ATM, donkey pulling a millstone

The trial was held at the end of the year, coinciding with the first snowfall in Lizhou.

The drifting snowflakes added a cold "quilt" to the city. Before getting on the bus, Wen Dai had most of her face tucked into her scarf. Her waist-length hair came in handy in the winter, but when the wind blew, she became a walking ghost.

She opened the car door and climbed in, the warmth of the heater soothing her frozen skin. She let out a long sigh and pulled the scarf covering her mouth down a little. "Thank goodness you're here... So, can't you really lower the price a bit? Give me a friendly price, otherwise your service fee will be more than what I got from the lawsuit."

“…Understood.” Ever since he became her lawyer, the first thing Chen Sizhe did every morning when he opened his eyes and turned on his phone was to receive a message from her asking for a discount.

He started the engine and drove her to the courtroom, his mind filled with doubt about his decision—why had he agreed to cooperate with her in the first place?

Although... he glanced briefly at the person sitting in the passenger seat eating bread; he didn't regret it now.

"You'll have to pay for the car wash if you spill crumbs on it." The callous words lingered.

Wen Dai, who stuffed the cheese bag she was holding into her mouth in one go, mumbled, "I know... you stingy person."

The Panamera, which had been driving through the wind and snow, finally came to a stop in the parking lot of its destination. Wen Dai, who was hiccuping because she had stuffed bread into her mouth too quickly, held the bottled water that she had been forced to buy from Chen Sizhe. She drank the water and kept trying to stop the hiccups, but to no avail.

"Hiccup, I don't want to go to court hiccuping! Hiccup, and I even spent a fortune on this exorbitantly priced forty-yuan bottle of your mineral water, hiccup, I'm speechless!"

The fierce wind blew Wen Dai's long hair all over the place, but she had no time to care about her hair that had its own ideas. She also choked on her water because she drank too fast and was now coughing up physiological tears, which made her frozen cheeks turn red.

Chen Sizhe, who had been glancing at her sideways, finally couldn't bear to look at her anymore. He reached out and snatched the mineral water bottle from Wen Dai's hand, ignoring the anxious voices of the people next to him: "Hey, what are you doing? Hiccup, I've already transferred the money to you, hiccup, aren't you going to take it back?" He quickly made a sword-finger gesture towards the water, muttered a few incantations, and then handed the water back to Wen Dai.

Slender, porcelain-like fingers wrapped around the water bottle, the man's tone casual and indifferent: "Drink it."

Wen Dai gave him a strange look, but still obediently drank the water he offered. After drinking two or three sips, she waited silently for a while, and then exclaimed in surprise, "Hey, no more hiccups! Chen Sizhe, I didn't expect you to know how to perform divination."

But the surprise didn't linger on her face for long. She leaned to the side, hunched her neck, and cautiously stared at Chen Sizhe, asking, "You're not going to charge me for this, are you? I'd rather keep hiccuping; at worst, I'll just embarrass myself."

His brow furrowed slightly, his gaze fixed on her, speechless. Zhu Fei's lips parted slightly: "Tsk, no charge."

After the trial, Wen Dai met with the Zhang siblings who had been in detention for twenty days. Even though Zhang Ai took the initiative to take responsibility, Zhang Ai's mother-in-law was not able to get away with it. Although she was not detained for the maximum twenty days like the Zhang siblings, she still stayed in detention for ten days. Accomplices and accessories are still criminals.

Standing in the defendant's area, Zhang Ai lowered her head, her gaze fixed on the wooden square table in front of her, the sounds of conversation in the air unable to reach her ears.

Memories of the day the incident occurred drifted into her mind in a daze.

She was overjoyed at being two months pregnant. During her pregnancy, her husband was not allowed to file for divorce, and she could delay for more than a year, believing that this time would be enough for her to win her husband back.

She timed it perfectly, preparing a table full of dishes ahead of time, happily cooking each of his favorite dishes, engraving the saying "the way to a man's heart is through his stomach" into her mind. How long did she wait? Her husband, who got off work at five, didn't come home until almost six. Reason told her that this was normal; perhaps he had worked overtime, or something had delayed him on the way.

"Mom, can I have dinner now? It smells so good, I'm so hungry." Her son ran up to her, his eyes, which were exactly like Liu Ming's, kept glancing at the dining table. Zhang Ai suddenly felt that the person standing in front of her was Liu Ming, the Liu Ming she had just married.

What was he like when they first got married? He would rush home as soon as he got off work every day. He would finish work at five o'clock and be back by five-tenths at the earliest, even though the commute was short. He would hug her from behind while she cooked and whisper in her ear, "You've worked so hard. I will work even harder to earn money so you can live a good life. Then we'll live in a big house, hire a housekeeper, and you won't have to work so hard anymore. You can just relax and be a little pampered lady."

"Mommy, Mommy! I'm so hungry!" The son standing in front of her stamped his feet, his lips turned down, clearly on the verge of tears. What is Liu Ming like when he's agitated?

He would slap her face and head, one slap after another, one punch after another. She would never forget his disgusted gaze. She remembered him standing at the door, hand on the doorknob, turning around and giving her a look of utter disgust, saying, "You're really annoying. So what if I went to find other women? Look at yourself now! Calling you a haggard old woman is an understatement. After you gave birth, I feel nauseous just looking at your belly. I'd rather hit myself than touch you, understand?"

"Mommy—Waaah…Daddy's back!" The son, who had just started to cry, stopped the rain that hadn't yet started to fall. He heard the sound of the door lock being turned and ran to the door. The rapid "thump" of his footsteps on the ground made her head throb. She turned her face away, regained her senses, and looked up to see the light shining in from the balcony window, a grayish-white light.

Liu Ming cried to her on the day she gave birth to her son; however, by then Liu Ming was already gray and should have been framed and hung on the wall.

As the door opened, she walked to the doorway, still wearing her apron. The joy she had felt moments before seemed to have come from nowhere; she couldn't force a smile. She clenched her fists, straining to lift the muscles at the corners of her mouth, and looked at the man who had come in and changed his shoes. She said softly, "Would you like to eat first or take a shower first? Let's eat first, while it's hot. I made a lot of your favorite dishes."

"I'm going to take a shower first." The voice was cold and impatient. Liu Ming changed into slippers and accidentally bumped into Zhang Ai's shoulder as he walked through the entryway. He didn't apologize, but urged her, "Where did you put my towel and clothes?" He walked to the sofa and rummaged through the clothes that had been brought in but hadn't been folded yet.

She picked up on a series of irritating accusations: "You don't earn any money and just lie at home all day. You can't even do this little thing. Don't you know how to fold these clothes when you bring them in? They're just piled up on the sofa like a mess."

Zhang Ai's clenched fist began to tremble. She took a few steps toward the living room and explained, "I originally planned to fold the paper after I finished cooking, but after I finished cooking I kept waiting for you to see if you had come back..."

Liu Ming pulled out her change of clothes and draped them over his arm. He glared at her coldly and walked up to her, scolding her impatiently, "See if I'm back? So what if I am? You just sat there waiting for me, and now you're saying your arms and legs are crippled because I'm not back? Laziness is laziness, there are no excuses."

Finally, her emotions crumbled. Zhang Ai reached out and grabbed his arm, stopping Liu Ming from heading towards the bathroom. Looking up at her eyes, which were beginning to redden, she said in a trembling voice, "Lazy? If I were lazy, I would stay home every day serving you, preparing a table full of dishes for someone who might never return; I would have a child for you, ruining my figure and leaving scars, only to face your disdain; I would do endless housework every day, finishing my own chores before going to your mother's house to help—"

"I must be crazy. I must be crazy to remember the lies you told me back then; I must be crazy to turn a blind eye to your infidelity; I must be crazy to kneel on the ground and beg you not to leave me when you asked for a divorce; I must be crazy to endure your domestic violence; I must be crazy to keep the child in my belly, just to be with you a little longer; I must be crazy to fantasize that you will change your mind about me!" Each word was shouted out in anguish at the end.

Tears streamed down Zhang Ai's face from her lower eyelids. She wasn't the only one crying; her young son, clearly frightened by their argument, was standing in front of the table, holding his little bowl and wailing loudly, crying much harder than she had.

She tugged at Liu Ming's sleeve and shook it, her raised eyes filled with sarcasm. Now, without any effort, the corners of her mouth turned up in a self-deprecating smile. "I really wish I couldn't smell your perfume. Do you know how much I wish I could lose my sense of smell? Liu Ming, your heart changes so quickly."

However, her hand was forcefully slapped away by the man, and her shoulder was pushed by Liu Ming. Caught off guard, Zhang Ai staggered back two steps. Just then, there was a toy her son had dropped on the ground behind her. She stepped on it and fell backward to the ground. The cramping pain in her lower abdomen terrified her. Then, the bright red blood flowing from between her legs stung her eyes. She couldn't hold back the blood flowing out—she had miscarried.

"You can't even stand up after a push? You were planning to stage this accident all along, weren't you? Perfect, since you have plenty of complaints about me anyway, let's wait six months and get a divorce. In the meantime... let's separate, I'll go back to my mom's." With a cold tone, he completely absolved himself of responsibility, and Liu Ming turned to walk back towards the bathroom.

She was filled with doubt and a bitter taste, wondering how he could be so heartless. Zhang Ai, as always, swallowed her pride and crawled forward on her knees, enduring the abdominal pain. She grabbed his legs with both hands, tears streaming down her face, and choked out, "Don't divorce me, please don't divorce me! I beg you, we still have a child!"

Her legs dragged in a pool of blood, her trousers stained crimson. It was truly unimaginable that there was an unborn fetus in that pool of blood.

Liu Ming should have been framed on the wall back then.

Liu Ming, now annoyed, kicked her away. Her son, who had stopped crying from being frightened by the blood, stood there like a thin pillar. As Zhang Ai's front body was thrown to the ground, the thin pillar moved in front of her and then shortened.

When her son squatted down, his small body looked even smaller, but the gestational sac, which wasn't in the blood, was still small. He seemed to be trying not to look at the pool of blood, his dark eyes fixed on Zhang Ai, his childish voice not filled with concern: "Mommy, I'm hungry."

What did she do after that? She simply felt hopeless about life, and perhaps continuing to be tied to Liu Ming was her only hope.

Her former company would no longer want her; the new generation has already replaced her. In the few years since she left the workforce, those newcomers have been able to surpass her, so where would she find a place? Her salary used to be higher than Liu Ming's, and her performance was more outstanding.

The past is the past, and so are events and people. She set aside her reason and called her younger brother, Zhang Lin, exaggerating the situation, saying that a woman upstairs who was a mistress had caused her to lose her child, and also told her mother-in-law about Liu Ming's proposed divorce. There was still some family affection left, otherwise Zhang Lin wouldn't have come; the work she had done still had some effect, otherwise her mother-in-law wouldn't have come.

To her own family, she was an ATM; to her husband's family, she was a donkey pulling a millstone.

Why did you do those things like that, like a madman?

Why……

The light had changed somehow. Zhang Ai blinked twice, then numbly raised her head. The sudden burst of sunlight and cold air jolted her awake—the lawsuit was over, and the result was an expected defeat. In total, she needed to compensate Wen Dai 100,000 yuan and issue a public apology.

The extortion of 100,000 yuan has finally backfired on her; now it's her turn to deliver the 100,000 yuan to Wen Dai.

"Why did you do those things?" The person who asked her was Wen Dai.

Zhang Ai turned her empty eyes to her. The woman in front of her was as beautiful as a hibiscus flower, and her temperament alone was incomparable to hers. Even the mistress Liu Ming had cheated on was no match for her.

"I just did it because I wanted to," she said casually, trying to gloss over the matter.

The wind, carrying snow, brushed against her face. Wen Dai tucked her hair behind her ear, her chin resting on her scarf, her exposed eyes and nose slightly red from the wind. "I have a special skill; I can see what happens. To be honest, I really can't understand you. You're clearly capable, even more capable than your husband, yet you choose to cut off your other possibilities, staying at home to be a wife and mother; the key is, you haven't raised your child well, and your husband is running off with someone else—no offense intended, just that I think it's unnecessary. You've been forced into this situation, and you're partly to blame yourself. You don't love yourself enough."

The thin mist from her breath blurred her face. Zhang Ai's eyes flickered, then she sneered, "You're not me, what do you know? You're so young and beautiful, of course you can do anything; this society is all about looks, if you don't have a face you have to rely on your abilities. I'm not young anymore, I'm thirty, and you're calling me 'big sister' now. What else can I do besides work in a factory or be a waitress? This world changes too fast, I'm already outdated."