“Aiya! Third Brother, please don’t tell Mom! You know I’m terrified of her!”
Hearing this, Shen Jiacai looked at her suspiciously.
She was clearly saying words of fear, but the exaggerated way she acted somehow felt incredibly irritating.
Still, remembering why he had come today, he didn’t want to waste time arguing nonsense with her. He waved impatiently.
“Since you know that, then hurry up and go!”
Shen Yingying raised an eyebrow.
“Fine. If Third Brother wants water, little sister will pour you some.”
With that, Shen Yingying stood up and walked into the neighboring room.
A short while later, she returned holding a thermos in one hand and a large sea bowl in the other.
“You should’ve just brought it over obediently earlier. Had to wait until you got scolded…”
Seeing her come back, Shen Jiacai glared at her and reached out to take it. But the moment he noticed the oversized bowl, he started grumbling again.
“Do you even know how to do things? Why’d you use such a bi— AHHH!”
Before he could finish speaking, Shen Yingying’s hand tilted.
The bowl instantly slipped from her grip, and all the hot water splashed directly onto Shen Jiacai’s hand.
He let out a miserable scream and immediately jerked his hand away, hopping around with it clutched between his legs.
Beside them, Chen Qingqing was terrified. Leaning on her crutch, she hurriedly retreated to the corner of the room.
If she remembered correctly, the boiling water in that thermos had only been heated this afternoon.
Getting splashed by water that hot would practically peel off a layer of skin!
Shen Yingying hurriedly stepped backward several paces.
“Third Brother, my hand slipped! I’m so sorry!”
Shen Jiacai grimaced in pain.
“Shen Yingying, my mother—!”
Looking flustered while clutching the thermos, Shen Yingying seemed genuinely frightened, yet she still remembered to correct him:
“Sorry, Third Brother! But my mother is your mother too. You can’t say things like that. It’s rude.”
Shen Jiacai howled in pain, nearly coughing up blood from anger.
Was she stupid?
Couldn’t she tell he was just cursing as an expression? How could he possibly literally mean their mother?
After the pain eased slightly, Shen Jiacai tucked his burned hand beneath his armpit and roared viciously:
“Shen Yingying, you’ve really grown wings today! You did that on purpose, didn’t you? You burned me and now you’re talking sarcastically too!”
As he cursed, he swung his uninjured hand and charged toward her.
“See if I don’t beat you to death!”
“Aiya! I’m so scared!”
Shen Yingying let out an exaggerated shriek, turned, and ran outside.
But just as Shen Jiacai rushed after her, she suddenly lifted the thermos and made a motion as if she were about to splash him again.
Already traumatized by the earlier burn, Shen Jiacai panicked and jumped aside instantly.
“Shen Yingying, are you insane?!”
Shen Yingying stopped and blinked innocently while lifting the thermos for him to see.
“Third Brother, I was only scaring you. The stopper’s still in.”
Shen Jiacai stared carefully.
Sure enough, the wooden stopper was tightly sealed.
He’d been tricked.
The anger inside him instantly burned even hotter, twisting his entire face.
Just as he prepared to charge again, Shen Yingying casually popped the stopper out with a loud pop.
“But now it’s open.”
She blinked sweetly.
“Third Brother, don’t come closer. I’m afraid I won’t be able to control myself.”
Shen Jiacai: “???”
Hearing such terrifying words delivered with such an innocent expression was somehow even more infuriating than outright threats.
He was furious enough to want to beat her to death, but staring at the thermos in her hand, he ultimately didn’t dare move.
In the end, he could only drag out his ultimate weapon once more: Pan Yun.
Grinding his teeth, he snarled:
“Shen Yingying, if Mom finds out you treated me like this, you’re dead! Mom will definitely beat you to death! Put down the thermos right now. If you do, I won’t tell Mom about this.”
“No way. I’m scared you’ll hit me.”
Shen Yingying refused to let go of the thermos.
“Besides, Third Brother, this isn’t entirely my fault. You wanted water, so I poured you some. If you were more hardworking and got it yourself, you wouldn’t have been burned.”
Her innocent expression made it seem as though she were the wronged party.
Shen Jiacai nearly cried from rage.
He had never seen such a shameless person before.
He was the one who got hurt, so what exactly was she feeling wronged about?!
“In this weather, who drinks boiling water?! Shen Yingying, is there something wrong with your brain?!”
At this point, he couldn’t even be bothered arguing anymore. Planting his hands on his hips, he pointed at her.
“Enough nonsense. Put the thermos down right now. I’ll only slap you once, and we’ll call this matter over!”
Shen Yingying answered decisively:
“That’s absolutely not happening.”
Shen Jiacai clenched his teeth hard.
He couldn’t understand it. They hadn’t seen each other for only a short time, so how had this girl suddenly become so disobedient?
If it were before, the moment he said that, she would’ve obediently offered her face for him to hit.
She really needed discipline now.
Normally, he’d beat her until she cried for their mother.
But remembering why he came today, he secretly gritted his teeth and decided to let the matter go for now.
Taking a deep breath, he softened his tone.
“Forget it. Since you’re my little sister, I’ll let you off this once.”
“I didn’t come up here to cause trouble anyway. We received your letter.”
“Mom was afraid you’d do something stupid, so she hurriedly sent me here. Luckily, you didn’t.”
“These days there are lots of swindlers. That man was obviously a liar—there’s no way he was really a factory director. What kind of women hasn’t a real factory director seen before?”
“How could someone like that possibly fancy a country girl like you? If you’d run away with him, we would’ve lost our money tree of a landlord’s grandson! By then, you’d be crying too late!”
At first, Shen Yingying didn’t understand what letter he was talking about.
Then, after sorting through the original owner’s memories, she remembered that before eloping, the original owner had written a letter to her family.
The rough meaning was that she had found a better man and was going with him to S City for a good life.
She told them to pretend they knew nothing and come looking for her after some time had passed.
Then, when they couldn’t find her, they could accuse Xie Fangzhu of somehow making a perfectly good girl disappear and demand compensation from him.
Given Xie Fangzhu’s personality, he would probably obediently pay them, allowing the family to squeeze out another fortune.
The letter also mentioned the 500 yuan she had swindled from Xie Fangzhu.
She wrote that after arriving in S City, she would send the money home to help Shen Jiacai prepare his bride price.
Shen Yingying figured that besides checking whether she had run away, Shen Jiacai had probably also come for that 500 yuan.
Sure enough, the thought had barely crossed her mind before he brought it up.
“And another thing, little sister. In your letter, you said you already got Xie Fangzhu’s 500 yuan. That’s too much money for you to keep—it’s not safe. If you lose it, it’ll be terrible, and your third brother won’t even be able to get married.”
“Give the money to me. I’ll handle buying the rest of the bride-price items myself. You just need to get me a television coupon. That way you won’t have to worry about anything.”
Shen Yingying thought to herself:
Whether you get married or not has absolutely nothing to do with me.
But none of that showed on her face.
Instead, she put on a troubled expression.
“But… Xie Fangzhu already took the money back. If you want it, you’ll have to ask him yourself.”