My brother sighed, unable to find words of comfort for a long while, and could only say, “I think you were right not to marry him. You’ve got me—I’ll protect you. I’ll cover any compensation too. As for your sister… I think she must have been deceived as well.”
I wiped away my tears and gave him a brilliant smile. “Thank you, big brother!”
“What a silly girl,” my brother said with a smile, patting my back.
Our home was in the hollow just ahead, and we got there in ten-odd minutes.
The courtyard wasn’t big. Loofah flowers covered the fence, and the little vegetable garden had beans and eggplants. Crickets chirped in the vegetable plot. Everything was just as I remembered—the house was old and worn, the courtyard a bit messy.
Zhao Qin had only ever had her daughter on her mind, never thinking about how the family got by.
I slowed down as I reached the gate.
It really had been so many years since I’d come back. After Father died, I was driven out, and for decades I hadn’t been able to take a single step back inside.
The courtyard was silent—everyone was probably asleep. You couldn’t tell at all that a daughter had been married off from here today; there wasn’t even a single “double happiness” character on the door.
Big brother said, “Your sister and brother-in-law came too, saying they were here for the wedding. They’re in the east wing. Go get some sleep first—we’ll talk about everything tomorrow morning.”
I nodded. Just then the door of the main room opened, and my father came out. He must have been heading to the outhouse. He was just as I remembered—graying hair, a haggard face, and even with his daughter getting married, he wore only a set of shabby old clothes.
Seeing me, he froze. “Er Ni, why are you back?”
“I can’t live with Xie Yanlai. He doesn’t love me—he’s only marrying me to get back at my sister. They’d work me to death. So I’m going to divorce him,” I said calmly.
My feelings toward my father were complicated. He never hit me or scolded me, but he never looked after me either. He had always turned a blind eye to us children, living only in his own world.
My father was silent for a long time, then sighed. “What a sin! Go back and sleep. We’ll see what your mother says tomorrow.” With that, he headed to the back courtyard, his steps unsteady.
I suddenly felt desolate and forlorn. This was my father—would I really never receive his love in this lifetime either?
My brother comforted me: “That’s just how Dad is. Don’t take it to heart. I was away for over half a year, and when I came back this time, it was like he didn’t even see me. He… he has his own hardships too.”
I nodded. “It’s fine. As long as Dad didn’t drive me out, I’m more than satisfied.”
My brother said a few more words of comfort to me, then went off to bed.
I returned to my own room—a room I hadn’t seen in decades. Just as I remembered, it was cramped and shabby. The outer room was piled with clutter, two sacks of grain, and on the kang lay worn bedding, the kang mat full of holes.
I lay down on the kang, my hand touching the patches on the quilt, not knowing what to feel. After all these decades, I had actually come back.
I thought I wouldn’t be able to sleep, but in fact I was asleep the moment my head hit the pillow.
I didn’t wake until I heard the sound of water outside—my father was up watering the garden. I quickly sat up and got dressed.
Zhao Qin’s voice carried over: “Keep it down! Our daughter and son-in-law are home, and they finally got to sleep in. What if you wake her up?”
“Mm.” My father agreed and kept watering the plants. After a pause, he said, “The girl said she can’t get along with Xie Yanlai. She came back in the middle of the night.”
Zhao Qin immediately grew anxious: “How could she do something so shameful! I told her to go right back. Does that wretched girl not want us to live in peace?”
“No need. I’m not going back.” I pushed the door open and stepped out, meeting her eyes—full of disgust and hatred.
In my past life, I probably would have been terrified and flustered, wondering what I’d done to displease her this time. But in this life, I was completely calm. Toward Zhao Qin, I no longer had any expectations or feelings.
After learning the truth, I was heartbroken—but it was also a kind of release. Since she wasn’t my birth mother, I could understand anything she did.
She looked just like she had back then, wearing a bright red coat, so fat that the clothes were stretched out of shape, wheezing with every step—probably around a hundred eighty or ninety jin.
I’d seen photos of her when she was young; she was quite pretty, otherwise Liu Yaolan and my brother wouldn’t have been so good-looking. But her husband never showed her any affection. He went out to work and cheated, then brought the other woman and her child home. That was when Zhao Qin completely broke down.
She had been a widow in all but name since her twenties, never worked, and had nothing to do every day but eat. That was how she ed up like this.
Zhao Qin noticed I wasn’t afraid of her. Surprise flashed through her eyes, but she quickly recovered her look of disgust: “What are you up to now? You know you’re not alone, right? You have a brother and a sister. Coming back so soon—you’re letting everyone point fingers at our family. Go back now.”
“But…”
She looked at me with utter contempt: “I don’t want to hear your excuses. You’re married now—you’re not a child anymore. Go back. I don’t want to see you!”
My father said, “Er Ni has it hard too…”
“No.” Zhao Qin’s voice was ice-cold. “Shut up.”
My father fell silent.
Watching her keep driving me away, I smiled: “In any other family, when a daughter returns home the day after her wedding, they’d surely be worried about her. But you’re only worried about me embarrassing you. I don’t mind—hasn’t our family already been disgraced long ago?”
Zhao Qin frowned. “What did you say?”
“My sister’s fiancé—she didn’t want him, and after breaking off the engagement, she had me take her place. The people in the village said such awful things, and you just preted not to hear. When my sister broke off the engagement, you said that even though it would look bad, my sister’s lifelong happiness came first. Why is it different this time? Because the unlucky one is me, not my sister—so it doesn’t matter to you, right?”
Zhao Qin raised her hand and punched me: “How dare you talk to your mother like that? Go over there and apologize right now!”
“I’m not going. I did nothing wrong.” Rubbing my aching chest, I walked over to stand behind my father and looked at her: “Dad, she and my sister tricked me together. That man was fooling around with a woman from our village—that’s why my sister broke off the engagement. But because my sister had spent so much of Xie Yanlai’s money and couldn’t pay it back, they tricked me into marrying him instead. That beast said he married me just to get revenge on our family. If you’re really my father, don’t make me go back.”
My father stood there completely stunned, unable to process what I had just said.
“You’re talking nonsense!” Zhao Qin rushed over, grabbed my ear, and yanked it hard. A sharp pain shot through my ear, and I instinctively pushed her away.
In two lifetimes, this was the first time I had ever stood up to Zhao Qin. She clearly hadn’t expected me to fight back—she staggered several steps and nearly fell to the ground.
“You dare hit back?” Her eyes were full of shock and fury, and she charged at me again to strike me.
I dodged to the side, watching the expression on her face that looked like she wanted to tear me apart, and said calmly, “I heard my brother-in-law is back too? If you don’t want this to turn into an ugly scene, you’d better not hit me again. With all these messy affairs, I don’t believe that educated brother-in-law of mine wouldn’t care if he found out.”
Zhao Qin’s lips twitched, then she said through gritted teeth, “Fine, I won’t waste words on you. Go make breakfast—your sister and your brother-in-law will be getting up soon.”
“I’m not going,” I said. “Why should it always be me waiting on her? Today, let me have a taste of my sister’s cooking for once.”
With that, I turned and headed back to my room to wash up. Just as I opened the door, a sharp pain struck me from behind. I turned around to see Zhao Qin swinging an iron pair of tongs, which had landed hard on my body. The pain brought tears to my eyes.
Zhao Qin’s eyes were red with rage, and she hurled a stream of curses at me—calling me a dead bitch, someone who couldn’t stand to see my sister happy, a trouble-stirring piece of shit, a curse-bringing ancestor, and the like. Her voice wasn’t loud, but every word was the vilest kind of curse. If I had heard this in my past life, I probably would have already burst into tears, but now I felt nothing at all.
Meanwhile, my father had squatted off to the side, smoking his pipe with a face full of misery, not even lifting his head. He wanted nothing to do with any of this.
“I told you to go make breakfast for your sister. Are you deaf!”
I rubbed my back with one hand and looked at her calmly: “From today on, I will not wait on Liu Yaolan anymore, and I certainly won’t listen to you.”