Liu Jianjun gripped the phone tightly, his knuckles turning white from the force.
On the other end of the phone, Liu Jianmin was still rambling on, boasting about his new life: "By the way, Mom, my wife is pregnant! The ultrasound showed it's a big, healthy boy! Our Liu family has an heir! That means lots of expenses from now on—formula, diapers… Have you received your salary this month? Send me some more; I need to buy my wife some good nourishment…"
"...Didn't your brother's wife leave? Perfect, one less freeloader in the house. Your brother's salary will all be yours from now on, right? He's a grown man, eating in the army canteen, it won't cost him much..."
Liu Jianjun couldn't hear what was said after that. His mind went blank, as if a thunderclap had exploded.
Three hundred yuan...
Last time...
Everything will be yours from now on...
Over the years, he scrimped and saved, handing over his entire salary to his mother. Seeing his wife in patched clothes and his daughter crying from hunger, he told himself he had to be filial; his mother had suffered so much. For fifty yuan, he tacitly allowed his mother to sell her own daughter. Because his wife wanted to learn something, he personally burned her books, driving her to despair.
He always believed that he was protecting the family and fulfilling his responsibilities as a son and a husband.
In the end, he became a huge joke.
The hard-earned money he made was not used in his so-called "home," nor on his starving wife and daughter. Instead, his most beloved mother continuously sent it to another "home" to buy televisions and wardrobes for his idle younger brother, and to pave the way for his unborn nephew!
He himself, like a fool, guarded an empty rice jar, worrying about the five yuan he had to give as a gift.
The woman he insulted, beat, and broke his heart was using her frail shoulders to carry the empty shell of this family for him and to support his vampire-like family!
"You're burning paper, but you can't burn the words that are etched into my very bones!"
"I'm marrying you, not selling you!"
"My biggest regret is that I was blind to marry you five years ago."
Liu Fen's resolute words were like red-hot irons, branding his heart with intense pain. The pain was excruciating.
He once said to her disdainfully, "Without me, you wouldn't even be able to afford food."
How ridiculous! It turns out that the one who truly can't live without the other isn't her, but himself and his home, which has long been hollowed out by insects!
"Hello? Mom? Why aren't you saying anything?" Liu Jianmin urged from the other end of the phone.
Liu Jianjun's chest heaved violently as a surge of emotion, a mixture of regret, shame, and overwhelming rage, rushed to his head. With all his might, he forced a few words through clenched teeth into the microphone:
"I am not your mother."
After saying that, he slammed the phone down with a loud "bang".
He slowly turned around, his bloodshot eyes fixed on Granny Li, whose face was deathly pale with guilt. (This chapter has been read. Please click to continue reading the next chapter!)
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