Early 1960s
Shanghai
People’s Hospital
Special Care Ward
“Mom, the only one in my heart is Silin. I want a divorce from Xie Li. If it hadn’t been to buy Silin some time back then, I never would’ve married Xie Li in the first place.”
The man lying on the hospital bed was handsome. He raised a hand to his forehead as he spoke to the woman standing beside the bed.
“Mom, Xie Li has gone crazy. She’s completely lost it she actually beat me into the ICU!”
He couldn’t tolerate it for even a second!
The woman looked troubled. After a long pause, she spoke:
“Son, back then Xie Li came into our family without matchmakers or betrothal gifts. You two didn’t even get a marriage certificate! After the wedding banquet, you ran off and left her here. She stayed with our family for three whole years! She washed clothes, cooked meals, and served your father and me. Everyone in Shanghai knows how virtuous and dutiful she is! Now you want to dump her outright… isn’t that a bit much? How are we supposed to explain this to the Xie family?”
Her brows knit tightly. After another pause, she lowered her voice:
“Dumping her directly would hurt your reputation. How about this over the next few days I’ll arrange for my distant nephew to come to Shanghai. We’ll drug Xie Li, toss her onto his bed, take a few photos, and you publish them in the papers. Ruin her reputation first, then cut ties with her. That way, you and Xie Silin can be together openly and legitimately.”
Mother and son exchanged a smile in the ward.
That’s how they’d do it!
Outside the ward, Xie Li clung to the small glass window in the door, watching her husband and mother-in-law happily plotting how to destroy her reputation so he could marry her foster sister.
Thrilling!
Way too thrilling!
Bang!!
She kicked the ward door open and charged in.
“Damn you, Pei Shuchen!”
The moment the words left her mouth, she went straight for Pei Shuchen’s mother!
Slaps to the mouth, fingers digging at eyeballs, heavy fists smashing down on her forehead!
By the end of it, Qi Yuehua was beaten so badly she had snot bubbles pouring out of her nose.
Xie Li beat her while yelling:
“You old hag! I serve you every day washing clothes, cooking, massaging your feet and shoulders! I even hand-washed your nasty, pickled-cabbage-vat underwear! You tell me to go east, I don’t dare go west! And this is how you scheme against me? You’re really a wonderful mother-in-law!”
Smack smack smack smack smack!
Her slaps fell like rain.
“Mom!!”
The man on the bed struggled to get up, but tubes were stuck all over him. Any movement sent stabbing pain through his body!
“Xie Li, you bitch! You’ve already hit my mom you’re not allowed to hit me too!”
Pei Shuchen shrank back into the corner of the bed.
Half a month earlier, he’d been tangled in bed with Xie Silin when Xie Li caught them red-handed. She completely abandoned her usual gentle, virtuous demeanor and beat him so badly he landed straight in the ICU.
How could he not be afraid?!
He’d nearly been beaten to death!
Qi Yuehua wiped the snot bubbles beaten out of her, grinding her teeth in fury.
What a filial son so filial you’re killing your own mother!
Xie Li sneered inwardly.
She had transmigrated into a novel the cannon-fodder female supporting character in one of those period-era stories she often read.
The male lead, Pei Shuchen, was her husband. The female lead, Xie Silin, was her foster sister.
She was the unwanted third wheel between the leads the used-and-discarded condom, the handcuffs for the two scumbags’ bedroom games.
The original host and the female lead had been switched at birth and only reunited three years ago.
Xie Silin refused to leave.
Her foster parents were wealthy capitalists in Beijing; her biological parents were poor lower-middle peasants, dirt-poor for generations.
She fought desperately to stay in the Xie family.
Afraid Xie Li would take everything from her, she had to drive Xie Li out to secure her own position.
So she went crying to her loyal lapdog, Pei Shuchen.
“Brother Shuchen, if you love me, you have to protect me and help me. I need your help right now!”
Pei Shuchen’s heart softened!
He decided to sacrifice himself. Gritting his teeth, he launched an all-out pursuit of the original host.
She was an innocent girl who had never seen the world how could she withstand the passionate advances of a handsome, gentlemanly young master?
So she married him.
Meanwhile, Xie Silin stayed by Xie Father and Xie Mother’s side, acting obedient and sensible, using every trick in the book to please them and solidify her status in the family.
Xie Father and Mother had never been close to this country-born biological daughter anyway. They casually gave her some worthless dowry and tossed her off to the Pei family.
Once tossed away, it was three years without so much as a phone call.
The moment the original host stepped into the Pei household, Pei Shuchen changed his face.
They never even consummated the marriage. He moved straight out, living in a suburban residence, and never returned.
The original host was soft-natured and had no one backing her up. Over time, she became a live-in servant in the Pei household.
Washing clothes, cooking meals, serving her in-laws while dutifully waiting for Pei Shuchen.
For a time, she became the laughingstock of all Shanghai: praised as the most virtuous daughter-in-law, mocked for becoming a “living widow” right after marriage.
She regretted it, but with no power and no support, she could only endure.
She had to be sensible or she’d have even less chance of pleasing her in-laws or her parents.
One day, the original host received a call saying Pei Shuchen needed her to deliver something to the suburban residence.
Thinking he’d had a change of heart, she brought the requested items over.
It was her first time there in three years.
And she unexpectedly caught Pei Shuchen and Xie Silin tangled together in bed.
All the grievances and years of endurance flooded back, and the original host died of rage on the spot.
When Xie Li transmigrated in, she arrived just in time to see Pei Shuchen and Xie Silin going at it with great enthusiasm.
While reading the novel, she’d been the male lead’s number-one hater.
She went straight in with a barrage of punches, beating Pei Shuchen until his eye needed stitches and he knelt on the floor calling her “Dad.”
In the end, she sent the scumbag straight into the ICU.
“Xie Li, we never got a marriage certificate. Legally, we’re not even husband and wife. Even if I’m with Silin, you have no right to interfere.”
Pei Shuchen interrupted her thoughts. His gaze was cold as he looked her up and down, mockery undisguised.
“I’ve never been into you. Do you know how ridiculous you look chugging coffee in one gulp? Do you know how embarrassing it was when you said you’d never eaten braised pork in front of my friends? You think acting like this now will get my attention? Dream on. I only pursued you back then for Silin.”
His brown eyes narrowed slightly, thin lips delivering the cruelest words:
“You filthy country bumpkin.”
Xie Li watched his dog mouth open and close, spewing nothing but filth.
Bang bang bang bang bang!!
“Damn it let go!!”
Xie Li grabbed his hair, yanked his head, and slammed it into the wall over and over.
Eighty! Eighty! Eighty!
“I married into your Pei family for three years without matchmakers or betrothal gifts. I washed clothes, cooked, scrubbed floors, and served your parents. You mess around outside and still want me to take the blame? Did you eat too much shit and forget to drink piss, choking your skull until your brain shrank?”
She spoke as she smashed, lamenting the original host’s misery.
Qi Yuehua cowered in the corner.
Her son was getting beaten.
She clenched her fists when a mother’s heart hardens, it hardens.
Qi Yuehua closed her eyes.
Son, even your mother can’t beat her. You’re on your own.
She couldn’t understand how the once-timid Xie Li had suddenly become as ferocious as a wild boar. Was she possessed?
Creak—
The ward door opened.
A nurse came in to change Pei Shuchen’s dressing. Before he could cry for help, she turned around, walked out, and thoughtfully closed the door behind her.
She was only here to change his dressing not trade lives with him.
Besides, scumbags deserve to be beaten.
“Divorce is fine too!”
Xie Li finally stopped, satisfied.
“I worked as a servant in your Pei household for three years. Labor fees, emotional damages, youth compensation your family has to pay it all!”
Qi Yuehua nodded frantically.
“Pay! We’ll pay, pay, pay, pay!”
Though her family wasn’t as wealthy as the Xie’s, they were still one of the notable capitalist families in Beijing!
If money could solve it, then it wasn’t a problem!
Xie Li bared her teeth in a grin and continued:
“And Pei Shuchen has to publish an apology in the newspapers, clearly stating that he cheated and caused the divorce.”