"What a joke, they've abandoned me, how can I care about them?" If they had shown Ouyang Xue even a shred of mercy, she wouldn't have been driven to such a desperate end.
"You... you... you can..." Father Chen pointed at her with a trembling hand. In all these years, no one had ever dared to speak to him like this.
Wu Caiwei simply ignored him, continuing to eat her meal.
Father Chen, enraged, smashed his chopsticks several times, and then his bowl. Yet, the woman opposite him was still eating with relish. If reason hadn't told him to remain calm, he would have flipped the table, just to see how she would continue eating.
Chen Yan had repeatedly asked to take over the shops, but Father Chen had refused. After all, all the shopkeepers had been promoted by Father Chen himself; they followed his commands.
Mother Chen had argued and fussed, but this time Father Chen was resolute. Realizing he had been completely cast aside, Chen Yan became despondent, drowning his sorrows in alcohol every day.
Wu Caiwei had already extorted hundreds of taels from Chen Yan, at ten taels a day. Knowing she couldn't squeeze any more out of him, she set her sights on Father Chen.
The first time she asked Father Chen for money, he looked at her with surprise. "Did I hear you right? You're asking me for twenty taels? Why don't you just rob me?"
"You asked me to stay here, so shouldn't I get some compensation?" Wu Caiwei extended her hand, as if it were only natural.
"I provide you with food and drink, and you still want compensation? No matter how you spin it, you have no right." Father Chen did not want to give her the money. He wanted to save it for his future son. Moreover, these twenty taels were essentially a day's income for five shops, and sometimes he even had to subsidize them. How could he possibly give it away?
"It's fine if you don't give it to me, just let me go, and I won't ask you for money anymore..."
Before Wu Caiwei could finish speaking, Father Chen immediately interrupted, "Impossible."
Father Chen had expected the woman to nag him endlessly. Instead, he saw her turn and walk towards the door. "Everyone, come and judge! The Chen family is shameless, for all these years..."
"Stop talking. You're a woman, you can't win against me. Think carefully," Father Chen threatened in a low voice.
"Look, he's still threatening me! If anything happens to me, it will be the Chen family's doing. I'll trouble everyone to report it to the authorities then." Wu Caiwei disregarded his threat and broadcasted it openly.
Father Chen watched as more and more people gathered. The woman showed no signs of relenting. With a grim expression, he reluctantly said, "I'll give it to you."
Wu Caiwei's attitude immediately changed. She smiled and said, "Wouldn't it have been easier if you were this agreeable from the start?"
The two returned to the Chen house one after another. Even with the gate closed, the discussions of the crowd outside could still be heard.
Seeing Father Chen standing by the door for a long time without moving, Wu Caiwei quickly stepped forward and taunted, "Are you trying to renege on your promise? I told you to let me go long ago, but you insisted. If I had left, all this trouble would have been avoided, right?"
Father Chen gave her a deep look and went straight to his room to get the money. As soon as she received the silver, Wu Caiwei skipped away happily.
The next day, the Ouyang family came to their door. Upon seeing her, Ouyang Xue's stepfather, Ouyang Ming, loudly questioned, "What have you done, you ungrateful daughter, to displease the Chen family? How many times have I told you, be more tolerant? A daughter-in-law must be subservient."
Wu Caiwei looked at her stepfather's expression and shook her head helplessly. As expected, a stepchild is not a biological child. They never asked how their daughter was doing, only caring about their own interests and telling their daughter to endure more.
Speaking of the original Ouyang Xue, her fate was indeed unfortunate. Her biological father was a scholar who doted on her dearly, but he passed away when she was four years old.
Later, her mother remarried into the Ouyang family, and to please them, had her daughter also take the surname Ouyang. Unfortunately, this did not earn her any special treatment from the Ouyang family.
The Ouyang family already had a son and a daughter. Ouyang Ming's first wife died in childbirth while giving birth to their third child, both mother and child perishing.
He married Ouyang Xue's mother, Li Chunlian, to take care of the two children. Initially, her mother was protective of her, but after giving birth to a son and a daughter, all her attention was focused on them, neglecting the original owner.
Among the five children in the Ouyang family, only she and her stepfather had no blood relation. One could imagine how difficult her life was. Her elder siblings were protected by the Ouyang matriarch, who feared their stepmother would abuse them. Her younger siblings were doted on by the couple. Only the original owner was a pitiable child, left to do all the dirty chores.
When she was young, she had protested and rebelled, but it was met with misunderstanding and hostility from everyone in the Ouyang family. Her life became even more difficult, and from then on, she knew she had to endure everything and just leave this home.
"Your father is asking you a question, why aren't you answering?" Li Chunlian asked anxiously, seeing her standing there in a daze. She wasn't worried about her daughter angering her husband, but rather, she wanted to know what exactly she had done to make the Chen family target them and affect their business.
"Before I was married, did Mother thoroughly investigate Chen Yan?" Wu Caiwei calmly looked into their eyes and asked the question the original owner most wanted to ask.
"More or less, we understood some things. Isn't the Chen family good? They are wealthier than us, and after more than a decade of not bearing children, they haven't divorced you." Li Chunlian felt her daughter was ungrateful, like her, she would have been divorced long ago in another family.
"Then, Mother, do you know that his heart belongs to someone else?" Wu Caiwei pressed again.
"What if he has someone else in his heart? Liu Wenyu already married a long time ago!" Li Chunlian said with some impatience, not understanding why her daughter was so fixated on this issue.
"If I told you that Chen Yan is the one who cannot have children, what would you do?" This was Wu Caiwei's last test. If they could pass this hurdle, she decided to treat them well in the future. But if they failed, then, I'm sorry, they would go their separate ways from now on.
The Ouyang couple was indeed taken aback, not expecting the truth to be this way. After a moment of silence, the stepfather, Ouyang Ming, said slowly, "Isn't that even better? If the problem isn't with you, they have no reason to dislike you. You can adopt a child. Your brother has two sons, just adopt one for you, and you'll have one, won't you?"
Li Chunlian nodded in agreement, then added, "Your brother's son is too old. Your younger brother has three sons."
Wu Caiwei couldn't help but let out a cold laugh. At this point, their concern was not for the original owner's future happiness, but for inheriting the Chen family's fortune. Ouyang Ming was understandable, as they had no blood relation. But Li Chunlian was the original owner's biological mother. Wu Caiwei had finally seen them clearly. She would act without any reservations from now on and would no longer consider their feelings.