Behind her, Huo Xiangbei stood with a face of cold stone, his brows locked in a scowl, radiating an oppressive, icy pressure.
The main room fell into a dead silence.
Mother Huo felt her heart skip a beat; the needle in her hand nearly pricked her skin. Had the one thing she feared most finally happened? That brute of a third son—had he gone too far and pushed the girl over the edge? Was this… a fight? Seeing her third daughter-in-law crying like that—don’t tell her they’re talking about divorce!
Father Huo forgot to even smoke his pipe, his brows knitting into a hard knot. Huo Xiangdong and Wu Cuilan exchanged glances, both seeing the same flicker of worry in each other’s eyes.
Huo Xiangxi was the most hot-headed of the bunch. She dropped her textbook and stood up abruptly. “Third Sister-in-law, what’s wrong? Did Third Brother bully you?”
She wasn’t some ignorant little girl. Between the faint, intermittent sounds drifting over from the side room that afternoon and the disheveled, clearly “worked over” state Shen Qianqian was in right now, she had already pieced together half the picture.
It had to be her third brother—that “wild ox” of a man—bottling up his fire and finally letting it out by “disciplining” her third sister-in-law.
This sister-in-law of hers looked exactly like a movie star from a magazine—stunningly beautiful—but goodness, her brain was just… not wired right. She did nothing but foolish things that made no sense, handing over money and goods to outsiders.
Yet, even so, looking at her now, crying until she was drenched in tears, her beautiful face stained and haggard, looking fragile and ready to collapse—the annoyance Huo Xiangxi felt toward her “spinelessness” was instantly eclipsed by a deeper sense of pity.
Ultimately, she just couldn’t stand seeing that beautiful face suffer. For the past two years, her third sister-in-law had treated this home like a hotel, coming and going as she pleased, and aside from her second sister-in-law, no one in the house had ever said a harsh word to her.
Hearing the question, Shen Qianqian seemed unable to hold back any longer; the tears came pouring down in a fresh, frantic wave. She took a few quick steps toward the table where Mother Huo sat, as if seeking sanctuary, her shoulders heaving with sobs.
“Father… Mother… wuuu wuuu… Huo Xiangbei, he… he hit me! And he threatened me!”
The words landed like a bolt of lightning, making the hair on the back of the Huo family members’ necks stand up.
“What?!”
Mother Huo stood up abruptly, ignoring the jacket she had been mending as it slid to the floor. She rushed forward to grab Shen Qianqian’s hands, looking at Huo Xiangbei with a mixture of shock and fury. “Third son! You! Did you really lay a hand on your wife?!” This was beyond the pale!
Father Huo slammed his pipe against the table with a loud clack, his face turning livid. “Third son! What is going on here?!”
Facing his parents’ interrogation, Huo Xiangbei’s facial muscles tightened. His jawline was sharp and severe, his eyes cold and hard, and his voice struck the air like a hammer.
“I didn’t hit her anywhere else.”
He paused for a few seconds, his gaze sweeping over Shen Qianqian with a loaded, pointed implication.
“But she did something wrong, and she deserves to be taught a lesson! I’m putting my cards on the table today: Shen Qianqian, right now, immediately, this instant, you go to the youth compound. You get every cent of money, every ration ticket, and every item you lent to Xu Yanqing and Lin Wazhi back! Not a single penny less!”
He took a step forward, his aura overwhelming. “If you can’t get it back, or if even a penny is missing, I’m not just calling your father immediately to tell him about the ‘good deeds’ you’ve been doing here—I’ll make sure he cuts off your living expenses! I’m also calling the unit to file a report with my superiors! A soldier’s stipend is earned with blood and sweat, not to be squandered on parasites and ingrates!”
Father Huo let out a roar, his beard trembling with rage. “Huo Xiangbei! What kind of nonsense are you spewing! Watch your tongue!”
“What ‘parasites’ and ‘ingrates’? Are those words you can just throw around whenever you please?!”
Shen Qianqian seemed to shudder in terror at Huo Xiangbei’s ferocity, crying even harder as she buried her face in Mother Huo’s shoulder. “Wuuu… Mother… look at him… not only does he want to cut off my money and tickets… he won’t let my parents send me things… he even wants to call the army… wuuu… how am I supposed to live like this… I might as well just die…”
“You dare!”
Huo Xiangbei barked, his eyes rimmed with red. “Shen Qianqian, I’m telling you: if you don’t get that money back today, I am going to the commune to make that call first thing tomorrow morning! I’ll make sure your father can’t hold his head up at the factory, and your mother loses all face before the neighbors! Do you want to test me?”
“Third son! Are you finished yet!”
Father Huo slammed his hand on the table, his voice trembling with extreme rage. “This is completely out of line! The family is tearing itself apart like this—do you want this house to fall to pieces?!”
“Third brother, quiet down!”
Huo Xiangdong couldn’t sit still any longer. He tossed aside the half-woven basket and stood up abruptly. He was always the steady one, but his tone now was laced with obvious heat.
“Is there anything that can’t be discussed calmly? Look at how you’ve terrified your sister-in-law! When a family closes its doors, is there any problem that can’t be sat down and talked over? Do you have to roar so loudly the whole courtyard can hear, letting outsiders make a laughingstock of us?!”
The eldest sister-in-law, Wu Cuilan, had already hurried to Shen Qianqian’s side. She gathered the girl’s trembling shoulders in her arms, patting them gently, her voice soft and urgent:
“Third sister-in-law, don’t be afraid, don’t cry… tell your eldest sister-in-law what’s bothering you. Oh, look at this little face—crying like a pear blossom in the rain, how could anyone not feel heartbroken? Your third brother is just a stubborn mule; once his temper flares, he doesn’t know friend from foe. Don’t take it to heart, okay?”
While she urged her to calm down, her mind was whirring: [Did Third Brother take the wrong medicine today? Every time he came back before, he wouldn’t even dare to breathe too loudly in front of his wife; he was always so soft-spoken and subservient. Why is he being so aggressive today? Does he actually dare to shout at her?]
Just then, the door to the west wing creaked open, and Huo Xiangnan and his wife, Li Hongmei, poked their heads out. They had clearly been woken up by the commotion in the main room.
Li Hongmei was draped in an outer robe, her hair a bit messy from sleep. She narrowed her eyes, taking in the scene in the parlor. Her eyes brightened the moment she saw Shen Qianqian’s tear-stained, disheveled state.
A gleam of excitement flickered in her sharp, shrewd eyes, and she couldn’t help but let her lips curl up as the acerbic words tumbled out:
“My, my! I wondered what all the fuss was about. Did the sun rise in the west or something?”
She swayed over, her voice sharp and dripping with irony. “Our third brother is finally showing some backbone, is he?”
She walked right up to them, looking Shen Qianqian up and down as if weighing a piece of merchandise:
“Wanting money? What money? Oh—is it that money the third sister-in-law ‘lent’ to those educated youths, Xu and Lin?”
She let out a scoff, her words becoming even meaner. “If you ask me, she should have asked for it back years ago! Those two youths have eaten who knows how much of Third Brother’s stipend these past few years, and used who knows how much of his wife’s good stuff! And here we are, his own family, not even getting a scrap of meat, all of it fed to those ‘special friends’ outside! For all we know, they’ve been in the same bed for years!”
She purposely raised her voice on the words “special friends” and “same bed.” She bit down on them hard and sharp, every syllable like a venom-tipped needle, digging straight into the heart of the matter.
The main room instantly went quiet.
The faces of every member of the Huo family darkened.
Huo Xiangbei turned his head with a sudden, violent motion, his dark, heavy eyes piercing Li Hongmei like two cold knives. The chill radiating from his gaze made Li Hongmei reflexively shrink back half a step, but, emboldened by the presence of her parents-in-law, she puffed out her chest once more.