“Li Guiying, you… what are you doing?!”
Wang Xiaofang’s mother never expected An Jianjun’s mother to actually come charging over—and she even had a feather duster in her hand.
“What am I doing? I’m here to settle the score with you! You’ve been spreading rumors and ruining my son and daughter-in-law’s reputation, so now I’m going to expose your Wang family for what you really are!”
An’s mother had already been swallowing her anger because her son’s wedding was just around the corner.
She had been thinking that she should at least get everything settled properly before her son left.
But now Wang Sufen actually dared to badmouth her son.
Fine.
She was going to tear off that last bit of shame and see who would really end up embarrassed.
Wang Sufen had been intimidated by An’s mother’s aggressive arrival. It took her a moment to recover.
“What are you settling with me for? I haven’t even settled things with your An family yet! What exactly do you mean by this? You came to meet my Xiaofang for a marriage arrangement, and then turned around and decided to marry an educated youth!”
Wang Sufen had always been unable to keep her mouth shut.
Before anything had even been finalized, she had already gone around bragging to everyone that her daughter, Xiaofang, was incredibly lucky and would soon become the wife of a battalion commander.
Now that An Jianjun had turned around and chosen someone else, she had been completely humiliated.
“What do you mean? This is the first time I’ve heard that meeting someone once means you have to marry them!”
“I already told you that our Jianjun wasn’t interested, so we didn’t want to waste your Xiaofang’s time. But instead, you people started playing dirty behind our backs. And now you even dare to dump all this filth on our An family?”
“You really are shameless! No wonder they say the rotten apple doesn’t fall far from the tree!”
An’s mother finally let out all the anger she had been holding inside.
If Wang Xiaofang hadn’t done something so disgraceful, her most promising son wouldn’t have been forced into arranging his marriage so quickly with Feng Jiaojiao.
“You… Li Guiying, don’t push me too far!”
“What do you mean by saying we played dirty? And what do you mean by saying we’re rotten from top to bottom? I think your family is the one with problems!”
Wang Sufen angrily fired back.
“What’s going on here? Why are you two arguing again?”
The village brigade leader arrived.
“Captain, you have to stand up for our An family!”
An’s mother immediately slapped her thigh and began complaining dramatically.
“I’m being bullied to death! I respected our years of friendship as fellow villagers and tried to save the Wang family some face, but they just keep trampling all over our An family’s reputation!”
“Li Guiying, stop talking nonsense! Who is bullying whom? Does your An family think you can just do whatever you want?”
Wang Sufen deliberately directed those words at the brigade leader, warning him not to take An’s side.
The brigade leader’s expression turned cold.
“You two are going to explain everything clearly. Who started this?”
“There are so many people here who witnessed what happened. If you’re afraid we won’t be able to sort it out among ourselves, then we can take this to the police station and settle it there. I guarantee everything will be handled fairly.”
“It was Wang Sufen who started spreading filthy rumors!”
An’s mother immediately pointed at her.
“What did our third son ever do to offend her? She went around badmouthing my son and his wife until everyone started gossiping about them!”
“I don’t care what anyone else says. Those words came from her mouth, so I’m only here to settle things with her!”
An’s mother knew perfectly well that the Wang family was the real source of the problem.
“I didn’t say anything wrong!” Wang Sufen protested.
“The two families were getting along just fine, and then you suddenly changed your minds and decided to marry an educated youth instead. Now my Xiaofang stays locked inside the house every day because she’s too embarrassed to face anyone!”
“This is your An family’s fault!”
Wang Sufen was also genuinely resentful.
Her daughter had been completely heartbroken and was now acting like she had lost her soul.
“Our third son simply didn’t like your Xiaofang!”
“Were you expecting us to force my son to marry your daughter?”
“That’s what a matchmaking meeting is for! You meet, see whether you like each other, and then decide whether to continue.”
“They didn’t even hit it off the first time. How could we possibly continue?”
“I already told your Wang family that Jianjun wasn’t interested. Wasn’t that the end of it? What more do you want from us?”
An’s mother’s anger intensified.
“But your Wang family is the one that did something despicable!”
“You actually drugged our third son, hoping to force the two of them into a relationship and make him marry your daughter!”
“You were trying to harm a military officer! What exactly were you people thinking?!”
“I didn’t report your family to the police only because we’ve been neighbors for so many years and because Wang Xiaofang is still a young girl who may not have understood the seriousness of what she did.”
“And yet you people still dared to push your luck!”
This time, An’s mother had no intention of protecting their reputation.
If the Wang family wanted to make a scene, then she would make sure everyone knew exactly what had happened.
The An family wasn’t afraid.
Her son was already going to marry Feng Jiaojiao, so no one could change that.
“Who… who did something despicable?!”
“Who drugged your son?!”
“How dare you slander my Xiaofang?!”
“I’ll fight you!”
The moment Wang Sufen heard Li Guiying accusing her daughter of such a thing, she immediately lost control.
If this became public, how would Xiaofang ever get married?
The two women immediately started fighting.
They grabbed each other’s hair, scratched and pinched one another, and even slapped each other across the face.
The villagers watching them became increasingly excited.
The brigade leader hurried forward to separate them, but he ended up getting caught in the middle and was left looking rather disheveled himself.
“Stop!”
“If you don’t stop right now, I’m sending both of you to the police station!”
The two women finally stopped.
“What exactly happened here?”
“And what is this business about someone being drugged?”
The brigade leader hadn’t expected the situation to be this serious.
Drugging someone was no small matter.
“She’s lying!” Wang Xiaofang’s mother immediately protested.
“How can you accuse my Xiaofang of something like that? Li Guiying, you’re too vicious!”
“Hmph. Whether she did it or not, she knows the truth herself.”
“Why don’t you call your daughter out here and confront her face-to-face?”
An’s mother wasn’t afraid of her at all.
Whether Wang Xiaofang had acted alone or whether the Wang family had instructed her to do it, An’s mother hated them for it.
Something like this could have gotten her son killed.
And she had a pretty good idea where the drug had come from.
Old Wang was responsible for breeding the livestock in the brigade. He was essentially the village veterinarian, and naturally had access to medicines used for animal breeding.
Yet someone had dared to use that kind of medicine on her son.
That was practically an attempt on his life.
Thankfully, nothing serious had happened to Jianjun.
Otherwise, she would have burned the entire Wang family’s house down herself.
“What?! Xiaofang drugged An Jianjun?”
“I never would have guessed!”
“No way!”
“But if it really didn’t happen, Li Guiying wouldn’t dare make such an accusation. This is serious enough to get someone arrested and charged!”
“You…”
Wang Sufen was also frightened by the seriousness of the accusation.
“Where is Wang Xiaofang?” the brigade leader asked.
“Did you adults do this, or did Wang Xiaofang do it herself?”
The brigade leader had also realized something.
Old Wang was indeed the only person in the brigade who would have access to medicines used for livestock breeding.
This was no laughing matter.
If something went wrong, someone could have died.
They had to get to the bottom of it.
Meanwhile, Wang Xiaofang was hiding inside the house, trembling with fear.
She had regretted drugging An Jianjun almost immediately after doing it.
And nothing had even happened between them.
When she heard that An Jianjun and Feng Jiaojiao were getting married, she suspected that the drug she had used might have caused everything to go wrong.
For the past two days, she had been too frightened to leave the house, terrified that the An family would come looking for her.
She had tried to hide.
But she never expected her own mother to get angry on her behalf and accidentally expose everything.
“Impossible!”
“My daughter couldn’t have gotten hold of that medicine. I kept it locked away properly.”
“You can’t falsely accuse my Xiaofang!”
Wang Xiaofang’s father finally stepped forward.
He had always been responsible for the brigade’s livestock and was essentially the village veterinarian.
That included handling livestock breeding as well.