“That’s right. Lin Ni told us the furniture factory had moved up the delivery of your furniture by two days. She said your parents couldn’t get time off work on such short notice, so they asked us to come help.”
The old neighbors and Lin family relatives each chimed in with the same explanation.
Aunt Chen slapped her thigh.
Now this was the kind of drama she’d been hoping for.
“Zhaoyang, you and Lin Ni never made up, did you?”
When Lin Zhaoyang nodded, Aunt Chen exclaimed,
“I knew it! Lin Ni stole your fiancé before. With a grudge that big, how could your family possibly reconcile with her? You hate Lin Ni so much—there’s no way you’d hand your house key to her and ask her to help you!”
As soon as Aunt Chen said that, the relatives and old neighbors all looked at Lin Ni with disgust.
“Lin Ni, what exactly are you up to?” one of the neighbors demanded. “So it wasn’t Lin Zhaoyang who asked you to gather all of us here after all?”
“Isn’t that obvious?” Lin Daheng said. “Our family doesn’t even associate with Lin Ni’s family anymore. If we really needed someone to run errands, and Zhaoyang wasn’t free, does her younger brother not know how to talk?”
Lin Zhaoyang walked over to Lin Ni and held out her hand.
“How did you get my house key?”
“Give it back.”
Zou Zhengting glanced at the motionless Yang Wen and sneered.
“Weren’t you told to call the police? Why are you just standing there?”
Yang Wen took two steps back.
“This is a family matter. There’s no need to call the police. Zhaoyang only said that because she’s angry.”
Lin Zhaoyang heard him.
She looked back at him and curled her lips into a mocking smile.
Clutching her handbag, Lin Ni nervously glanced toward Yang Wen.
The moment Wang Fenglan noticed her guilty expression, her temper flared.
She rushed over, snatched the handbag away, grabbed it by the corners, turned it upside down, and dumped everything onto the ground.
Among the scattered belongings, Lin Zhaoyang immediately spotted a familiar key.
She bent down and picked it up, gently running her fingers over the yarn she herself had wrapped around it.
Of the three house keys, only hers and Yang Wen’s had been wrapped with yarn.
She had wrapped both herself.
Her mother’s key had remained untouched.
“Yang Wen.”
She slowly approached him.
“Explain why your key ended up in Lin Ni’s possession.”
Holding up the key, she questioned him.
“Yesterday evening, when you got off work, this key was still on your key ring.”
“So why was it in Lin Ni’s hands this morning?”
“Did you meet Lin Ni last night?”
Just then, Yang Wen’s mother, Yang Jiahui, arrived at the entrance.
She had barely gotten off her bicycle when she overheard Lin Zhaoyang asking whether Yang Wen had met Lin Ni the previous night.
She didn’t even have time to put her bicycle away before hurrying inside.
“Zhaoyang, what happened?”
Someone from Yang Wen’s factory had told her that Lin Zhaoyang had urgently called Yang Wen to come over.
Thinking they might need help with something, she had come as well.
Instead, she found an entire courtyard full of people standing in the blazing sun as though they couldn’t feel the heat.
Lin Zhaoyang looked surprised to see her.
She hadn’t invited her future mother-in-law.
Seeing everyone remain silent, Aunt Chen enthusiastically filled in the details.
“Teacher Yang, Lin Zhaoyang is asking your son how the key to their new house ended up with Lin Ni. She’s asking whether Yang Wen met Lin Ni last night.”
“What key?”
Yang Jiahui blurted out.
“Yang Wen didn’t sleep at home last night. He said he couldn’t leave all the work on the new house to Zhaoyang.”
“He finished dinner at home yesterday evening and came here to clean up.”
“When he left, he even told me he’d be working late and wouldn’t come home. He said he’d just sleep in the guest room of the new house.”
“Mom!”
Yang Wen panicked as soon as he heard how much she’d revealed.
“Stop talking!”
Ignoring him, Yang Jiahui continued, worried that her son wouldn’t be able to explain things properly and would only make Lin Zhaoyang misunderstand.
“Could he have left the key in the front door and forgotten to take it with him, so someone stole it?”
Lin Zhaoyang let out a cold laugh.
“I was the one who put the sheets and blankets on the guest bed this morning.”
“When I left yesterday, the house looked exactly the same as it did when I came back this morning.”
“So you slept here last night?”
She looked straight at Yang Wen.
“Did you sleep on the bare bed frame?”
“Or did you hand your key to Lin Ni in your dreams?”
Without warning, she threw the key at him.
“Or…”
“Were you and Lin Ni fooling around on the guest room bed frame in our new house last night?”
“Not here!”
Yang Wen blurted out instinctively.
“I wasn’t here last night!”
Yang Jiahui stared at her son in shock.
“You weren’t at home… and you weren’t here either?”
“If you weren’t at home, and you weren’t here, yet the key somehow ended up with Lin Ni…”
Zou Zhengting suddenly spoke.
“Could it be you spent the night at Lin Ni’s place?”
“We can send someone to ask the neighbors where Lin Ni rents her room. They’ll know.”
Yang Wen opened his mouth.
But no explanation came out.
Sometimes…
Silence was the clearest answer.
Everyone immediately realized Zou Zhengting had guessed correctly.
Yang Wen really had spent the night with Lin Ni.
That was how she’d gotten hold of his key.
Wang Fenglan was so furious she stormed over in two quick strides, grabbed Lin Ni by the hair, and slapped her repeatedly.
“You shameless animal!”
“Have you no shame at all?”
“You stole Zou Zhengting, and now you’re trying to steal Yang Wen too?”
“You little slut! Have all the men in the world died? Do you have to keep stealing your cousin’s men?”
“You’re already married, yet you’re seducing your cousin’s fiancé and even sleeping with him!”
“You disgraceful tramp! I’ll slap some sense into you!”
Holding onto Lin Ni, Wang Fenglan cursed and beat her relentlessly.
Unlike Lin Zhaoyang’s weakened slaps, Wang Fenglan’s blows were powerful enough to leave Lin Ni crying out in pain.
“Yang Wen! Save me!”
“Yang Wen, save me!”
The moment Yang Wen saw her being beaten, his heart ached.
He rushed forward.
But Zou Zhengting and Lin Daheng each grabbed one of his arms.
“Let me go!”
“If you’re going to hit someone, hit me!”
“Ni Ni is a woman! Take your anger out on me instead!”
He struggled desperately.
But the two men held him firmly in place.
Watching Yang Wen look at Lin Ni with such concern, Yang Jiahui suddenly found her own son revolting.
“Yang Wen…”
“How could you?”
Overcome with rage, she slapped him hard across the face.
“You’re already engaged to Lin Zhaoyang!”
“How could you betray her by fooling around with another woman?”
“And that woman is her own cousin!”
“You’re worse than an animal!”
The slap knocked Yang Wen’s head to one side.
After the initial sting faded, he unexpectedly became calm.
“Mom…”
“No matter what, it’s all my fault.”
“My marriage to Lin Zhaoyang… let’s call it off.”
“Mom, Lin Zhaoyang and I simply weren’t meant to be.”
“Ni Ni gave herself to me.”
“I have to take responsibility.”
“I was already planning to tell you in the next couple of days that I couldn’t marry Lin Zhaoyang.”
Turning toward Wang Fenglan, he pleaded,
“Aunt Wang, please stop hitting Ni Ni.”
“She’s innocent.”
“I’m the one at fault.”
Seeing Lin Ni being beaten made his eyes turn red.
“About a month ago, I went drinking with some coworkers.”
“I accidentally drank too much…”
“And somehow, before I knew it…”