A neighbor lowered her voice to remind her, “Comrade Lu, we know you’re generous, but Comrade Xu’s elder brother has passed away after all. If you keep having Comrade Xu go over there, people might misunderstand.”
Lu Jingyi: ?
[Every time Dad went to see Li Hong and was spotted, people would say Mom sent him to deliver things to Li Hong.]
Hearing the Xiao Nai Yin, Lu Jingyi finally understood what was going on.
Xu Zhijun was actually using her as a shield.
But this time, she had no intention of covering for Xu Zhijun.
Lu Jingyi deliberately feigned surprise and said, “I didn’t ask Xu Zhijun to deliver anything. This is my first pregnancy, and I only bought one set of items.”
The three neighbors exchanged glances.
If Comrade Lu didn’t send him, then why was a grown man always running over to Li Hong’s place?
That wasn’t even his child.
“Comrade Lu, this Comrade Xu is really strange. We never see him at your place whenever we visit.”
Lu Jingyi sighed and said, “I don’t know what he’s busy with either. When I was in the hospital, he was always occupied with training in the army.”
“That can’t be right. Everyone gets thirty days of paternity leave. I heard from my Lao Zhang that Comrade Xu hasn’t been training these past few days.”
Lu Jingyi pretended to be puzzled. “Oh, that’s really strange. If Xu Zhijun hasn’t been training these past few days, and he hasn’t been with me either, then where has he been?”
“Comrade Lu, we can’t keep this from you. I often see your husband coming out of Li Hong’s house.”
Lu Jingyi: “Impossible. He said he was busy training.”
The three neighbors glanced at each other.
They could all see the gossipy spark in each other’s eyes.
This Xu Zhijun was truly odd—ignoring his wife who had just given birth, yet constantly running over to Li Hong’s place.
If his mother hadn’t been around before, it might have been somewhat understandable.
There wasn’t much fresh news in The Compound anyway.
Before nightfall, everyone in The Compound knew that Xu Zhijun wasn’t home taking care of his wife but was instead spending all his time at Li Hong’s place.
The way people looked at Xu Zhijun and his family grew increasingly peculiar.
Xu Zhijun, being a man, didn’t notice anything strange.
But Grandma was different.
She used to enjoy taking a stroll after meals and chatting with others her age.
But these past few days, people acted as if she were the plague whenever they saw her.
Grandma finally managed to find someone she was close with and asked what was going on.
“Old sister, it’s not that I’m deliberately keeping it from you, but don’t you find it strange that your younger son is always visiting your elder daughter-in-law?”
Grandma was stunned by the question.
It suddenly dawned on her that she had been seeing her younger son frequently these past few days.
She was so furious she nearly lost it.
Ignoring the odd looks people gave her along the way, she hurried home.
As soon as she pushed the door open, she found her younger son there as well.
She almost fainted from anger.
“Second Son, it’s already dark. Why are you still here?”
Xu Zhijun said, confused, “Mom, you like to go for a walk after dinner. With only Sister-in-law and my niece at home, I was worried, so I stayed to keep an eye on things.”
Li Hong: “Mom, Xu Zhijun and I were just discussing me moving in with his wife’s family, so her mother could help you out and lighten your load.”
Grandma snorted coldly and snapped, “Who do you think you are, daring to have your brother’s mother-in-law take care of you? I don’t even have the nerve to ask for that.”
With that, Grandma pushed her younger son out. “It’s dark. You should head back now.”
Xu Zhijun was completely stunned. “Mom, what are you doing?”
“You dare ask me what I’m doing? Don’t you know what people are saying about you outside? Running to Li Hong’s room all day long—you might not care about your reputation, but I do! From now on, I’ll take care of things here. Don’t come back.”
Xu Zhijun’s mind went blank with a buzzing sound.
His voice began to tremble. “How… how could this be? Who spread these rumors?”
“You didn’t even coordinate with your wife properly. Many people saw you frequently coming here. When they asked your wife, she said she never sent you to deliver anything. After going back and forth like this, nasty rumors started spreading.”
Suppressing his anger, Xu Zhijun turned and left.
Li Hong, seeing his dark expression, didn’t dare say a word.
If her affair with Xu Zhijun became public knowledge, those subsidies would disappear.
Just the pointing fingers and gossip from others would be enough to drown her.
Xu Zhijun carried his rage all the way home.
Barging through the door, he immediately confronted her: “Lu Jingyi, is it necessary for you to go around spreading nonsense just because I visited my sister-in-law a few extra times?”
Lu Jingyi was drinking soup when Xu Zhijun stormed in, hurling accusations at her.
Furious, she threw her spoon aside.
“You have the nerve to ask me? What exactly did I tell people?”
Xu Zhijun: “I told people I went to my sister-in-law’s place because you asked me to deliver things to her. Why… why…”
His voice grew softer, betraying his guilt.
Lu Jingyi sneered, “Why don’t you finish that sentence? Did I ask you to go?”
“But you shouldn’t have spread rumors! Now everyone’s gossiping about me and my sister-in-law. What will happen to her reputation?”
“Xu Zhijun, how dare you bully my daughter right in front of me!”
Wang Pei grabbed a nearby broom and started hitting Xu Zhijun.
Xu Zhijun was stunned and quickly retreated.
“Mom, stop hitting me! I… ouch, take it easy!”
Wang Pei: “I’m going to beat you to death! Your wife is still in postpartum confinement—are you trying to make her sick with anger?”
“Since you don’t want my daughter recovering here, fine! Tomorrow I’m taking Jingyi home for her confinement period.”
“Mom, I was wrong.”
The commotion naturally drew crowds of people coming to watch the spectacle.
“Auntie, please put the broom down! Can’t we discuss this calmly?”
“Comrade Xu, what did you do? Hurry up and apologize to your mother-in-law!”
Seeing so many people, Xu Zhijun quickly backed down. “Mom, I was wrong. Let’s talk inside—don’t let people laugh at us.”
Wang Pei shook him off. “What do I have to fear? Everyone, come judge this fairly! I only found out today that while my daughter just had a baby, Xu Zhijun had a whole month off. Instead of helping, he lied about having training every day—who knows where he really was!”
“He didn’t even come pick up his wife from the hospital! Fine, I understand his sister-in-law is a widow with a child—he wanted to help her.”
“But just now he rushed into my daughter’s room to accuse her of spreading rumors!”
Wang Pei’s eyes reddened with fury.
Her emotions were completely genuine.
If not for Little Dragon Treasure, they might still be kept in the dark by Xu Zhijun.
The daughter she raised with so much love nearly had her life ruined by this beast.
The more she spoke, the more aggrieved she felt. Finally, she threw the broom aside and covered her face, weeping.
“Comrade Xu, you’ve gone too far. No matter what, your wife just gave birth to your daughter. How could you do this?”
“If I were Comrade Lu, I would have confronted him long ago.”
Xu Zhijun looked at the pointing and murmuring crowd around him, and his mind suddenly cleared.
He had truly been foolish to get so close to Li Hong.
If the Lu family were to become suspicious, his future would be ruined.
With red-rimmed eyes, Xu Zhijun suddenly knelt down and said: “Mom, my brother and I came from the countryside. When we were young and had no food to eat, he gave me his remaining rations. Later when he joined the army, he sent money home to support our whole family. I swore since childhood that I must repay my brother properly. Now that he’s gone, I only want to take care of my little niece. I know I’ve been neglecting Jingyi recently. Mom, it’s my fault. Punish me if you must.”
Wang Pei was startled by his sudden kneeling and instinctively stepped back half a step.
The onlookers were also shocked.
Xu Zhijun continued: “Mom, you’re really overthinking this.”
Looking at the kneeling Xu Zhijun before her, Wang Pei felt a chill for the first time.
This man was ruthless toward others, but even more ruthless toward himself.
That he could kneel before so many people meant he must hate them to the core.
Yet he could endure it all.