"I can't tolerate you?" Aunt Zhang laughed angrily, refusing to argue with her.

They pulled back all the money, grain, quilts, and cotton clothes that Ye Ting had secretly given to her family. What they couldn't take back, they cut up with scissors.

The people of Yejiacun didn't know what was going on. Wasn't Ye Ting supposed to be very favored by her mother-in-law?

How could they break up less than a month after getting married?

Some older women even subtly criticized Aunt Zhang, saying, "Ye Ting's mother-in-law, if your daughter-in-law is disobedient, you can teach her, and even hitting or scolding her is acceptable. Why did you divorce her? Don't you understand the saying, 'Better to tear down ten temples than break up one marriage'?"

Ye Ting was also crying: "Mother, I was struck by lightning. You have no idea how much pain I've been in these past few days. Mother, please have pity on me. I promise to live a good life with Zhang Xiangliang. I can do anything, and we won't need to eat too well."

Aunt Zhang was so angry that she pointed at her and said, "As long as I have a breath left, you can forget about stepping into the Zhang family's door."

Aunt Zhang was afraid that Ye Ting would feign pitifulness again and ruin her children's reputation in Longmen Town, so she stood at the entrance of Ye's village, touching her ankles and crying and cursing Ye Ting's family.

"Ye Ting is a wicked woman. She pretends to be pitiful, steals money from her husband's family, and uses it to support her own family."

“Before returning to her parents’ home, she secretly ran back to her parents’ home three times, bringing money and gifts, and even the steamed buns I gave her were stolen and taken back to her parents’ home.”

“She stole the clothes meant for the poor and gave them to Ye Xuyang’s family, which caused our Zhang family’s land, which we had rented for twenty years, to be taken back. Now we have no land to cultivate, and my second son and daughter are still unmarried.”

"She tricked my son into carrying the brocade robe to sunbathe for money, but in reality she conspired with the thief to kill the brocade robe and send him to his death."

“She was unfaithful and had an affair with a rich man. My poor son is honest and kind. She drove him crazy in less than a month after she married him.”

She cried so sadly and miserably that many people in the village shed tears of sympathy, finding the Ye siblings utterly disgusting.

Ye Xuyang and Wu were so insulted that they couldn't leave the house, and Ye Wei hated his aunt even more.

He grabbed a large broom and swatted Ye Ting out of the house, forbidding her from entering the Ye family home.

When the nearby villages heard about what Ye Ting had done, they learned that she was begging for food and not a single person would give her any alms.

With nowhere to go, in the dead of winter, Ye Ting dug a hole in someone else's haystack at the edge of the village and hid inside, shivering. Listening to the howling wind, she shed tears of her own (one-eyed) loneliness.

"I was so stupid, really. I only knew that without my brother I would lose my maternal family, but I never imagined that without my husband's family, I would lose my maternal family too..."

She huddled for several days, suffering from hunger and cold, and had no money to treat the wound from being struck by lightning. In her dizzy state, she seemed to see Chu Bu Nu walking towards her again.

Instead of being gentle and considerate, he slapped her across the half of her face that wasn't broken, and cursed viciously, "Not dead? If you're not dead, get the hell up!"

His slap hurt so much, so real, that it brought her back to her senses.

I opened my eyes, and another slap landed on my face: "Stop pretending to be dead, get up!"

Her hair was pulled out of the straw hole, and her mind became clear.

They were not young noblemen, nor the second son of the Prime Minister of Chu, but rather—Ye Xuyang and Ye Wei.

Tears streamed down her face as she said excitedly, "Brother, Xiaowei, are you here to take me back?"

"Go back? You wish!" Ye Wei said irritably. "Get up. Magistrate Li is inquiring about that group. Didn't you help them harm that idiot? Go ahead, tell Magistrate Li everything you know, and you can get a reward."

Ye Ting was confused, but she understood one thing: Ye Wei and Ye Xuyang were telling her to go see the officials.

She harmed the Imperial Guards and Zhang Xiangliang. She can't go; if she goes, she'll go to jail or be beheaded.

"I'm not going." Her weak body erupted with fierce resistance. "Brother, Xiaowei, please spare me! I'm doing this all for you!"

"For us? Ha, what have you done for us?"

"I've given you all the food, cotton clothes, silver, and groceries. I've even given you my wedding quilt."

"You gave them all to us? Where are they?" Ye Xuyang roared, "Where are they? Show me!"

Yes, the Zhang family took them all back!

Ye Ting wanted to say, "I've given you everything. What can you do if you can't protect me?"

But she couldn't say it, because the people in front of her were her brother and nephew, who were all her family members.

"Stop pretending to be dead, go see Magistrate Li quickly." Ye Wei and Ye Xuyang pulled and dragged her along; her injuries hadn't healed, and her whole body ached.

She tried to struggle, but couldn't; she was sick and weak all over.

Ye Xuyang said to Ye Ting, "Tell Magistrate Li everything about those people. You've ruined my reputation. If you still consider me your brother, do a good deed."

With a tear streaming down her face, Ye Ting nodded involuntarily.

She would say it properly: her brother's reputation must not be ruined; he is her only brother.

Dragging her to the county government office, Ye Xuyang asked Magistrate Li in a fawning tone, "She knows the whole story, Your Honor, may we give her the reward?"

Magistrate Li was having a headache when Ye Xuyang suddenly revealed the wanted poster, saying that his sister was the person involved in the incident.