Once everything calmed down, he would stand back up and act like some towering, dignified man again.
Bah!
Worthless father and son—no, Wang Xianghua was even worse than Wang Fuyuan.
Once Fujiang got home, Qin Suian would definitely suffer for this. For now, they just needed to placate her first.
After a while, Jiang Yun found the money.
“There’s three hundred seventy yuan here. I counted it already.” Jiang Yun placed the money in front of Qin Suian.
“Xiaojun, take it.” Qin Suian signaled for Xiaojun to hold the money.
Xiaojun took it and carefully counted it herself.
This was the first time she had ever held so much money.
Before this, aside from a penny or two of New Year’s money, she had never even touched a dime or twenty cents.
Wang Fuyuan also brought out paper and pen.
“I’ll say a sentence, and you write it.”
In her previous life, during quiet hours at the pickle shop she ran with Xiaohu, Qin Suian would teach Xiaohu to recognize characters and read simple science books.
Although Qin Suian herself had only attended elementary school for a few years, in order to teach Xiaohu, she bought a dictionary and learned all the common characters.
To help Xiaohu integrate into society as much as possible and learn independence, she had put in tremendous effort. Encyclopedias, children’s books, storybooks—she learned while teaching Xiaohu.
When they got tired, they would listen to the radio. Qin Suian liked hearing the news and learning about current events.
Xiaohu loved all kinds of imaginative stories and novels.
So Qin Suian had at least some idea how a divorce agreement should be written.
“I, Qin Suian, due to an irreparable breakdown in my relationship with Wang Fuyuan, after mutual discussion, agree to dissolve our marriage.”
Wang Fuyuan wrote each sentence as Qin Suian dictated it, while she mentally composed the next one.
“Our second daughter, Xiaojun, is already an adult and voluntarily chooses to live with Qin Suian. From this day forward, her marriage decisions shall be made by herself, and no one may interfere.”
“Qin Suian and her daughters’ accumulated work points and wages total three hundred twenty yuan, which shall be returned to Qin Suian. Wang Xiaomei’s fifty-yuan bride price shall be returned to Wang Xiaomei.”
“From this day forward, both parties shall have nothing to do with each other and may not interfere with each other’s normal lives.”
“Now sign your names and write the date.”
Qin Suian watched Wang Fuyuan finish writing the divorce agreement in handwriting so ugly it was almost shocking.
“Jiang Yun, go invite the brigade leader and tell him to bring the official seal.”
“Now that you’ve achieved your goal, you can let me go, right?” Jiang Xiumei seized the chance to speak.
Hadn’t Qin Suian’s arm gotten tired from holding that cleaver up for so long?
“It only counts after the seal is stamped.” Qin Suian refused to listen to her.
Everything had to be finalized before Wang Fujiang returned.
Wang Fujiang was the hardest member of the Wang family to deal with.
Although Qin Suian wasn’t afraid of him. In her mind, she carried plenty of memories about what would happen to Wang Fujiang’s family in the future.
Used properly, those memories could ensure Wang Fujiang wasn’t a threat.
But priorities mattered. One thing at a time.
About ten minutes later, not only did the brigade leader arrive, but many villagers who had just gotten off work came along to watch the excitement.
That was definitely Jiang Yun’s doing.
Which was exactly what Qin Suian wanted.
The bigger the scene, the better.
“Oh my, what’s going on here? Wasn’t today Xiaojun’s engagement day? Why are knives involved now?” one gossip-loving old woman shouted the moment she entered. Seeing Qin Suian holding a cleaver to her mother-in-law’s neck, she was utterly shocked. Was the sky about to fall?
Quite a few nosy villagers had rushed over without even bothering to go home for water or to wash up first.
And sure enough, they had arrived just in time for an enormous spectacle.
The village was going to be lively tonight.
“Fuyuan’s wife, what are you doing? Put the knife down!” Although the brigade leader had only half-understood Jiang Yun’s frantic explanation on the way over—something about Qin Suian trying to kill her mother-in-law and demanding a divorce—he hadn’t expected it to actually be true.
“Captain, stamp the seal first.” Qin Suian didn’t move.
This brigade leader was the type who drifted through life. As long as nothing major happened, he never interfered in anything. Better to pressure him into stamping the seal first.
“Stamp it, stamp it—I’ll stamp it immediately.” The brigade leader only wanted the matter settled peacefully.
He took the divorce agreement from Xiaojun and frowned the moment he looked at it.
The handwriting was hideous!
Whose writing was this?
Wouldn’t stamping the official seal onto it be an insult to the seal itself?
“Wait—Fuyuan’s wife, are you really going through with this? This isn’t a joke. Once you divorce, you’ll probably be the first in all the surrounding villages. The gossip alone will never end.”
The brigade leader clearly didn’t want to sign and stamp it.
Wouldn’t outsiders laugh at Xiahe Village?
“Will you even be able to go outside in the future? Will Xiaojun still be able to marry? How will you survive afterward?
The village won’t give you farmland or a housing plot. What about your household registration? Your parents’ family probably won’t let you move your registration back there either.”
He still wanted to persuade her.
In all his years alive, this was the first time he had ever seen someone demand a divorce.
And she was so determined that she’d held a knife to her mother-in-law’s neck over it.
Just what had the Wang family done to drive someone this far?
“Captain, if there were any other path left for me, I wouldn’t divorce. But Jiang Xiumei wanted to marry Xiaojun off to the fool from Lin Family Village just because they offered a high bride price. How could I possibly stay in such a vicious household?”
Seeing Qin Suian throwing the blame onto Jiang Xiumei, Wang Fuyuan quickly interrupted.
“How can you slander people like that? The Lin family deceived us!”
“Captain, look at him. With a man whose only goal is being a dutiful son, is there any point in continuing this marriage?”
“You—!”
Wang Fuyuan never expected Qin Suian to twist the situation so skillfully. For a moment, he was speechless.
“And Xiaomei’s fifty-yuan bride price back then—not a single cent was left. It all went toward getting Wang Yaowen into the factory as an apprentice. Xiaojun’s bride price would have ended up becoming Wang Yaowen’s bride price too. They want to suck the blood out of my two daughters just to fatten up their two grandsons!
I’ve worked like an ox and a horse for the Wang family all these years, and this is the outcome I get.”
As she spoke, Qin Suian’s eyes gradually reddened.
A complicated mix of grievance, bitterness, and regret surged through her.
In her previous life, she had lived into her eighties. The happiest years she’d ever had were the decade or so she spent running the pickle shop with Xiaohu.
The fifty-plus years before that had either been spent being treated like livestock in the Qin family or worked like a beast of burden in the Wang family.
And because she never gave birth to a son, she endured endless cold looks and contempt, never receiving even half a pleasant expression from the Wang family.
Later, she realized how wonderful it was to outlive a husband.
In this lifetime, escaping the Wang family’s pit of fire ten years earlier should have made her happy.
No crying. Her good days were only just beginning.
After hearing Qin Suian’s words, the crowd’s gossip quieted somewhat.
Everyone knew Qin Suian had always been strong-willed. Even when Wang Fuyuan beat her badly, she never cried out.
For things to escalate to knife-point today—it turned out it was all for her daughters.
The Wang family wasn’t considered poor in Xiahe Village. Especially Wang Fujiang—having a job as a postman was respectable, and he earned wages too.
Though it was common in the countryside not to provide daughters with dowries, using all of a daughter’s bride price on a cousin from another branch of the family really was hard to justify.
“Fuyuan’s wife, whose fault is it that you couldn’t give birth to a son?” the gossiping old woman from earlier interrupted gleefully.
“Oh? Since you’re clearly so capable of giving birth to sons, why don’t you give Wang Fuyuan one? Looking at those wide hips and round backside of yours, I’m sure twins would be no problem—six children in three years! Come, come, I’ll gladly give you my place.”
Qin Suian sized the old woman up as she spoke.
“Qin Suian, what nonsense are you spouting?! Believe it or not, I’ll have Wang Fuyuan beat you to death!” The old woman’s face instantly turned green as she snarled viciously.