Wang Liu showed no respect for Fu Qiang at all. He scratched his head and said with a shameless grin,
“Fu Qiang, don’t make it sound so ugly. What do you mean betrayal? Do we even have a relationship?
Besides, didn’t you say in front of all of us that you wanted to go after your brother’s wife and make your brother wear a green hat?
You’ve been jealous of Fu Lin since childhood. Same parents, yet why are you so ugly while Fu Lin is tall and strong and gets all the attention from young women?”
Strangely enough, among the three siblings, Fu Lin and Fu Rong were both quite good-looking—well-known in the surrounding villages as handsome men and beautiful women. Only the eldest brother, Fu Qiang, was under five feet tall with plain features.
Wang Liu’s words made Li Honghua’s eyes flicker. A trace of panic and vigilance appeared in her gaze.
She quickly interrupted,
“Wang Liu, what nonsense are you talking? Fu Qiang looks like his father. He and Lin’er are both my sons. What jealousy are you talking about? Don’t try to sow discord between the brothers!”
She wasn’t lying—Fu Qiang was indeed Fu Dayong’s son, and both Fu Qiang and Fu Lin were her children. But she never said they had the same father.
To be precise, the three children were half-siblings with the same mother but different fathers.
Li Honghua was the fourth child in her family and was called “Si Hua.” She had three older sisters and two younger sisters, plus two younger brothers.
Because the family was poor, her three older sisters were married off early. When it came to her turn, she liked tall and strong men and had once vowed lifelong commitment with a hunter named Diao Si. Unfortunately, Diao Si’s family was even poorer, and his parents strongly opposed the marriage and arranged another match for him instead—Fu Dayong.
Fu Dayong was short and unremarkable. In public, people praised him as honest and capable, but in reality, he was timid and useless.
If not forced, Li Honghua would never have chosen such a man.
After marrying Fu Dayong, she cut ties with Diao Si. Not long after, he married someone else.
But during childbirth, Diao Si’s wife died along with the baby, leaving him a widower.
After that, behind Fu Dayong’s back, Li Honghua resumed contact with Diao Si from time to time.
She thought she had hidden it well, but somehow Xue Zhi had discovered it.
For the sake of that secret, Xue Zhi had to die.
As for favoritism among the children—Fu Lin and Fu Rong were born from her beloved man, so she naturally favored them. But Fu Dayong favored the eldest son, so to avoid suspicion, she pretended to care about Fu Qiang.
After noticing Li Honghua’s reaction, Xue Zhi curled her lips slightly in mockery.
“Everyone heard it. There’s a witness. Village chief, I want to report this to the authorities.”
“No!” the village chief immediately refused.
If this was reported, the reputation of Fu Family Village would be ruined.
“Village chief,” Xue Zhi said calmly, “the Fu family has done this to me again and again. If I do nothing, how can I live in peace? Must I live in fear every single day?
This time I was lucky. I stopped them.
But what about next time? I’m just a woman living alone—it’s already difficult enough. I don’t want to keep worrying about my life like this.
If you can help me seek justice, that would be best.”
The village chief understood the implication in her words and frowned tightly.
What exactly is the Fu family trying to do? Are they not satisfied with how chaotic things already are?
They kept causing trouble again and again. The village chief was already fed up. If he handled it poorly, he would lose authority. How would he manage the village in the future?
After thinking for a moment, he said coldly,
“Fu Qiang, you broke into a private residence at night with ill intent. You must compensate Xue Zhi twenty taels of silver.”
“What?! Twenty taels!”
“What?! Twenty taels!”
“What?! Twenty taels!”
Fu Qiang, Sun Xiaoqian, and Li Honghua all widened their eyes in shock.
Li Honghua snapped,
“Why should we give her money? Not a single copper coin!”
Twenty taels—why should they give that to Xue Zhi? Absolutely not!
Sun Xiaoqian added,
“Exactly! Xue Zhi beat my husband like this. We haven’t even asked her for compensation, and now we’re supposed to pay her? Where is the logic in that?”
That was twenty taels! Maybe her mother-in-law even had more hidden away!
How could they give it to Xue Zhi?
Xue Zhi ignored them and looked at the village chief with a troubled expression.
“Village chief, this…”
She did not finish her sentence, but the village chief already understood.
With a stern face, he said,
“Fu Qiang, today you either pay twenty taels to Xue Zhi, or… Fu Family Village cannot tolerate such a disgraceful person.”
The moment he said this, everyone froze.
“Does the village chief mean… expelling Fu Qiang?”
“I agree with expelling him.”
“I agree too.”
“Expel him!”
“Expel him!”
The villagers shouted one after another.
Though simple-minded, they instinctively sided with the weaker party—and Xue Zhi was clearly the victim.
Everyone in the village had seen what Xue Zhi endured in the Fu family over the past two years.
Fu Qiang was idle, lewd, and constantly caused trouble—drinking, gambling, flirting with married women, even having affairs with widows. He was a frequent visitor to brothels in town.
So no one was surprised that he would attempt something improper.
For someone like him, being driven out of the village was a good thing.
The voices grew louder and louder. Fu Qiang began to panic. He grabbed Li Honghua’s sleeve.
“Mother, I… I don’t want to leave the village. Mother, maybe just give her the twenty taels…”
Before he could finish, he met Li Honghua’s sharp gaze and immediately shut up.
Sun Xiaoqian stood nervously aside. Fu Qiang was her man—if he was expelled, what would she do?
The village chief asked again,
“Have you decided? Pay, or leave?”
Li Honghua took a deep breath and forced a fake smile.
“Village chief, twenty taels is too much. Five taels. I’ll pay five taels immediately.”
A woman in the crowd sneered,
“Listen to how generous you sound—five taels? Li Honghua, you must have already embezzled Fu Lin’s compensation, right?
That money originally belonged to Xue Zhi. And you can’t even bear to give twenty taels?”
The crowd murmured. Some felt twenty taels was a lot, but then they remembered—if the Fu family could take two hundred taels of compensation, what was twenty taels?
Someone shouted,
“Twenty taels is too little! Return all the money that belongs to Xue Zhi!”
“Right! Give it back!”
Sun Xiaoqian cursed,
“Xue Zhi is already divorced from my second brother! She’s not part of the Fu family anymore—why should she take compensation?!”
“Even so, you can’t keep it all for yourselves.”
Xue Zhi said nothing. As long as she stood on the moral high ground, the villagers would support her.
Looking at the faces around her—people now speaking up for her—she suddenly saw layers of memory overlapping with her past life.