Several bowls and plates had already been washed by Jiang Yu until they were gleaming. Her hands were also wrinkled from soaking in water.
Suddenly, her mechanical movements stopped. She frowned, put down the bowl in her hand, and walked toward the living room.
She found her phone on the sofa and opened her contacts, dialing Jiang Guodong.
A female voice came from the phone: “Sorry, the number you dialed is busy…”
Jiang Yu hung up and paced back and forth in the living room.
Unconsciously, she started biting her fingernails again.
Two minutes later, she dialed again. Still busy.
Something clicked in her mind. She opened Jiang Guodong’s contact again.
Only then did she realize she had already blacklisted that old bastard a few months ago.
After removing him from the blacklist, she dialed again.
It had to be said—she and that surname Shen were quite similar in some ways.
When angry, they both liked blocking people.
This time, the call finally connected. Accompanied by the sound of mahjong tiles and urging voices, Jiang Guodong’s voice came through together with it.
“Well, well, the little girl actually remembers her old man? Such filial piety, calling your dad?”
Jiang Yu ignored his sarcastic tone and said coldly, “I have something to ask. Go somewhere quiet.”
While playing a tile, Jiang Guodong said, “Say it quick. I’m busy.”
Jiang Yu asked, “Have you contacted my husband recently?”
“Can’t remember.”
“Then think harder.”
After some thought, she felt that the things Shen Chengyan had said must have come from someone.
And besides Jiang Guodong, who else would dig up her past?
Guo Yaoyao wouldn’t.
Her aunt definitely wouldn’t.
“You sure know how to order me around,” Jiang Guodong cursed. “I raised you with blood and sweat, and now that you’re married you’ve grown wings. Even blacklisted your own father. If you push me too far, I’ll come to Jiang City and expose all your dirty secrets.”
Jiang Yu trembled with rage and shouted back, “Is that how you act as a father? You don’t wish me well at all—you just want to ruin me! Fine! If you won’t let me live, then let’s die together. Come if you dare! Whoever doesn’t come is a grandson!”
Jiang Guodong’s arrogance immediately weakened. He chuckled awkwardly.
“I was just joking. I still need my daughter to take care of me in old age, how could I ruin your life?”
Only later did Jiang Yu realize Jiang Guodong was a paper tiger.
The more you refused to give him face, the more obedient he became.
He called someone to take over his mahjong game and stepped outside the room, lighting a cigarette as he said with a smile, “Daughter, send your dad some money. I’m a bit short lately.”
Jiang Yu answered with only two words: “No money.”
Jiang Guodong instantly exploded. “No money? Isn’t your so-called good husband pretty capable?”
“What capable?” Jiang Yu sneered. “Other than being good-looking, what can he do? He earns three to five thousand a month and can barely support himself. I’m starving in their house every day, living worse than a dog.”
Jiang Guodong hesitated. “Really? Last time you came back, I saw that guy wearing branded clothes.”
“That’s fake. Bought to show off to you,” Jiang Yu said coldly. “You care about face. If I didn’t dress him up like a rich man, how would you brag to neighbors?”
Jiang Guodong was speechless again, then muttered, “Then what’s the point of marrying such a useless man?”
“I like his looks. Is that not allowed?”
“……”
After circling back and forth, Jiang Guodong returned to the money topic again. “You’ve been married for years, haven’t you saved any private money?”
“Saved?” Jiang Yu laughed coldly. “Last time I finally saved a little over ten thousand, my husband found it and beat me badly. I couldn’t get out of bed for three days.”
Jiang Guodong: “……”
“He also gives me the cold shoulder. You think I’m living well in the city? I’d love to be filial, but do I even have the ability? I can barely survive myself.”
Only then did Jiang Yu hang up, exhausted from dealing with that old scum.
She lay on the sofa, curling her body into a ball, hugging a pillow tightly as if trying to comfort her weakened self.
Jiang Yu was her name.
Jiang Yu was also her name.
In her memory, whenever Jiang Guodong got drunk, he liked to call her a “waste daughter,” a “useless extra.”
From childhood, he said in front of her that she was unwanted by her mother.
Repeated insults made neighbors join in jokes too, saying she wasn’t just “extra,” but a child picked from a trash bin.
At school, classmates gave her a nickname: “Jiang Extra.”
A child without a mother.
A father who was unreliable.
Growing up in such an environment made it hard for her not to believe she should not have been born.
Extra. Extra.
She hated that name so much that after adulthood she changed the character “Yu.”
As if changing it could change her painful life.
Most of her suffering came from Jiang Guodong. He was lazy, either gambling or drinking.
When he won, he drank to celebrate. When he lost, he drank to curse.
Her childhood was rough. To save money, she always kept short hair and wore second-hand clothes and shoes.
At eight years old, a neighbor child gave her a piece of birthday cake. When Jiang Guodong saw it, he exploded in rage and slapped her.
She fell into the mud with the cake, hitting her head until it bled.
Before fifteen, she had never had a birthday or a cake of her own.
On her eighteenth birthday, she used her saved money to buy herself a cake.
She ate the entire 8-inch cream cake alone and ended up hospitalized with acute gastroenteritis.
In her memory, Jiang Guodong had never fulfilled the role of a father.
He deserved to be nailed to the pillar of shame.
But fortunately, there was her aunt.
Her aunt’s family was also poor, but she secretly helped Jiang Yu.
Her aunt’s husband was the same kind of scum as Jiang Guodong—lazy, violent, and abusive.
When her aunt was hospitalized in her freshman year, Jiang Yu took leave from school to take care of her, and that was when she met Shen Chengyan.
It was their first meeting, and it was not a beautiful one.
On the day of her aunt’s surgery, the surgery fee that had been barely collected was stolen by her uncle. In anger, her aunt called him and cursed him, demanding the money back.
When she hung up and stormed back, she didn’t notice someone behind her.
The person was standing right by the stairs and was knocked off balance by her collision, falling straight down.
Although it wasn’t life-threatening, he still hit his head and broke his leg.
The next day when he woke up, Jiang Yu went to visit him. He said his name was Shen Chengyan.
She had been terrified.
Terrified that he would extort her.
She was a poor student—she had no money.
And as fate would have it, what she feared most came true. She still remembered how Shen Chengyan said nothing, just lay in the hospital bed staring straight at her.
And Jiang Yu stood nervously by the bedside, waiting for judgment.
Finally, under her anxious gaze, he spoke.
He threw the question back at her:
“How do you think this should be handled?”