In the ordinary afternoon of midsummer, Su Jiaobai was preparing lessons in the study as usual.
Suddenly feeling thirsty, she picked up the water cup from her desk and went downstairs. Unexpectedly, as soon as she reached the entrance, her foot slipped, and she fell all the way down the stairs.
Sister Zhou, the nanny, and Aunt Liu, the housekeeper, who were playing with Junzai in the living room on the first floor, were startled and rushed over.
“Teacher Su, are you okay?”
“Teacher Su, are you alright?”
The two of them, one on each side, held her arms, but neither dared to lift her directly. Instead, they asked in a low voice, “How is it? Can you get up now? Are you dizzy?”
Su Jiaobai is a teacher at a middle school in the city, teaching eighth grade. Although it is still summer vacation, for her who will be teaching ninth grade in September, the entire summer vacation has been quite busy.
She was either looking for monthly and mock exam papers from previous years for the ninth grade from various schools in the city or diligently re-studying the ninth-grade curriculum in advance.
It was also because she had been in the study for too long, staying for three to four hours without any physical activity. So, when she suddenly walked out, she felt a bit dizzy and fell.
Fortunately, the stairs were not steep, and they were made of wood. Also, because there were children at home, the living room on the first floor was covered with floor mats, so the fall was not serious. Otherwise, although it wouldn’t cause broken bones, she would have suffered a painful injury.
After recovering for a while, Su Jiaobai was able to support herself and stand up. She shook her head and said, “I’m fine.”
Sister Zhou and Aunt Liu were terrified just now, afraid something might happen to her. Seeing her stand up on her own and seemingly unharmed, they breathed a sigh of relief.
Seeing that she was holding a cup, Aunt Liu immediately took the cup and went to the water dispenser to refill it.
When she returned to the living room with warm water, Sister Zhou had already helped Su Jiaobai to sit slowly on the nearby sofa.
“If you’re thirsty and want water, just call us, and we’ll pour it for you and bring it upstairs,” Aunt Liu said as she handed over the cup, her words filled with genuine concern.
Su Jiaobai took the cup and said, “Thank you.”
Sister Zhou picked up Junzai, who was playing in the playpen, and placed him on her lap. She then held his hand and gently touched Su Jiaobai, saying in Junzai’s voice, “Junzai blows kisses to Mommy, and Mommy won’t hurt anymore.”
Junzai was less than a year old and didn’t understand anything. Seeing Sister Zhou do this, he found it amusing and giggled.
His front teeth had already grown in, and when he smiled, he revealed his gums and four small teeth, two on the top and two on the bottom, looking like a little rabbit.
Her son was usually taken care of by the nanny and housekeeper, and Su Jiaobai spent less time with him, so they weren’t very close.
But after all, he was her son, born after ten months of pregnancy and the pain of childbirth.
Although Junzai was cared for by the nanny and housekeeper and she didn’t spend much time with him, she was at home every day, and she would know immediately if anything happened to Junzai… Therefore, their mother-son relationship wouldn’t be bad.
Seeing that Junzai had become a bit plumper, Su Jiaobai took him from Sister Zhou and held him on her lap.
After resting for a while, she hurriedly handed Junzai back to Sister Zhou and returned to the study on the second floor.
Only after her figure disappeared at the top of the stairs and she heard the faint sound of the door closing did Sister Zhou quietly say, “Teacher Su and Mr. Gu don’t seem to know each other well. How can they be a couple like this? Junzai is still young and doesn’t notice anything, but when he grows up, he’ll see the relationship between his parents. Children are sensitive, and growing up in such an environment, he’ll be unhappy.”
Sister Zhou had only recently arrived, but Aunt Liu had been there for several years. She knew more about the employer, Mr. Gu, and his wife, Ms. Su, than Sister Zhou did.
However, as a housekeeper, she didn’t want to gossip about her employers, so she pretended not to hear Sister Zhou.
Just then, Junzai let out two loud farts, and a foul smell immediately filled the air. Immediately after, the little boy sat still, motionless, and began to grunt. Then came a series of squelching and popping sounds… Sister Zhou and Aunt Liu were both busy, and the conversation was immediately diverted.
Su Jiaobai stood at the study door and heard Sister Zhou’s words.
The door had just been blown shut by the wind, and she hadn’t had time to enter the study yet.
The fall was not serious, but after returning to the study, Su Jiaobai suddenly felt dizzy.
Then, something in her mind flashed through like a movie, one scene after another.
With so much information suddenly and inexplicably crammed into her head, she felt a severe headache. Unable to sit at her desk, she went to the sofa chair in the study and lay down.
She fell asleep like that, and when she woke up, the sky had fallen—
It turned out that the world she lived in was not real, but existed within a novel. And she was a tragic cannon fodder character in that wealthy family novel.
The novel had a vulgar title: “After Divorce, I Took My Son and Married into a Wealthy Family.” The male and female protagonists were a middle-aged couple. This middle-aged couple was none other than her biological father, Lu Ting, and her stepmother, Wu Yichun.
And in this melodramatic wealthy family novel, both she and Lu Leyao were NPCs existing for the sake of the plot.
She and Lu Leyao, a pair of true and false daughters, fought and clawed against each other, vying for power and profit, ultimately resulting in mutual destruction. In the end, the entire Lu Group naturally fell into the hands of Cheng Shi’an, the son of Wu Yichun and her ex-husband.
As a result, the stepson Cheng Shi’an was eventually moved by the warmth and selfless dedication of his stepfather and sincerely recognized him as his father, leading to a happy ending in the novel.
As for her, a tragic supporting character who existed to highlight the goodness and beauty of the female protagonists and to drive the plot forward, her fate was miserable.
Like many melodramatic true and false daughter novels, in “After Divorce, I Took My Son and Married into a Wealthy Family,” she was the true daughter of the Lu Group, who was swapped at birth. In the book, she was also a local resident of Shanghai, but a poor person in a big city, with a humble background, who grew up in a tenement building in the slums.
After reaching adulthood, by chance, she was discovered by people from the Lu family and recognized.
Originally, she was living a good life and didn’t realize anything was wrong. Although her family background was not good, and she had a younger brother at home, and she didn’t receive much resources due to the family’s preference for sons, she relied on herself to work hard to complete her master’s degree and successfully passed the civil service examination, becoming a teacher at a middle school. Although the salary was not high, the job was stable.
Although she was not rich and noble, she was quite satisfied with the stability she had earned through her hard work.
But after being recognized by the Lu family and meeting Lu Leyao, who was swapped with her, and seeing Lu Leyao’s affluent life over the years, she suddenly felt unbalanced. She suddenly felt, “Why?” Why was she suffering while Lu Leyao lived a carefree life? And all of Lu Leyao’s possessions should have been hers.
Her father’s intention was to have both daughters, saying that they were twins born that year, and Lu Leyao was the eldest daughter of the Lu family, so she would be the second daughter after returning. But she refused, insisting that Lu Leyao leave the Lu family and return to the Su family, where she grew up with a preference for sons.
According to the brief description in the novel, she should have started to blacken at this point.
When the Lu family disagreed to send Lu Leyao back, she started causing trouble. Finally, at the family reunion banquet held by the Lu family for her, somehow, she slept with Gu Xingmo, whom she had never met, and became pregnant as a result of this one-night stand.
She was also frightened by this sudden turn of events. As a public school teacher, she was afraid her career would be ruined if rumors of her indiscretion spread.
Lu Ting seized this weakness and used it to threaten her. Moreover, she suffered severe morning sickness later and had no energy to cause trouble.
She quietly and obediently got a marriage certificate with Gu Xingmo, and they didn’t even have a wedding.
After giving birth, confinement, and busy with work… she had been relatively quiet until now.
But the novel stated that soon, she would start causing trouble again.
She would become obsessed, even though she had a legitimate job and liked her job, and never intended to take over any power in the Lu Group… but she insisted on driving Lu Leyao out of the Lu Group.
If she hadn’t known these plot points in advance, Su Jiaobai would indeed have intended to do so.
Although more than a year had passed, she had never felt balanced in her heart.
But now, she knew that Lu Leyao, like her, was a cannon fodder who would eventually be sacrificed to support the protagonists in that melodramatic wealthy family middle-aged love story… Inevitably, her state of mind underwent a huge change.
Everything was done for others; her madness and efforts were a joke.
At the same time, she suddenly understood—
Although her life for the past twenty-odd years had been full of resentment and frustration, at least all her efforts had paid off. She now had education and a career. She was not destitute or had nothing.
Moreover, she had now been recognized by the Lu family and carried the title of “Second Miss Lu.”
As long as she looked at it optimistically, this was a good hand.
And if she played this good hand well, she wouldn’t have to worry for the next few decades.
Letting go of Lu Leyao was equivalent to letting go of herself.
But thinking of Lu Leyao’s status in the Lu Group, her imposing manner, and what she had endured at an age when she should have received love… she still felt somewhat unbalanced. A faint voice in her heart was still shouting—Why?
As two forces warred in her mind, she suddenly heard a “knock, knock, knock” from outside the door.
Su Jiaobai pulled her thoughts back to reality and realized that it was already completely dark outside.
She got up to open the door and heard a deep male voice from outside: “Liu Ma said you fell this afternoon. Do you want to go to the hospital?”
It was Gu Xingmo who had returned.
Naturally, Su Jiaobai thought of another part of her story in the book.
She and Gu Xingmo had a shotgun wedding, so there was no affection between them. After marriage, she reconnected with her former first love and was determined to fall in love.
She was naturally no match for the strong-willed Gu Xingmo. In the end, she left with nothing, and even her son despised her. The original novel’s epilogue mentioned that Lu Ting’s grandson, due to his mother’s extramarital affairs in his childhood, developed a paranoid personality as he grew up and became a problem teenager. Orphaned at a young age, although he inherited a huge fortune, he quickly squandered it as a second-generation rich kid.
And her first love happened to be a heartless man…
In the end, she would get drunk late at night and drive in the rain, ultimately getting into a car accident and dying on that cold, rainy night.
Thinking of this, Su Jiaobai felt a chill run down her spine.
She walked to the door like a walking corpse, gently opened it, and saw the tall man standing outside the study door, leaning against the wall.
He must have been drinking. As soon as the door opened, a faint smell of alcohol wafted out, enveloping her.
In an instant, Su Jiaobai’s mind cleared up again.