The moment the porridge entered Li Dachuan’s stomach, the bedroom door suddenly flew open.
Li Dajun stood there, looking terrified.
He shouted in shock, trying to stop him.
“Dad! Don’t! You can’t eat that!”
Originally, he had planned to peek through the doorway.
But just then, Grandma came home, so he turned away and exchanged a few words with her.
When he looked back, he saw his father actually holding the bowl and drinking from it.
At that moment, he couldn’t deny it—
His legs nearly went weak with fear.
Wang Xiuying immediately rushed inside.
With one hand, she knocked the bowl onto the floor.
With the other, she shoved Qiao Nian while crying out,
“You damned harbinger of bad luck! This is all your fault! It’s only your first day in this family and you’ve already harmed my Dachuan!”
She then shoved her fingers toward Li Dachuan’s throat.
“Son! You can’t eat that porridge! Hurry and spit it out!”
Li Dachuan’s expression changed.
He knew exactly what kind of person his mother was.
Hearing those words, how could he not understand?
He didn’t even wait for Wang Xiuying to make him vomit.
He shoved his own fingers down his throat and immediately began vomiting violently.
“Quick! Get him to the hospital!”
Wang Xiuying was frantic.
Rat poison was no joke.
If things went badly, her son could genuinely lose his life.
She grabbed Li Dachuan and hurried outside.
Before leaving, she turned back and warned Qiao Nian,
“Qiao Nian, stay home and watch the three children. If even one hair on their heads is harmed, you’ll answer to me!”
A bright light flashed in Qiao Nian’s eyes.
The hunt begins.
There was only one strong adult man in the Li family.
Now that Li Dachuan had been taken to the hospital, only the three children and the paralyzed Old Master Li remained at home.
Old Master Li was bedridden.
If only Li Dachuan could stay in the hospital forever…
The moment Li Xiaojun saw his father and grandmother leave, he charged toward Qiao Nian.
“You wicked woman! How dare you poison my dad!”
Li Xiaojun had been frightened senseless earlier.
While his eldest brother had dragged him outside, Li Dajun had spoken to him and explained what he was planning.
But now, someone had to take the blame for what happened.
Putting the blame on this wicked woman was the best possible outcome.
Everyone had seen his father being taken away just now.
Someone had to carry the accusation.
And if they could use it to drive this woman out of the family, even better.
Qiao Nian looked at him calmly.
“You little brat. Your brother was the one who brought the porridge. So it looks like you knew about this too.”
“Tell me right now—what exactly do you three have against your father? Why would you poison your own dad?”
Her hands had already grown sore from beating people at the Qiao family home.
Qiao Nian glanced around.
Then she grabbed the broom standing beside the front door.
Smack! Smack! Smack!
She swung it repeatedly against Li Xiaojun’s backside.
“Does your father normally treat you badly? How did he raise an ungrateful little brat like you?”
Li Xiaojun screamed as the broom came down again and again.
His buttocks burned with pain.
Even with the neighbors peeking out from their doorways, he stubbornly refused to back down.
“It wasn’t me! It wasn’t me! It was you! You poisoned my dad!”
An elderly man nearby, his back bent with age, looked at him in surprise.
“What’s this, Xiaojun? Didn’t your dad just get sick from eating something bad and have to go to the hospital?”
His son had worked the night shift and was resting at home today.
Earlier, Wang Xiuying had gone around the neighborhood asking people for help.
His son had gone over as well.
The old man had personally heard Wang Xiuying say that Li Dachuan had simply gotten sick from something he ate.
So what was this?
Was there something else going on?
His curious gaze shifted toward the group standing by the doorway.
Li Xiaojun’s entire body stiffened.
His grandmother had never said anything about poisoning.
He had just accidentally exposed the truth himself.
Li Dajun immediately stepped in to smooth things over.
“No, Uncle Chen. Xiaojun misunderstood. He thought Dad’s illness was caused by poisoning. He’s still young and doesn’t understand. He was just talking nonsense.”
Qiao Nian sneered inwardly.
The three Li brothers were quite interesting.
The youngest was an idiot who exploded at the slightest provocation.
The second was devious, always secretly stirring up trouble behind people’s backs.
But the eldest…
He was the most vicious of all.
And yet, ironically, he cared the most about his reputation.
He wanted to keep both his dignity and his hidden secrets.
But that depended on whether she was willing to let him.
And today…
She was going to strip him down until there was nothing left to hide.
Qiao Nian stopped hitting Li Xiaojun.
Instead, she pointed the broom directly at Li Dajun.
With an expression of someone desperately disappointed in a child, she said,
“Dajun, you tell them.”
“You were the one who brought that bowl of porridge. What exactly did you put in it?”
“Why did your father turn deathly pale and start foaming at the mouth after drinking it?”
“Even if you don’t tell us, the doctors at the hospital will figure it out!”
The surrounding neighbors fell silent.
What?!
So there really was something going on?
The Li family certainly had no shortage of drama.
“Dajun always seems like such a well-behaved child. Surely he couldn’t do something like this. Maybe there’s some misunderstanding?”
“You haven’t been married into the neighborhood for long, so you don’t know. That kid looks well-behaved now, but he caused plenty of trouble when he was younger.”
“How can a child be so vicious? He can poison his own father. Who knows, maybe he’ll poison one of us someday if we cross him!”
“Don’t scare me! I’m never getting involved with the Li family again. What if they secretly poison you one day and you don’t even know?”
“Exactly. We need to warn our children too. Our kids absolutely cannot play with those three Li brothers anymore.”
Listening to the neighbors’ discussion, Li Dajun’s face burned with humiliation.
He glared at Qiao Nian with venomous hatred, looking as though he wanted to tear her apart.
Then he shouted,
“Don’t falsely accuse me! That’s my own father! How could I possibly hurt him?”
“It was you! You don’t want to be our stepmother, so you tried to kill my dad!”
Qiao Nian seized the opportunity and whacked him hard with the broom.
“It’s not a big deal when someone makes a mistake. What’s important is that you bravely admit it—that still makes you a good child. Since neither you nor I did it, then someone else must have. In that case, I’ll report this to the police. We can’t just let your father suffer for nothing!”
Qiao Nian tossed the broom aside.
Without even looking at him, she turned around and started walking toward the door to report the matter to the police.
Seeing that she was actually going to do it, Li Dajun immediately panicked.
His mind went blank, and he hurried forward to block her path.
Trying to sound intimidating despite his fear, he stammered,
“You… you can’t go!”
Everyone watching immediately understood.
“So it really was him who poisoned his own father!”
“I’ve truly seen everything today. Even a tiger won’t eat its own cub. He’s only eleven! What will happen when he gets older? Won’t he be killing people and setting fires?”
“Wait, that doesn’t make sense. If he wanted to kill someone, shouldn’t he have killed his stepmother instead? Why kill his own father?”
“Shh, I heard that their biological mother was beaten to death by Dachuan. Maybe he’s trying to avenge his mother?”
“I think he’s just like his father. That whole family is vicious.”
Everyone lived in the same compound, so it was impossible to keep anything secret for long. Normally, they simply couldn’t be bothered to interfere in other people’s affairs.
As they discussed what had happened, their gazes toward Qiao Nian gradually became filled with sympathy.
She had just married into the family and already had to take care of these three children—and all three of them were vicious.
And Dachuan was known for beating people.
That poor girl… she really had a hard life.
Qiao Nian pretended not to notice their sympathetic looks.
After exchanging a few words with everyone, she grabbed the three brothers and took them inside.
That’s three more in the bag.
After what had happened today, no matter what she did to them, everyone would simply assume she was a stepmother trying to discipline her stepsons and steer them onto the right path.
The Li family’s house wasn’t particularly small, measuring around sixty or seventy square meters.
Li Dachuan had his own room.
The three boys shared another room.
After Old Master Li became paralyzed, Wang Xiuying complained that he smelled bad, so she separated off a small area beside the living room with a curtain and made him lie there.
When Qiao Nian brought the three brothers inside, Old Master Li was already struggling to move toward them, making distressed “ah, ah” sounds.
Old Master Li had suddenly collapsed beside his bed one night when he got up to use the toilet.
By the time Wang Xiuying discovered him, it was already the following morning.
Half of his body had already gone cold.