22
The Revelation of the Matter
As educated men, it was simply because his scholarly achievements couldn’t match Liu Yao Zong’s that his treatment was inferior.
He also wished he could eat more meat like Liu Yao Zong.
Yu Xiang noticed her son gazing at Liu Yao Zong with a mix of envy and resentment, so she pinched Liu Quan under the table.
Though it hurt, Liu Quan dared not cry out. He looked at his mother who had pinched him, only to receive a glare in return. Feeling wronged, he continued eating the rice in his bowl.
He wanted to cry!
After the meal.
Grandma Liu headed straight for Liu Qing Yang’s room without knocking and pushed the door open.
The sight that met her eyes was her son with cloth stuffed in his mouth. When he saw her, he immediately began making muffled “mmph mmph” sounds.
The medicine on his body had been carelessly applied, and he emitted a musty odor. He had grown much thinner.
His condition seemed to have worsened.
Damn that Song Xiao Lan!
With a pained heart, Grandma Liu removed the cloth from his mouth. Her hand trembled as she touched Liu Qing Yang’s face, his beard prickly against her skin.
“Mother… mother~, that Song Xiao Lan… cough…” Liu Qing Yang couldn’t even finish his sentence before breaking into another coughing fit.
When he finally stopped coughing and removed the hand covering his mouth, there was blood.
Grandma Liu’s body shook with fear. “My son, don’t speak now. Mother will fetch the doctor,” she said urgently before stumbling out of the room.
Liu Qing Yang tried to push himself up with his hands but failed, forced to watch helplessly as his mother left.
He wanted to tell her not to let that venomous woman Song Xiao Lan care for him anymore – he’d survived the wolf attack only to be killed by her instead.
Grandma Liu spotted Liu Quan idling in the courtyard and immediately called him over, instructing him to fetch the doctor while she went to confront that venomous woman.
Upon hearing his grandmother’s words, Liu Quan ran off to find the doctor.
During this time, the women were all in the kitchen preparing medicine. Grandma Liu stormed over, shouting as she went:
“Song Xiao Lan, you venomous woman! Are you trying to kill my son? Damn you, you *******…”
Her curses grew increasingly vulgar. Liu Yao Zong heard the shouting from his room and found it truly offensive.
Frowning, he recognized his mother’s voice and set down his book to investigate.
Meanwhile, Song Xiao Lan remained unaware of the impending disaster, still directing Yu Xiang to help her prepare the medicine.
She went on and on about timing the medicine preparation correctly and not making any mistakes, threatening that if anything happened to her husband, she would blame Yu Xiang.
Though extremely irritated, Yu Xiang said nothing. She just wondered when her mother-in-law would discover the “good work” Song Xiao Lan had been doing.
“Hey, hey! Don’t lift the lid off that pot! It’s not time to check it yet.”
Hearing Song Xiao Lan speak up again, Yu Xiang turned back with a sigh. “This pot of medicine isn’t yours.”
“So what? I want whichever one I want.” After all, the medicines were all the same.
Yu Xiang explained, “How can we mix these medicines? The doctor already said that since my husband had a chunk of flesh torn from his leg, we added an extra herb to his prescription. Aren’t you afraid what might happen if your husband takes it?”
Yu Xiang felt her head was about to explode. Had this woman not listened to the doctor? The doctor had explained to each of them separately which medicine was whose, fearing they might mix them up and cause an accident.
She simply couldn’t understand – what did Liu Qing Yang see in Song Xiao Lan? She was lazy and gluttonous. If her mother-in-law didn’t discover the truth soon with the way Song Xiao Lan was “caring” for him, wouldn’t Liu Qing Yang end up dead?
“What’s there to fear? Weren’t they both bitten by wolves? You’re making a fuss over nothing.” Song Xiao Lan’s face showed complete indifference.
Grandma Liu had just reached the doorway when she overheard the conversation between her two daughters-in-law. Song Xiao Lan’s words nearly sent her to an early grave.
Furious, Grandma Liu grabbed a broom, kicked the door open with force, and saw Song Xiao Lan looking completely at ease while only the second daughter-in-law was busy brewing medicine.
Without a word of explanation, she began striking Song Xiao Lan with the broom, shouting as she hit, “You venomous woman! You can’t even take proper care of your own husband, you wretched ***! How did our Qingyang end up marrying a ** like you, you little ***…!”
The blows were painfully sharp, and Song Xiao Lan wanted to ask why her mother-in-law was hitting her. But hearing the old woman’s curses, she immediately realized the truth had come out.
Dodging and explaining at the same time, Song Xiao Lan cried, “Mother, what’s the big deal? The doctor said he’ll recover anyway—why make such a fuss? I’ve been brewing medicine and applying compresses, haven’t I? I’m the one who cleans his body every day. You, his own mother, haven’t lifted a finger to help even once.”
The more she spoke, the more aggrieved she felt. It wasn’t as if she’d done nothing at all. She was exhausted from working all day—what did it matter if she cut a few corners?
Hearing this only fueled Grandma Liu’s rage, and she felt a sharp pain in her chest.
She raised the broom again and struck with renewed viciousness, holding back nothing.
“Ah! You’re really doing this?” Song Xiao Lan could tell the old woman had taken her words to heart and was now fighting in earnest.
Seeing her face scratched by the broom, she too grew angry and began wrestling for the broom.
“Don’t think I won’t hit you back! You’re beating me over such a trivial matter—my family won’t take this lying down!”
She had over a dozen brothers and male cousins to back her up.
As she argued and struggled for the broom, Song Xiao Lan shoved hard and accidentally pushed Grandma Liu against the wall.
“Aah—!” Grandma Liu slammed into the wall, her head striking the surface and immediately bleeding profusely.
She felt as though her back might be broken. Dizziness washed over her.
Song Xiao Lan watched in shock as Grandma Liu hit the wall, head bleeding, and pointed a trembling finger at her.
“You…!”
Before she could finish, Grandma Liu collapsed unconscious.
Yu Xiang felt a headache coming on—was the Liu Family cursed? One disaster after another.
She rushed over to support the unconscious Grandma Liu and glared at the stunned Song Xiao Lan.
“Go get a doctor, now! Do you want her to die?” she yelled.
Only then did Song Xiao Lan snap out of it. Muttering, “Oh… oh, I’ll go right away,” she hurried out to find a doctor.
Liu Yao Zong arrived just then and saw his mother standing nervously at the door, mumbling, “The doctor—yes, find the doctor.”
As he entered the room, he saw his grandmother lying on the floor, blood streaming from her head, with his second aunt watching helplessly.
Calmly, he told his aunt, “I’ll fetch the doctor. Don’t move Grandma.” There was no relying on his mother.
What a mess.
He dashed outside and had just reached the gate when he saw Liu Quan bringing a doctor in. “Doctor, come quickly!” he urged.
“Alright, alright,” the doctor replied.
Liu Quan didn’t ask who was injured. He just wiped the sweat from his brow and collapsed unceremoniously onto the ground.
He was utterly spent. The two middle-aged doctor brothers weren’t available, so he’d had to fetch this physician in his sixties.
The old doctor moved so slowly that Liu Quan had ended up carrying him part of the way, setting him down to walk when he got tired, then repeating the process.
Now, as a scholar unused to manual labor, he had no strength left at all.
He had no idea who was injured, but since Grandma told him to fetch the doctor, it probably wasn’t his father.
His father was being well taken care of by his mother—he’d even gained quite a bit of weight compared to before the injury. Though restricted to light meals, his mother still found ways to nourish him, like adding goji berries to his congee.
He envied that. He wanted some too, but his mother wouldn’t allow it.
“If you dare eat any, you’ll get a slap,” she’d say. Even his father’s pleas were useless.
Was this what they called “henpecked”?