With a face dark as thunder, Zhang Ximei fixed her gaze on Lin Shirou, looking as if her eyes were coated in poison. She was convinced Lin Shirou must have been possessed by a malevolent spirit—how else could someone who had never been this way suddenly flip her personality overnight?
It wasn’t as though such occurrences hadn’t happened in the village before; without a doubt, she must have been taken over by a wandering ghost or stray soul. In the past, she would have sent for a local shaman to drive out the evil entity. Unfortunately, shamans were no longer allowed; that sort of thing was considered feudal superstition. What on earth was a family supposed to do when faced with such a disaster right under their roof?
“Second son’s wife, have you completely lost your mind?” Zhang Ximei’s voice was as cold as ice, dripping with fury.
Lin Shirou let out a cold laugh. Her mother-in-law was truly something else. This was barely even scratching the surface—did she seriously call this making a scene?
Xu Guihua marched out with Lu Dongdong in tow, pointing straight at the red handprint still stark across the boy’s face as she shrieked, “Lin Shirou! When your father-in-law gets back, I’m going to make him give us justice! How can an aunt stoop so low as to beat her own nephew?!”
“That’s right! When Father gets back, I’m going to report you too! What right do you have to strip the dress right off my Xiao-xiao’s back?! She’s a proper young girl, for goodness’ sake!”
Crossing her arms, Lin Shirou sneered. “What? Only your son is allowed to beat my daughter, but I’m not allowed to strike back? Your boy laid hands on my child, and you failed to discipline him—what’s wrong with an aunt stepping in to teach him a lesson? And as for your Lu Xiao wearing my Tian-Tian’s dresses for all this time, you should be burning incense in gratitude that I haven’t demanded you pay for the wear and tear, and you have the nerve to talk about reporting me?!”
“If anyone is filing a complaint, it’s going to be me! You lot in the Lu family are utterly shameless! You bully a mother and daughter because my husband isn’t home, you steal my daughter’s clothes, and you even let your brats beat my Lu Tian!”
As she spoke, her voice grew louder and louder. Panicked, Zhang Ximei lunged forward to clamp a hand over her mouth.
Though everyone in the village was well aware of these domestic dynamics, having Lin Shirou broadcast it all in broad daylight was another matter entirely. She still cared about her reputation; after all, her second son was a military man and her fourth son was a schoolteacher—they were respected, prominent figures in the village. If Lin Shirou kept screaming this from the rooftops, it would bring utter shame upon the entire Lu family.
“Enough of this nonsense!” a furious roar cut her off.
Lu Dazhuang strode into the courtyard, closely followed by his eldest son, Lu Feng, and his third son, Lu Guang.
All three men had spent the day down at the river building a dam embankment. Ever since May, the skies hadn’t dropped a single hint of rain, prompting the village to block off the river mouth to pool whatever water they could to irrigate the fields. They had slaved away under the sun all day long, only to return and find Lin Shirou shouting at the top of her lungs about how the Lu family was bullying a helpless widow and orphan. It was completely absurd!
The moment Xu Guihua saw her husband and father-in-law return, she instantly regained her backbone, rushing forward to rattle off a heavily biased account of everything that had happened.
Hearing her story, Lu Feng immediately knitted his brows and glared at Lin Shirou. “Second sister-in-law, is everything Guihua just said true?”
Giving the rough-hewn countryman a cool look, Lin Shirou rolled her eyes. “Your son hit my daughter, so I hit him back. What of it?”
Lu Feng’s breath caught in his throat. After slogging through two daughters first, he had finally gotten this precious son, whom he naturally treasured like the apple of his eye. Who did that worthless little girl from the second branch think she was? How dare she hit his boy?!
Li Hong chimed in with her own exaggerated version of the skirt incident, causing Lu Guang to glare at Lin Shirou with hot irritation. “Second sister-in-law! How can an elder pull a stunt like this? Lu Xiao is your own niece—how could you rip the clothes right off her?!”
Lin Shirou knew how these people operated: the Lu family was entirely permitted to commit whatever petty, crooked acts they pleased, but the moment anyone dared to fight back, they would always spin some absurd, self-justifying logic to cover for themselves. People like this really ought to share a surname with Cao Cao.
Assuming his full authority as the patriarch, Lu Dazhuang put on a stern front. “Second son’s wife, do you finally realize your mistakes?”
A cold smile tugged at the corner of Lin Shirou’s mouth. “What mistake?”
Lu Dazhuang’s chest heaved with a sharp intake of breath, his face flushing crimson from her sheer insolence. “Second son’s wife! Are you trying to start a rebellion?! You’re an aunt, yet you strike your own nephew in front of half the village—what on earth are you trying to pull?!”
His voice suddenly spiked in volume, startling several people in the courtyard into shrinking their necks in fear.
Little Lu Tian shivered all over, her face turning completely pale.
Reaching out, Lin Shirou gently covered Lu Tian’s ears. Then, drawing power deep from her diaphragm, she shouted back at an even higher volume: “Oh, so you think shouting makes you right?! Having a booming voice doesn’t mean you have logic on your side!”
Her voice blasted through the courtyard like a thunderclap, startling the chickens in their coop into a panicked chorus of crowing.
Several villagers who had been loitering outside on the pretense of just passing by stopped dead in their tracks, watching in utter shock as baskets slipped from their hands and hit the ground unnoticed.
In the village, social hierarchy and respect for elders were paramount; shouting down a patriarch like this was something even the most hot-tempered daughter-in-law would never dare to do.
Yet Lin Shirou had just done it, and she wasn’t finished yet.
“Lu Dongdong beat my Lu Tian because your big branch can’t be bothered to raise him right! What’s wrong with me, as his aunt, stepping in to discipline him?!”
Ever since the family split and he took the seat of household head, Lu Dazhuang had never been publicly cross-examined with such volume and defiance. He lost whatever composure he had left; his face turned a dark, liverish purple with rage, and he looked as though he was on the verge of a stroke.
Trembling with fury, he pointed a shaking finger at Lin Shirou, completely lost for words. Stepping forward in a hurry, Zhang Ximei rushed to stroke his chest and soothe him. “Old man, don’t let her upset you! I say if we don’t bring out the family cane today, there’s no managing her!”
Hearing that, Xu Guihua’s eyes lit up instantly. “Mom! I’ll go grab the club!”
The “family law” of the Lu clan involved a thick, polished wooden cudgel that caused agonizing pain when used on someone.
Naturally, Lin Shirou had no intention of sitting around to be beaten. She bolted straight for the front gate.
The onlookers outside parted in a hurry as she rushed past. Running at full tilt, Lin Shirou yelled at the top of her lungs, “Where is the village chief?! Team leader! Party secretary! Accountant!”
“Someone come and keep the Lu family in check! They’re about to resort to private lynching! They’re trying to beat the family dependents of an active-duty serviceman!”
Her shouting match with Lu Dazhuang had already drawn a crowd of onlookers who were eavesdropping from the edges. With this public outcry, an even larger crowd swarmed in.
A middle-aged man walked out from the thick of the crowd, puffing on a bamboo-stemmed dry tobacco pipe. “Educated Youth Lin, what’s all this shouting about?”
A spark of hope crossed Lin Shirou’s face. Wasn’t this the village chief himself?
“Village Chief! You have to give me justice!” In a split second, tears welled up and spilled over her eyelashes.
With her poignant expression of profound injustice, she looked like a modern-day Lady Dou E. Her tear-shimmering apricot eyes fixed on the village chief as if he were a towering magistrate—the ultimate hero who had come to rescue a helpless young woman.
The village chief automatically straightened his back, his expression turning grave and stern. “Educated Youth Lin, tell me everything. As the village chief of Xiziwan, I will make sure you get a fair and just answer!”
With her voice trembling with manufactured grievance, Lin Shirou poured the whole story out in a rapid-fire stream: she detailed how Lu Xiao had stolen Lu Tian’s clothes, and how Lu Dongdong had shoved the little girl to the ground.
Pulling Lu Tian forward, she pointed directly at the bleeding gash on the child’s forehead. “Village Chief, look at her! She’s just a little girl, and look at that gaping wound—if it scars over, her face will be ruined for life!”
“My husband is out there defending the country, and she is Lu Wen’s daughter—his only flesh and blood! How can they treat her like this?!”
Her frame trembled slightly, perfectly playing the part of a woman who had been pushed past the absolute brink of human endurance.
Seeing her state, several villagers began to look on with genuine pity.
“Sigh, Lu Wen might be a successful man, but he’s hardly ever home—sometimes not even once a year. Raising a daughter all by herself must be terribly hard on her.”
“Ain’t that the truth? And word has it that every bit of the allowance he mails home is seized and managed by Zhang Ximei. Just look at that poor little girl—tsk, truly miserable!”