As Lü Jie watched the person flash towards her, she pushed her to the ground without hesitation. Yang Suxian hadn't expected that she would dare to fight back in front of so many people. Caught off guard, she fell to the ground, her elbow bone throbbing with intense pain.
Tears welled up in her eyes from the pain. She shakily stretched out an arm, pointing at Lü Jie, about to unleash a torrent of curses, but Lü Jie beat her to it.
“If you hadn’t kept pressuring me to have children, I wouldn’t have gone mad. Ever since I entered your family, I have to get up at four o’clock to prepare breakfast, wash your clothes every day, and clean your room. In the countryside, I had to do farm work, and now that we’ve finally come to the capital, you still have to boss me around.”
Lu Jie's chest heaved violently, all her anger erupting at this moment, and the pent-up resentment of many years was finally released.
"You've always looked down on Shitou, thinking he's weak as a boy, and saying he's just like his short-lived mother. Don't you often take advantage of Xiao Xueyi's absence to lay hands on him? He's not my biological child, so why can't I hit him?"
As soon as she said that, people in the crowd looked at each other in bewilderment.
I never imagined that Little Stone would live such a life, not only being abused by his stepmother, but also not being loved by his own grandmother.
"Yang Suxian, you still call me heartless, but the one with the blackest heart is clearly you. You say one thing to people and another behind their backs. Didn't you instruct me to do this? What are you pretending to be so compassionate for now!"
She screamed hysterically, wishing she could knock off Yang Suxian's hypocritical mask.
“You said he was useless and that he would never amount to anything. If it weren’t for this burden, your son could have married someone much better. You look down on him and on me. You’ve said more than once that this child is a burden. You want me to give birth to a more promising child, but things don’t go your way. You’re always finding fault and beating and scolding me. Yang Suxian, you are the most despicable person.”
Over the years, she has lived in constant fear.
She complained that her belly was not cooperating, that the stone had caused her a lot of trouble, and that Xiao Xueyi was often away from home and could not protect her.
“I’ve been working myself to the bone, from the moment I open my eyes all day. I thought if I worked harder, maybe you would stop. But that kid is heartless, and you old man aren’t any better. You were oppressed when you were young, and now you’re trying to torment me. You’re always coming up with folk remedies. What kind of insects haven’t I eaten over the years?”
Lü Jie is someone who is afraid of insects, but the folk remedies that Yang Suxian found all involved centipedes or other insects. No matter how disgusting they were, she held her nose and drank them down.
"But this time you've gone even further, you want me to drink your son's urine!"
These words immediately caused an uproar in the courtyard.
These are outdated folk remedies from what era? It's unbelievable that people still believe in them!
"Drinking men's urine? That sounds disgusting. Is something stuck in this old woman's brain?"
Yang Suxian struggled to cover the mouths of those people, but Lü Jie was unwilling to stop there. So many people had gathered at her doorstep today, and she finally had a chance to vent her frustrations. All her grievances poured out like beans.
"If you hadn't been beating and scolding Shitou all the time, and hadn't been hinting at me in every way, I wouldn't have been in such a hurry to have a few more sons to replace him. You are the Yama who came from hell. You look down on Shitou, and I look down on you too, but you are also a woman. How precious are your sons who crawled out of your womb?"
Yang Suxian rolled her eyes upwards, so angry that she almost fainted. In the end, she managed to catch her breath by tightly pinching her philtrum with one hand.
Seeing the two of them going on and on like mad, without mentioning a word about finding the child, Shu Ying squeezed Xie Zhiyan's hand, took a deep breath, and shouted to stop them.
"Both of you calm down. Is this the time to argue? Finding the child is the most important thing right now."
Both of them were startled at the same time. Shu Ying frowned and looked at Lü Jie, "When was the last time you saw the child?"
Lü Jie's eyes darted around nervously. After thinking for a long time, she shook her head. "It was the afternoon before yesterday, I think. I've forgotten."
Where does Stone usually like to go?
Lu Jie was dumbfounded. She was busy enough on her own, so how could she have the attention to care where Shi Tou was going?
"I don't know. He usually stays around the playground, and I don't know anything else about him."
Lu Jie knew nothing when asked, and those who wanted to help find the child were all speechless. Liu Jing snorted coldly, "Little Stone clearly has a grandmother and a stepmother, but he's being bullied like a left-behind child. Stone's mother will never forgive you people, even in heaven."
Lü Jie was speechless.
She didn't know when she had become so twisted. Sometimes, when she looked in the mirror, she even felt a little scared of the unfamiliar version of herself.
From the very beginning, she did want to treat this child as her own, but every time she saw the child, she would think of his mother who had died young.
"So this is how you usually treat Shi Tou? I trusted you with my child. When we got married, you swore you would treat him like your own child. Is this how you're going to treat your own child after you have one?!"
Just as everyone was wondering where to look for the child, Xiao Xueyi, carrying luggage, rushed out from the back of the crowd.
He had just arrived home a few minutes earlier and was surprised to see so many people gathered at his door. He was about to squeeze in and ask when he heard Shu Ying talking about the child.
Having heard the whole story with his own ears, Xiao Xueyi looked at Lü Jie and Yang Suxian with disbelief in his eyes.
His two closest relatives actually treated their own child like this.
Xiao Xueyi slammed his luggage on the ground, his voice rising a few decibels as he angrily questioned, "What exactly do you want? What did he, a child of only a few years old, do wrong to offend you and make you treat him like this! I ask myself, I've treated you well, so why can't you tolerate him?"
This was the first time Yang Suxian had ever seen her son so furious. Xiao Xueyi was always very filial, sending a fixed amount of money home every month, which made many people in the village envious.
Her lips trembled as she tried to explain, but Xiao Xueyi closed his eyes and took a deep breath. "What are you still standing here for? Hurry up and go find the child!"
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