle.
“What do you mean? Weiwei, are you planning not to marry and become a nun or something?!”
What was going on? She felt like in just a few days, her friend had suddenly become much more mature.
“No,” Shen Wei shook her head. “Just… not getting married. Living alone.”
That reminded Li Na of someone. “Do you remember that ‘Silly Nizi’ from our neighborhood?”
“Of course,” Shen Wei said. “She never married or had children, and everyone called her ‘Silly Nizi.’”
“A while ago, she died at home. No one knew until the neighbors smelled something and went in they found the house full of flies and maggots. I didn’t even dare go look.”
“In short,” Li Na concluded, “if a person doesn’t get married, when they grow old or fall sick, it’s miserable they’ll end up like her.”
Shen Wei thought that in her previous life, she had been even more miserable than “Silly Nizi.”
At least before dying, that woman had been free and lived on her own terms.
But Shen Wei had been deceived for half her life, drained of all her value, and in the end died of a heart attack.