The Lin household was in complete chaos. In the middle of the night, Zhao, Lin Lao-san’s wife, got up to use the outhouse, only to slip and fall headfirst straight into the deep pit, completely covered in feces from head to toe.
The pit was deep with straight edges, making it impossible to find any leverage to climb out on her own.
Moreover, with her face covered in runny waste and her eyes completely sealed shut, she didn’t dare make a sound for fear that opening her mouth would let the filth flood right in.
One can only imagine how furious Zhao felt after suddenly finding herself trapped in such a nightmare.
In the dead of night, everyone was fast asleep, and no one noticed her fall. With no other choice, Zhao used her equally filthy hands to wipe her face, scraping away the worst of the muck before finally letting out a piercing scream that woke up the entire Lin family. Naturally, her scream caused some of the waste to slip into her mouth, driving her to the verge of a total breakdown.
Before her marriage, she had lived quite comfortably in her maiden home. She and her current husband, Lin Lao-san, had chosen each other mutually before she married into this family. After moving in, her husband continued to be slick-minded while pampering her thoroughly, and her mother-in-law, being a relative from her maternal family, indulged her as well. For decades, Zhao had never suffered such humiliation, and she found herself completely unable to accept it.
The members of the Lin family gathered around the outhouse. Old Mrs. Lin arrived first, but looking at her daughter-in-law covered in waste, she couldn’t bring herself to pull her out.
It was simply too disgusting.
Pulling her out meant getting hands full of filth.
In the end, Lin Lao-san hurried over. Seeing his wife in such a state, he rushed forward and pulled her up.
Lin Qiong quickly fetched a bucket of water so his mother could at least roughly wash her face and hands.
Once back on her feet, Zhao was consumed by a towering rage. Her eyes wide with fury, the moment she caught sight of Lin Lao-er and his wife, she lunged straight at them and grabbed Wang by the collar. “Was it you? Tell me, was it you who did this?”
Wang looked utterly terrified. “Third Sister-in-law, what are you talking about?”
Lin Guangfu hurriedly stepped in to block her, trying to pry Zhao’s hands loose while muttering weakly, “Let’s talk properly, talk properly. What on earth is going on here?”
Zhao was stronger than Wang, but no match for Lin Guangfu, a grown man accustomed to heavy physical labor. Furthermore, Lin Guangfu’s natural strength far exceeded that of an average person, so he pried her hands apart in an instant.
Lin Guangfu shielded Wang behind him, though he didn’t dare take any further action, leaving him to take several deep scratch marks across the face from Wang’s frantic fingernails.
As for the other members of the Lin family, the eldest son’s couple adopted a purely spectator stance, watching the drama unfold. Lin Lao-san, on the other hand, was more than eager to let his wife vent her pent-up fury. Sharing the same suspicion as his wife, he was convinced the second branch was behind the fall. He stepped forward, intending to shove Lin Guangfu aside, but while Lin Guangfu was slow of speech and fiercely honest, he wasn’t going to stand idly by while his wife was being assaulted.
Standing like an immovable wall, Lin Guangfu easily resisted Lin Lao-san, whose days of laziness and trickery left him entirely unable to budge the larger man.
Just then, the old master of the house emerged. Surveying the chaotic yard, he asked in a deep voice, “What are you all doing?”
“Father!” Zhao shrieked loudly. “The second branch’s wife took advantage of my night trip to sneak up and shove me straight into the outhouse pit! Look at what I look like right now, how am I supposed to show my face in public ever again?”
At this, Zhao broke down in genuine, heartfelt tears.
Though falling into an outhouse didn’t mean losing one’s chastity, she knew well enough that the incident would soon spread like wildfire throughout the village, leaving all the gossiping village crones eager to mock her at every turn.
Zhao loved showing off, which meant plenty of people were waiting to see her make a fool of herself.
Valuing her pride above all else, the mere thought of that future scene made her head buzz so violently she felt she couldn’t go on living.
Wang frantically defended herself. “Father, I didn’t do it! I didn’t push Third Sister-in-law. I know nothing about it, I only woke up just now when I heard the commotion.”
“You didn’t do it? Then what about your precious Ge’er!” Zhao spat bitterly.
She knew full well that Wang lacked the spine for such a stunt; with Wang’s timid personality, she would never dare pull off something like this. But Lin Qu was an entirely different story. That young Ge’er frequently shot venomous glares at her, possessing a stubborn and unyielding temperament, and Zhao had zero doubt that Lin Qu was fully capable of it.
In the past, the boy had even slipped a non-venomous snake into her room, giving her a severe fright.
The incident had left her with a lingering psychological shadow, forcing her husband to inspect the bedroom for snakes every single night since.
Though she lacked concrete evidence and hadn’t seen Lin Qu do it with her own eyes, especially since he was much younger back then and she wasn’t sure if a child would dare, she had secretly plotted retaliation, urging her husband to plant a snake in Lin Qu’s room in return.
Unfortunately, Lin Lao-san proved to be a coward who didn’t dare catch a snake himself. After much difficulty, he finally got a friend to trap one in a cage and bring it back, but just as he was sneaking over to drop it into Lin Qu’s room, he was caught red-handed. The scandal blew up across the entire village, creating such a massive uproar that the clan almost forced Lin Lao-san to divorce her.
It was only because Lin Lao-san stubbornly insisted the deed was entirely his own doing that the matter was eventually suppressed.
Even so, her reputation took a severe hit, as everyone suspected she was the mastermind behind the scenes. After all, why would a grown man like Lin Lao-san deliberately torment a seven-year-old nephew unless pushed by his wife?
For a long time following that, Zhao had behaved with relative restraint.
Tonight, however, Zhao was certain she had been deliberately shoved into the pit. In this household, aside from the second branch, who else could possibly harbor such deep hatred for her? After all, she had just forced Lin Qu to kneel in the ancestral hall during the day, reducing Lin Lao-er and his wife to weeping and begging on the ground, retaliating against her for that was entirely expected.
It was just that the culprit had been a bit too impatient this time.
Her initial target when lunging at Wang was driven by displaced fury and sheer exasperation; since Wang was Lin Qu’s mother and they belonged to the same branch, venting her anger on Wang felt somewhat satisfying.
Now that Old Master Lin had stepped outside, the timing for a physical confrontation had passed, so Zhao stopped struggling. “Qiong’er, go invite the clan leader over right now! I want to see if this Lin Qu thinks he can turn the heavens upside down. If I don’t get a proper explanation and justice today, I will never let this rest.”
Lin Qiong agreed immediately. Although he was well aware that his parents were thoroughly unreasonable characters, he also knew they loved him dearly. Seeing his mother, who cared so much about her pride, pushed into an outhouse pit, he knew her heart must be breaking.
He could already imagine how many villagers would gossip behind her back; even now, a crowd of curious onlookers had gathered outside their fence to watch the show.
He understood the logic of the situation, but as a son, his loyalties lay firmly with his birth mother.
Lin Qiong hurried off toward the clan leader’s residence.
Villagers drawn by the commotion squeezed into the courtyard. Since Zhao was already in such a wretched state, she no longer cared who saw her, abandoning any thought of cleaning up. She stood there in all her filth, determined to expose how vicious Lin Qu truly was.
With malicious hatred in her heart, she wondered which family in the village would ever dare to marry such a vicious Ge’er after today.
Wang stood silently weeping in the corner while Lin Guangfu supported her, equally silent and at a complete loss for what to do.
Onlookers pressed the family for details, prompting Old Mrs. Lin to angrily recount her version of events once more, leaving the listening crowd thoroughly captivated.
Gossiping and watching drama, after all, remained the ultimate entertainment.
More and more villagers trickled in, with those standing near the front relaying the developments to the latecomers, while both groups eagerly exchanged commentary and opinions.
Naturally, Li was right there among the crowd.
Listening with rapt attention, she fought hard to suppress the irrepressible grin threatening to break across her face.
Xu Qiu, who had been listening from home for a while, also made his way over. With an uproar this massive drawing nearly the entire village, he wanted to see what was actually going on.
And to check on Lin Qu.
To be honest, he felt genuinely concerned.
Zhao was no benevolent soul. While the original novel portrayed her misdeeds as petty domestic friction, mostly laziness, shirking work, and pocketing Old Mrs. Lin’s favors, for Lin Lao-er’s branch, it amounted to over a decade of continuous crushing oppression.
Accumulated minor grievances were enough to cause a qualitative shift in someone’s breaking point.
Even after the Lin family eventually split under the protagonist’s guidance, Zhao’s branch rode the wave of success, using business ideas provided by Lin Qiong to justify their continued laziness while the eldest branch raised no objections. Meanwhile, the second branch, the hardest-working contributors to the household, received zero compensation and ended up sinking deeper into poverty by comparison.
The least they could do was throw the poor family a bone!
Knowing the plot, Xu Qiu felt profound sympathy for Lin Qu’s family.
The clan leader arrived promptly. Dragged out of bed halfway through his sleep, the old man was in a foul mood. After inquiring about the situation, he nodded and signaled an aide beside him. “Go to the ancestral hall and bring Lin Qu here for questioning.”
“Understood.” The man departed swiftly.
The crowd waited in suspense.
Before long, Lin Qu was escorted over.
Amidst the sea of dark silhouettes, Lin Qu immediately locked eyes with Xu Qiu. Catching the worry in Xu Qiu’s gaze, the boy imperceptibly tightened his lips, and his annoyance over the impending trouble eased slightly.
Stepping into the center of the yard, he naturally caught sight of Zhao’s wretched appearance. He wanted to laugh, but held it back; even though the entire village was well aware of the friction between the second and third branches, as a junior, bursting into laughter at such a moment remained inappropriate.
He spoke up directly. “Clan Leader, what is going on here?”
The clan leader replied, “Your third aunt fell into the outhouse pit and claims you pushed her.”
“Huh?” Lin Qu feigned surprise and displeasure. “I was locked away doing penance and kneeling in the ancestral hall, so how could I possibly have run over here to push Third Aunt?”
In truth, he had been sleeping in the side room of the ancestral hall, a fact known to the person sent to fetch him, though that messenger was already in on the truth.
At that moment, Lin Qu still wore a sleepy expression.
“Besides, the opening of our family’s outhouse is quite narrow, and Third Aunt is well-built. How could she possibly fall in?”
Zhao bristled with rage, suspecting Lin Qu was implying she was fat like a pig. After all, with her husband constantly buying her treats, she certainly wasn’t slender, though calling her fat was an exaggeration.
The Lin family’s private outhouse featured two flat bricks on either side, and the drop hole wasn’t large enough for a child to fall through accidentally, let alone an adult.
The clan leader’s expression softened slightly as he clarified, “She didn’t fall into your household’s outhouse. During her night trip, since the main outhouse was occupied, she went over to the public pit near the outer perimeter and slipped in.”
“According to your third aunt, someone shoved her from behind.”
“So Third Aunt is claiming I did the pushing?” Lin Qu sneered with visible disgust. “Third Aunt really knows how to play the game. You accidentally slip and fall in yourself, yet the moment you flap your lips, you pin the blame on me. Are you that eager to make everyone miserable just because you had some bad luck?”
Zhao shrieked furiously, “What are you talking about? Are you trying to deny you pushed me?”
“I never pushed you to begin with,” Lin Qu retorted right back with righteous conviction.
Given Lin Qu’s calm and logical demeanor, the villagers naturally found his version far more credible. Falling into a pit was bad enough on its own; dragging an innocent Ge’er into it out of spite was entirely uncalled for.
To trap a young Ge’er by forcing him to kneel in the ancestral hall all day, and now still refuse to leave him alone, how vicious could one woman possibly be?
It was simply terrifying.