On New Year’s Eve, the lights of every home lit up Lujiacun village.
Everyone was celebrating, except in Lu’s household, where cries for mercy filled the night.
“Da Qiang, please! Don’t hit me! I won’t tell anyone about what happened!”
Jiang Nuan cowered on the floor like a frightened dog, trying to escape her husband Lu Daqiang’s fists and kicks.
Every punch struck her in vulnerable places.
It was because she had caught him in an affair with his stepsister, Lu Rou.
They were caught naked in bed, and Lu Daqiang wanted to silence her.
“You fat bitch! You want to ruin me? I’ll ruin you first!” Lu Daqiang growled, his face twisted with rage.
His mother, standing nearby with her hands on her hips, urged him on: “Daqiang! Kill her! If she tells anyone about you and Rou, we’re finished!”
Lu Daqiang’s eyes were bloodshot, veins bulging on his forehead. He had worked so hard to become the factory manager—he couldn’t let a “fat pig” destroy everything.
Another punch fell.
Jiang Nuan screamed with all her strength: “Xiao Jie! Xiao Qing! Save Mom!”
But her children never appeared.
Thinking they were scared, she pushed Lu Daqiang and ran for the gate. Her family lived in the same village—if she escaped, she might survive.
Three meters, two meters, one meter…
Just as she reached the gate, her family arrived. Her eyes lit up with hope.
“Dad! Help me! Lu Daqiang is trying to kill me!” she cried, clinging to Jiang Jianguo’s arm like a lifeline.
“Slap!”
A sharp smack hit her face.
Jiang Jianguo glared at his daughter, furious: “Shame on you! On New Year’s Eve too! What man doesn’t hit his wife?”
Then he turned to Lu Daqiang with a smile: “Daqiang, don’t be mad. I didn’t raise my daughter right. Beat her all you want; I won’t stop you.”
A son-in-law who’s a factory manager secures the jobs of sons and grandsons. Daughters are expendable.
Jiang Nuan collapsed in the snow, wet clothes sticking to her, but nothing compared to the chill in her heart.
“Dad! I’m your daughter!”
Slap! Another hit.
“Rude! Look at how fat you are. No man would want you if Da Qiang didn’t, and you only got beaten because you didn’t serve him well!” her mother, Li Cuizhen, sneered.
“He has another woman! That woman is Lu Rou!” Jiang Nuan screamed in anger.
The crowd fell silent.
Everyone’s eyes turned to Lu Daqiang.
His face went pale, fists clenched so tightly veins popped.
Then Lu Rou ran out crying: “Sister-in-law, I treated you like a sister! How could you accuse me and Da Qiang like that?”
Lu Daqiang’s mother fell to the ground, wailing, “Heaven! I can’t take this life anymore!”
Lu Daqiang’s anger flared. “You ungrateful woman! I saved you when you fell in the water, married you despite the village gossip, got jobs for your family, even endured your inability to have children, and you repay me like this? Look at how you’ve made my mother and Rou upset! Kneel and apologize now!”
Seeing the family’s ugliness, Jiang Nuan screamed: “I want a divorce!”
This ignited her family’s rage.
Jiang Jianguo pressed her head to the ground: “Divorce? You want to destroy the family? Apologize now!”
Her brother and others scolded her coldly, calling her selfish and ungrateful, threatening her for the sake of their jobs. Even her sister begged her to give in.
Lu Rou pretended to be sweet: “Forget it, it’s New Year. I won’t argue with my sister-in-law.”
Jiang Nuan was dragged back into the house. The door slammed, cutting off all hope.
“I’ll make you wish you were dead!” Lu Daqiang snarled, grabbing her hair.
Lu Rou handed him a shining knife.
But at the last moment, Jiang Nuan’s survival instinct kicked in. She shoved him away and ran for the door.
At the door, she heard her children crying.
Turning, her eyes widened in horror.
Her mother-in-law and Lu Rou had knives to her children’s necks.
“Mom! Run!” Lu Jie shouted through tears.
“Mom, escape! Don’t worry about us!” Lu Qing sobbed.
Jiang Nuan’s heart shattered—these were the children she had raised for twenty years, her only source of strength in this cold household.
She fell to her knees, bowing again and again: “Please, spare the children! Do whatever you want to me!”
“Crawl over here on your knees,” Lu Rou said smugly.
Her knees bled on the rough cement, but she rushed to her children.
As soon as she held them, two knives plunged into her abdomen.
Her children looked at her with cold disgust.
Lu Jie pushed her aside, running to Lu Rou with a smile: “Mom, did I act well?”
Lu Qing hugged Lu Rou: “Mom, we’re finally together!”
Lu Rou gently patted their heads.
Lu Daqiang laughed cruelly: “They are my and Rou’s children. You were just a free nanny!”
Lu Rou sneered: “Do you know why you never got thinner? Daqiang switched your medicine to fattening drugs! And those twins you lost? My mother fed you abortion medicine!”
Lu Daqiang’s mother smirked: “When that blood came out, I was so scared!”
Jiang Nuan vomited blood, staring at the man who knew everything.
“Lu Daqiang! How could you be so cruel? Those were your children!”
He coldly revealed a shocking secret:
“The children weren’t yours—they were my brother Lu Lin’s! I framed him, stole his money, and even poisoned him. Your miscarriage wasn’t from fever; it was my doing!”
Lu Rou laughed at Jiang Nuan’s pain: “Thank you for raising our children for us.”
Lu Daqiang kicked her knife wound. “Now you can join them.”
Bleeding and weak, Jiang Nuan crawled to a barrel of gasoline.
She doused the family with it and lit a match. Flames and screams erupted.
Despite her wounds, she fought on, stabbing Lu Daqiang and Lu Rou, silencing their cries.
Blood for blood.
Finally, exhausted and frozen, Jiang Nuan collapsed, thinking of her unfair life and betrayal, wishing for revenge in another life.
…
“Sister-in-law couldn’t have gone into second brother’s room, Xiao Jie!”
“I’m not lying! I saw her go in!”
Jiang Nuan’s eyes fluttered open.
The voices of Lu Rou and Lu Jie?
She wasn’t dead?
Wait—she heard Xiao Jie’s childhood voice.
Her eyes widened, meeting a man’s dark, restrained gaze…
Lu Lin?!
She realized her hand was on his defined abs, their clothes messy…
She sat up like a fish gasping for air.
She had been reborn—back to the day she was framed by Lu Daqiang and Lu Rou, the day everyone in the village saw her supposed affair!
“Big brother, sister-in-law likes you so much. How could she be in second brother’s room? For her honor, let’s go check,” Lu Rou’s sweet voice approached, and the door suddenly opened.