At that moment, the gate of the neighboring courtyard creaked open. Su Tong turned her head and saw a thin girl carrying a bamboo basket on her back—it was her cousin Wu Qiuyu. She looked like she was about to go out to cut pig grass.
Wu Qiuyu spotted Su Tong standing outside the courtyard wall and seemed startled. She froze and stared at her for a moment.
Her lips moved a few times as if she wanted to say something, but in the end she said nothing. She turned and ran off with her basket as if fleeing.
Su Tong withdrew her gaze and calmly pushed open the gate to her own courtyard.
The timing seemed almost perfect. As soon as the gate opened, a dark object flew out accompanied by a curse.
Su Tong sidestepped. The object struck the doorframe with a loud “bang” and bounced to the ground, spinning—it was a water ladle.
Wu Dongling was already crouched, trying to sneak out. The moment she saw Su Tong, she quickly stopped and screamed over her shoulder:
“Mom—Wu Tong is back!”
Wang Guilan was standing in the main room doorway with her hands on her hips and a dark expression, originally ready to scold Wu Dongling. But the moment she saw Su Tong, the mother and daughter immediately formed a united front against a common target.
Wang Guilan grabbed a shoulder pole from the side and cursed:
“Good! You shameless, unlucky thing! You still dare come back! You’ve ruined three marriages and even brought people to our door cursing us! Why don’t you just die outside! And you still have the face to come home!”
As she spoke, she swung the pole toward Su Tong while shouting to Wu Dongling, “Close the courtyard gate! I’m going to beat her to death today! Let’s see if she still thinks she’s something special!”
Su Tong thought to herself: straightforward indeed—no greeting, straight to the beating.
Wang Guilan put all her strength into the swing. The pole almost landed on Su Tong’s head before she sidestepped.
The strike missed, and Wang Guilan’s body staggered forward uncontrollably. It took several steps before she barely regained her balance.
Once steady, she erupted in curses again:
“Good! Stayed in the hospital for a few days and now you’ve got guts? You even dare dodge when your own mother is disciplining you!
You worthless, jinxed wretch! You really think you’re something now?
And you even got me sent to the police station for ‘education’! I’d like to see if you can still act so tough when you’re about to die!”
She swung the pole again.
Su Tong felt a chill in her heart.
Verbal abuse was one thing—but that pole was aimed at the head. If it landed on the original owner, one strike could have killed her.
There was no need for outsiders to bully her. Her own mother alone could send her to her grave.
What kind of cold-hearted family was this? They could strike their own child so brutally without a trace of affection…
Wang Guilan’s swings were completely unstructured. Su Tong dodged them easily.
After a few exchanges, Su Tong was completely unharmed, while Wang Guilan was already panting heavily.
In one missed swing, the pole struck a corner where several pickle jars were stacked. The jars shattered, spilling pickles across the ground.
In the past, whenever Wang Guilan beat “Wu Tong,” the girl would always shrink into a corner with her head down, letting herself be hit.
But today, not only did she dare to dodge—she dodged every strike. Meanwhile, Wang Guilan had exhausted herself without even touching her.
Her absolute authority had been challenged. Furious, she threw the pole aside and grabbed the dull knife used for chopping pig grass, rushing toward Su Tong.
The knife was not sharp, but its blade was thick and heavy—even if it didn’t kill, it could cripple.
This time, Su Tong did not dodge.
She reached out and grabbed Wang Guilan’s arm, locking it in place. Looking at her vicious face, she said coldly:
“What? Planning to kill me now?”
Wang Guilan trembled.
Today’s “Wu Tong” was completely different.
The grip on her arm felt like iron clamps—she couldn’t move at all. She didn’t even dare meet Su Tong’s eyes. Those eyes were like frozen ice, cold enough to chill her to the bone.
Her confidence wavered.
Her hand went weak. The heavy dull knife slipped from her grip and fell straight down onto her foot.
“Ah—!”
She screamed in pain, releasing her hand and clutching her foot while howling.
“She’s killing me! My daughter is killing her own mother!”
On the side, Wu Dongling immediately seized the opportunity, rushing to open the courtyard gate and shouting:
“Help! Someone help! My sister is trying to kill my mom!”
Watching the two of them escalate the chaos together, Su Tong felt nothing but contempt.
She calmly walked toward the side rooms.
There were three thatched-roof rooms: one kitchen, one wood storage room, and one was the original owner’s bedroom.
Inside was a wooden plank bed covered with straw, a thin blanket, and in the corner, a table, a cabinet, and a trunk—the entirety of the original owner’s belongings.
One leg of the cabinet was broken, propped up with bricks taken from Wu Dongling’s room.
Inside were a few thin sets of clothes, most washed so often they had lost all color.
In the trunk were several old middle school textbooks, still neatly arranged despite their age, showing how carefully they had been kept.
Su Tong felt a heaviness in her chest. This dim, worn-down room had held the entire short life of a young girl in bloom.
Silently, she took out a bundle cloth and tried to pack something.
But after searching through everything, she found nothing worth taking. In the end, she set the cloth down again.
She walked empty-handed into the west room of the main house, not even glancing at Wang Guilan crying and slapping her thigh in the courtyard.
The west room was where the original owner’s grandmother, Old Lady Wu, lived.
If there was any place in this family that had ever offered the original owner warmth, it was only here.
When she was younger, Old Lady Wu had been a well-known figure in the village—tough, sharp-tongued, even more domineering than Wang Guilan.
Wang Guilan had once been firmly suppressed by her. Only after giving birth to a son and as Old Lady Wu’s health declined—eventually becoming partially paralyzed—did Wang Guilan’s power grow and she gradually became the head of the household.
Fortunately, Wu Dashan, though mostly useless, still had some filial piety. During severe mother-in-law and daughter-in-law conflicts, he would occasionally dare to shout at his wife.
Because of Old Lady Wu’s insistence, the original owner had been allowed to continue school until the second year of junior high—until the day she became fully bedridden, when Wang Guilan immediately burned her schoolbag and forced her into farm work.
Old Lady Wu, like most rural grandmothers, also favored sons over daughters, was selfish and superstitious. Before Wang Guilan gave birth to a son, she too had suffered under Old Lady Wu’s harsh treatment.
And this… was exactly what puzzled Su Tong.