Chapter 107 Lingering Fear
"How was I supposed to know what the soup was like! From morning until now, none of us dared to touch it! We told you we wouldn't dare drink it, we just saved it for you to eat when you got back! Who told you to be so greedy and drink it first!"
He wiped his face as he explained.
"I knew it! How could Shen Cuifen cook something out of kindness! And she even saved the soup! Turns out she had malicious intentions and wanted to poison me!"
Lu Jianguo grew angrier the more he thought about it, and suddenly slammed his fist on the table.
"Go to the kitchen and get something else! Something hot! Don't try to fool people with this stale soup!"
Lu Zhonghe rolled his eyes, his face full of impatience.
He turned around, climbed onto the bed, threw off the covers, and crawled inside.
"You go by yourself, I dare not go again! The kitchen door is tightly closed, who knows if it's been drugged too! I don't want to be a scapegoat!"
Lu Jianguo called out several times, but Lu Zhonghe lay in bed pretending to be dead.
Lu Jianguo cursed under his breath, "Unfilial sons! I've raised you for nothing!"
He limped out, supporting himself against the wall.
He staggered to the kitchen doorway and pushed it open forcefully.
But the door didn't budge.
He increased his strength, but the door remained firmly shut.
He was about to open his mouth and call for Lu Zhongping to open the door.
But then I remembered what Lu Zhonghe had just said.
"We were all afraid of getting food poisoning, so nobody dared to touch anything in the kitchen."
He lowered his voice and called out softly.
"Zhongping, open the door!"
"Zhongping, open the door!"
I called out several times, but there was no response from inside.
Undeterred, he gently shook the doorknob again.
But Lu Zhongping inside was like he was fast asleep.
Having no other choice, Lu Jianguo turned around with a limp and struggled to move towards the road and the room.
I'm absolutely furious!
Neither of my two sons is reliable!
One pretended to be asleep, the other pretended to be dead, both of them were hiding from him!
I get beaten up outside, and nobody cares!
I was starving, and nobody cared about me!
They all stood by coldly, just like Shen Cuifen, their hearts as hard as stone!
Lu Jianguo was cursing and swearing in the corridor.
Meanwhile, inside Shen Cuifen's room, the mother and daughter were huddled together, sobbing softly.
“Cuifen, I’m so sorry! I shouldn’t have made you back down and suffer so much! I’m soft-hearted and thought that harmony in the family would bring prosperity, but instead you’ve suffered so much injustice…”
Song Qiaoying's tears fell uncontrollably.
Seeing her mother like this, Shen Cuifen reached out and gently hugged her.
"Mom, please don't say that! What happened back then is really not your fault. I wanted to keep things peaceful in this family, it was my own choice. I don't blame you, really, not at all."
"It's my own fault for being so foolish and trusting the wrong person, Lu Shuixian, which is why I've ended up like this today."
Shen Cuifen murmured softly.
Shen Cuifen gently wiped away Song Qiaoying's tears while comforting her mother, whose hair was already gray.
If I could do it all over again.
She still wouldn't stand by and watch her parents and brothers risk their lives for her.
She remembers that day clearly.
The father knelt in front of the hall, kowtowing and begging for help.
The older brother was beaten black and blue.
The second brother gritted his teeth and clenched his fists in the corner.
But she could only watch helplessly.
That feeling of helplessness still wakes her up in the middle of the night.
She knew very well that if she hadn't agreed to marry Lu Jianguo back then, the Shen family would probably have collapsed long ago.
The Lu family controlled the town's granary at the time, and the Shen family's debts snowballed.
The day the matchmaker came, my father didn't sleep all night, and my mother silently wiped away her tears by the stove.
She knew that if she didn't agree, her whole family would be kicked out of their ancestral home.
She never resented her parents; her only regret was that she had chosen the wrong person.
She once thought that Lu Shuixian genuinely cared for her.
But the truth is that Lu Shuixian pushed her into the abyss step by step.
Whenever she thinks about those things, her heart feels like it's being slowly cut by a dull knife.
Song Qiaoying reached out with trembling hands, wanting to see the injury on Shen Cuifen's head.
She kept Lu Fuhua's words in mind.
“The injury on Cuifen’s head was caused by Lu Jianguo hitting her with a shovel.”
Lu Fuhua made it very clear last night.
She wanted to find an opportunity to check on her daughter's injuries, but Shen Cuifen gently stopped her.
Shen Cuifen tilted her head slightly, forcing a smile onto her face.
"Mom, it's really nothing, don't worry about it."
"Mom, the wound has already scabbed over! It's all healed, no need to look at it."
Shen Cuifen made it sound so easy.
She unconsciously touched the back of her head, where a dull ache still lingered, preventing her from sleeping soundly at night.
But Song Qiaoying insisted on seeing it.
Shen Cuifen had no choice but to lower her head.
That scar was a mark of her humiliation, but also proof that she was alive.
"That damned Lu Jianguo! How could he do such a thing!"
When Song Qiaoying saw the scar, she trembled.
The wound still had stitches left, indicating that it was extremely deep, with the flesh turned inside out, a shocking sight.
In some areas, the skin has even turned black and scabbed over, with the surrounding skin showing an abnormal reddish tinge.
This was not a simple bump or bruise; it was a deliberate act of malice.
Song Qiaoying's tears could no longer be stopped, and they fell drop by drop onto Shen Cuifen's shoulder.
Shen Cuifen quickly raised her head and took her mother's hand.
"He injured my head, I won't let him get away with this!"
“I’ve beaten him up every time I see him these past few days. He’s covered in so many bruises!”
Her eyes flashed with a fierce light.
She wasn't bluffing; she really did it.
Every time she saw him, she would rush up and beat him hard, as if venting the hatred that had accumulated over the years.
Looking at the smug smile on her daughter's face, Song Qiaoying felt a pang of sadness in her heart.
She could tell that the smile was fake.
But she could see the anger and exhaustion in her daughter's eyes.
She would rather Shen Cuifen cry than have her prove her strength in this way.
"Cuifen, Lu Jianguo was tied up in the yard last night...did you do it?"
Song Qiaoying's voice was very low.
Shen Cuifen nodded gently, like a child who had done something wrong.
"Mom, I'm sorry... I was too impulsive and made you worry."
She choked up for a moment.
She wasn't unaware that doing this would implicate her family, but at that moment, she just couldn't control herself.
She felt a mixture of pleasure and fear when she recalled Lu Jianguo lying on the ground in such a disheveled state.
She felt a chill run down her spine when she recalled how Shen Yonglin had rushed out to take the blame for her earlier that day.
My older brother ran out barefoot, shouting.
"I tied them up! It has nothing to do with Cuifen."
The scene almost made her cry on the spot.
Fortunately, she didn't actually do anything last night.
She originally planned to kill Lu Jianguo with one blow and end this ill-fated relationship herself.
But when she stood in front of him, seeing his face covered in blood and trembling, she suddenly stopped.
She didn't want to become a murderer, and she didn't want her parents to bury their child.
She rushed into Zhou Yangyu's room and found the two of them lying naked together.
Zhou Yangyu lay beneath Lu Jianguo, her body still bearing ambiguous marks.
Lu Jianguo even had the nerve to sneer at her.
"You've come at the right time. Let's see what a real couple looks like."
That scene was too jarring; she gripped the kitchen knife in her hand repeatedly, then loosened it again.
She wanted to rush up and chop them down, but her legs felt like they were nailed to the ground.
Continue read on readnovelmtl.com
