Lu Yichen genuinely felt he had reached his limit. He couldn’t understand—when had Lin Ruochu become so unreasonable? It was just a wedding ceremony, for crying out loud! Did she really have to hound him relentlessly over this and deliberately humiliate him?
Lin Ruochu had never realized that Lu Yichen possessed such a shameless side, let alone noticed the undisguised impatience etched across his face. What on earth was he feeling impatient about?
Unable to hold it in, Lin Ruochu shot Lu Yichen a look of absolute disgust. “I’ve seen shameless people before, but I’ve never seen anyone quite as shameless as you.”
“I told you I’m calling off the engagement. Did you take my words for a joke, or are you just playing dumb right here so you can swallow my dowry whole?”
Stung by Lin Ruochu’s blunt words, Lu Yichen felt immensely humiliated. Swallow her meager dowry? Who did she think she was looking down on?
“Who would ever want your pathetic little dowry?”
“Dad, Mom, just give them the damn dowry!”
With a vicious glare, Lu Yichen spat out a parting threat: “Lin Ruochu, you’d better not regret this and come crawling back to beg me later.”
Lin Ruochu spat a mock glob on the ground toward Lu Yichen. “There’s a river right outside your house. If your family doesn’t have a mirror, go take a good, hard look at what you look like in the water.”
Accustomed to being pampered and fawned over by Lin Ruochu, Lu Yichen found her current attitude utterly intolerable. His face twisted with rage. “Mom, Dad, what are you waiting for? Go get the money right now!”
While Lu Xianggui still wanted to discipline his son, Li Guifen had never once intended to actually return a single coin of Lin Ruochu’s dowry.
Lin Ruochu’s dowry had included three hundred yuan in cash, quilts, two large wooden wardrobes, and a large wooden chest. Furthermore, since the Lu family had claimed they were short on cash initially, the Lin family had forked over an additional two hundred yuan to help fund the banquet—bringing the total to five hundred yuan.
According to custom, the cash should have been kept directly by Lin Ruochu, but the Lu family insisted on holding it to save face in front of the villagers, so the entire sum was handed directly to Li Guifen during the dowry procession.
In her past life, the moment Lin Ruochu stepped foot into this household as a bride, she never laid eyes on her dowry money again.
Those bills had long since warmed the bottom of Li Guifen’s purse—how could she ever bear to cough them up?
That five hundred yuan was the result of the Lin family exhausting their entire household savings just so Lin Ruochu could have a decent, comfortable life when she married.
After a long, tense silence, nobody made a move to fetch the money. Lin Ruochu locked her eyes on Lu Yichen and pressed him. “What? Are you still going to claim you aren’t trying to swallow my dowry?”
Feeling increasingly stripped of his dignity, Lu Yichen snapped, “Mom, Dad, hurry up and bring the money out!”
Pushed into a corner by his relentless prodding and the chaotic scene, Lu Xianggui finally barked, “Just give them the money!”
Only then did Li Guifen blurt out the truth, cornered into a corner. “Where on earth are we supposed to find that much cash in this house? I simply don’t have it to give!”
“Where’s the money, then? Where did it go?” Lu Yichen demanded, his face burning bright red with acute embarrassment.
Fiercely berated by her son, Li Guifen lost her temper and nearly jumped to her feet. “Where do you think it went? It went to you! Have you forgotten that you took three hundred yuan from me the day before yesterday?”
Lu Yichen never expected his own mother to air this dirty laundry right in front of everyone. Was there truly no other money left in the house?
The day before yesterday, he had taken that cash to buy Xia Lin a brand-new outfit, treat her to a professional hair styling session, and hand over the remaining balance to Xia Lin as “compensation.” How was he supposed to know that pile of cash was Lin Ruochu’s dowry?
The situation dissolved into an excruciatingly awkward standoff.
Yet, unrepentant as ever, Lu Yichen refused to admit fault. In his mind, the root of all this trouble was Lin Ruochu’s unreasonable screeching. Unable to produce the cash on the spot, he puffed out his chest with unearned righteousness. “Enough! What’s a mere few hundred yuan? I’ll give it to you after a short while.”
He figured that Lin Ruochu couldn’t possibly be serious about abandoning their marriage; he would just use this excuse to muddle through today’s crisis first.
Though she hadn’t known for sure before, Lin Ruochu could read the flicker of guilt on Lu Yichen’s face now: the money had undoubtedly been funneled straight to Xia Lin.
“If you can’t cough it up today, you’re going to write an IOU, with a strict deadline to pay it back in full within three months,” Lin Ruochu stated with calculated magnanimity—otherwise, squeezing them for cash right now was a dead end.
Taking offense, Lu Yichen bristled as though his honor had been trampled. “Will you ever quit? Just how long are you going to keep making a scene?”
“I am simply taking back what rightfully belongs to me—it’s completely justified. If you refuse to return the money or write an IOU, then we’ll take this straight to the village chief to let him judge who’s in the right.”
“Or are you going to admit that your Lu family is truly this shameless, plotting all along to swindle my dowry?”
Furious to the core, Lu Yichen gritted his teeth. “Fine! I’ll write it for you. Just remember every word you’ve said today!”
Ignoring his parents’ protests, Lu Yichen grabbed a pen and paper on the spot, furiously scratching down an IOU for five hundred yuan, stipulating full repayment within three months.
Lin Ruochu inspected the document closely before slipping the IOU securely into her pocket. She then reached out her hand. “This is the silver lock—our token of engagement from the very beginning. It’s time to swap it back.”
Back when Lin Ruochu’s grandfather and Lu Yichen’s grandfather arranged the match, the two families had mutually exchanged tokens of betrothal. The Lu family’s token was an antique silver lock that had belonged to Lu Yichen’s grandmother’s dowry, while the Lin family’s token was a jade bracelet that had belonged to Lin Ruochu’s grandmother.
In her past life, Lin Ruochu never caught a glimpse of that family heirloom after marriage, though she later spotted it proudly worn around Xia Lin’s wrist.
That item belonged to her family, and she was getting it back by any means necessary.
Lu Yichen stared awkwardly at Lin Ruochu’s outstretched hand, breaking into a cold sweat. As for the Lin family’s jade bracelet, he had already gifted it to Xia Lin—how on earth was he supposed to produce it now?
Besides, the bracelet looked pretty ordinary anyway. Unfazed, Lu Yichen spun a lie straight off the top of his head: “Your bracelet is lost.”
Lin Ruochu let out a cold, biting laugh. So he had already handed her family heirloom over to Xia Lin this early in the game? “That’s an antique family heirloom. Since your family managed to misplace it, you’ll compensate me for its full value—ten thousand yuan.”
Before Lu Yichen could open his mouth, Li Guifen shrieked like she’d been stepped on. “Ten thousand yuan?! Are you out of your mind, trying to rob us blind? Do you have any idea how much money that is?”
If Lu Yichen couldn’t return the physical item, then whatever price tag was placed on that missing family heirloom was entirely up to Lin Ruochu to dictate.
Though Lin Jianguo initially opened his mouth to step in—even a fine bracelet wasn’t worth a staggering ten thousand yuan—one sharp glance from Lin Ruochu silenced him, and he swallowed his words.
Lu Yichen knew full well that Lin Ruochu was deliberately pushing him into a corner. But this was no longer a moment where he could humble himself to make peace; in his warped logic, Lin Ruochu should be the one crying and begging him for forgiveness right now.
So he clamped his jaw shut and stayed silent, hoping his icy glare would make Lin Ruochu realize the depth of his displeasure.
Had this been the old Lin Ruochu, seeing Lu Yichen put on this icy expression would have sent her into a panic, desperately wondering where she had messed up. But the current Lin Ruochu merely met his gaze with unyielding steel. “Either you hand over the money, or you find that bracelet and hand it right back to me.”
Her unwavering stance caught Lu Yichen off guard once more. Desperate to avoid hearing her throw around words like “You’re just trying to swallow my bracelet and refuse to return it,” he gritted his teeth through clenched jaws.
“Fine! I’ll return it. I’ll get it back and give it to you, alright?!”
“Then go ahead and hand it over right now.”
“The item isn’t here right now. I’ll retrieve it and return it to you tomorrow,” Lu Yichen hissed through a locked jaw, resentment festering blackly in his chest.
Since Lu Yichen needed time to track down Xia Lin and claw the bracelet back, Lin Ruochu granted him the extension, agreeing to his deadline to return the bracelet tomorrow.
With the financial accounts settled for the moment, the physical pieces of her dowry—the large wardrobes and wooden chests—still needed to be hauled back to her home. Turning to her family, Lin Ruochu gave the command: “Dad, little brother, let’s go. Time to move our things back.”