When I mentioned that name, the whole family’s faces turned ugly, filled with the embarrassment and shame of having the truth exposed.
Xie Yanlai came over and grabbed me: “Zhenzhen, what are you talking about…”
“You all know exactly what I’m talking about.”
Liu Cuizhi hurriedly grabbed my arm: “Don’t waste words on her, beat her hard! How dare she embarrass us like this…”
I shook off Liu Cuizhi: “Your son and I never got a marriage certificate. Your family hasn’t prepared a single thing, hasn’t given a penny of bride price. Look at how this room has been fixed up—you call this a bridal chamber? Even today’s banquet money was borrowed, all waiting for my parents’ family to pay! You think I don’t know your family’s scheme? If we divorce, you lose nothing. Even I, a woman, am not afraid of the shame—what are you afraid of?”
Liu Cuizhi jumped up cursing: “You lowly little slut, when did we ever do such things! Lying all over the place just like that shameless sister of yours! I must teach you a proper lesson!” She rushed over to hit me, but Xie Yanlai blocked her.
“Mom, don’t be like this—Zhenzhen is just speaking out of anger!” He turned back to look at me, anxiously shouting: “Apologize to Mom right now! You’re usually so obedient and docile—look what you’ve become! Spouting such nonsense!”
I sneered: “I’ve laid it all out this clearly, and you still won’t admit it? Forty yuan borrowed from Fourth Uncle Wang’s family, thirty-five from Liu Erdan’s family, a board of tofu from the village tofu shop, twenty-five yuan and forty eggs from Neighbor Aunt Zhou’s house! Shall we go ask them one by one? Who do you expect to repay this money? I certainly won’t pay a single cent.”
I used to be very well-behaved, but after being cheated by this scumbag for decades, by the later years I had become one of those shrewish women who could argue with a vegetable vor for an hour over a few cents. He’s the one who drove me to this.
Xie Yanlai’s family looked at each other, faces full of shock and confusion, all wondering how I knew.
Suppressing my anger, I said as calmly as I could: “Xie Yanlai, let’s be honest with our consciences. When my sister broke off the engagement with you, that was between the two of you. I had no grudge against you. You had no right to ruin my whole life just because you hated her.”
“I didn’t—I told you, my feelings for you are genuine…”
“Stop lying to me. I know everything. I will never marry you, and I refuse to become your tool for revenge. After all, your parents think I’m not worthy of you.”
Xie Yanlai’s parents believed that since their son had a proper job, I wasn’t good enough for him. In my past life, they schemed exhaustively to find him a better match—planning to dump me as soon as they found one.
Unfortunately, this scumbag didn’t do his job properly—eating, drinking, whoring, and gambling, he lost his job entirely. How could he find a good match then? In the , he could only cling to me like a maggot.
Xie Yanlai’s face looked as if it had been smeared with paste. Normally so glib and eloquent, he couldn’t utter a single word now.
Liu Cuizhi said anxiously: “Who did you hear that nonsense from! We never looked for another woman…”
I wasn’t in a hurry either, and smiled faintly: “Lin Baozhu. She’s a teacher, from Zhoujiatun originally. Do you need me to go on?”
This time even Liu Cuizhi was speechless, her face twisted into a knot, utterly ridiculous.
“Who exactly told you? Was it your sister?” Xie Yanlai gripped my shoulders, speaking through gritted teeth, a completely different person from the refined man he’d been moments ago.
It wasn’t my sister. All of this was blood-and-tears experience I had lived through myself in my past life.
A sharp pain shot through my shoulder. I pushed him away and said, word by word, “That’s right. It was my sister who said it.”
The people I hated weren’t just this family—I hated my sister Liu Yaolan too.
From childhood, she was my mother’s precious darling. To pay for her schooling, my brother and I left school early. She repeated three years of school before finally getting into a vocational college, and then my mother spent money pulling strings to get her a job at the Gongxiaoshe.
My brother was a boy, so he had it a bit better, but I grew up like a poor little cabbage.
Back then, Xie Yanlai had gone to great lengths—and spent plenty of money—to win my sister over. But after the two of them got engaged, he made a mistake: he fooling around with Cuifeng, the flirtatious queen who ran the village’s little shop, and got caught red-handed by her husband, who beat him badly.
My sister was well-informed. The moment she found out, she broke off the engagement, and within a few months she married a colleague from the Gongxiaoshe.
But by then she had already spent a good chunk of his money. Xie Yanlai came to my family’s home several times demanding it back, and every time my mother beat him out the door. So he went to the Gongxiaoshe to make a scene with my sister.
My sister didn’t want him pestering her, so she conspired with my mother to throw me out as a substitute.
The two of them never told me the truth, deliberately creating opportunities for me to be around Xie Yanlai. Later, she told me herself what she’d been thinking: it didn’t matter how he tormented me—as long as he married me, he would stop disturbing her life.
I thought I was his wife, but Xie Yanlai only saw me as a tool for revenge against my sister, and his parents treated me as their family’s free labor, working me like a donkey or a horse.
They never let us register our marriage. On one hand, they worked and tormented me to their heart’s content; on the other, they kept looking for a suitable bride to marry properly.
When I was four months pregnant, I walked in on Xie Yanlai being lovey-dovey with Lin Baozhu at a restaurant. Furious, I made a huge scene, and he kicked me until I miscarried—I lost my first child.
“How could your sister lie like that and ruin me! Zhenzhen, I didn’t!” Xie Yanlai clutched his hair, looking heartbroken, and crouched down on the floor.
I sneered. “Stop the act. You know exactly what happened. We’re done!”
I headed for the door, but Liu Cuizhi and Xie Yanlai together dragged me back inside.
Liu Cuizhi jabbed her finger at my forehead. “The wedding’s already been held, and you think you can just call it off? Let me be honest with you—I never liked you in the first place. But you’re not leaving now! Unless there’s compensation, I won’t agree to the two of you divorcing!”
“Mom, don’t—”
“Shut up! This is my call!” Liu Cuizhi snapped.
I folded my arms and stared at her. “So what do you want?”
Liu Cuizhi sneered. “What do you think! If you walk out now, you’ll make our whole family a laughingstock! Unless you serve my son for three years—work for our family for three years and bear a son before you go! Otherwise, you pay us a thousand yuan in damages!”
I couldn’t help but laugh. In my past life, it took them more than half a year to reveal their true colors, but this time they showed them on the very first day of the marriage—which was actually a good thing. My personality doesn’t l itself to scheming with people; being direct is better.
“And what if I’m not willing? What are you going to do about it?” I said.
Liu Cuizhi snorted coldly. “Xie Yanlai, if you’re a real man, go consummate the marriage with your wife! I refuse to believe we can’t handle this little brat!”
With that, she slammed the door shut, and I heard a click—the door had actually been locked from the outside.
Xie Facai said anxiously, “What are you all doing? How could a perfectly good wedding turn into this? Let me talk to Zhenzhen…”
Liu Cuizhi said, “Old man, stay out of it! That little witch needs discipline just like her sister!”
Xie Facai fell silent, the picture of a henpecked husband.
Xie Yanlai had already stood up, placing his hands on my shoulders. “Wife, don’t be angry. My mom just spoke in the heat of the moment—don’t take it to heart. We… ahhhh!”
Before he could finish, I drove my knee into his crotch and shoved him down onto the ground.
I said flatly, “Xie Yanlai, if you don’t divorce me, it’s anyone’s guess which of us will be tormenting the other.”
Xie Yanlai looked polished on the outside, but his physique was weak and he couldn’t do a damn thing. In my past life, I loved him wholeheartedly and trusted him completely, which was what gave him the chance to hurt me. Not this time. Absolutely not.
Liu Cuizhi shouted from outside, “Xie Yanlai, get up! Don’t let that little brat run wild!”
Xie Yanlai frowned, pushed himself up from the edge of the kang, and stalked toward me with a sinister look.
I looked around and found a small wooden stool in the corner—the kind used for sitting on while washing your feet.
Gripping the stool, I stared at him. “Xie Yanlai, I’ll give you one more chance. Tell your parents to let me go, or else I won’t be polite today. Don’t say you weren’t warned.”
“Zhenzhen! Why are you being so unreasonable? A few words of incitement from others and you don’t trust me anymore?”
He reached out to touch my face. I didn’t waste words on him—I shoved him away and swung the little stool hard against the glass beside me.