Chapter 380 Mutual Destruction (Part 2)
On the third day, an older woman who had a good relationship with the Wang family came to the Wang family's door and said to Aunt Wang and Yu Niang, "I was watching from the side and saw that the old woman hadn't fed the baby in her arms for a whole day. I was afraid something might have happened, so I didn't dare to go up and ask. I just thought I would come and tell you how I felt."
After all, that was the child that Yu Niang carried for ten months and risked her life to give birth to. Even if they were divorced, she was still the child's mother. How could she really not care at all?
Upon hearing this, Yu Niang had the idea to go and see the child.
Aunt Wang readily agreed, and the two hailed a carriage and headed towards the inner city.
When they arrived at the Xu family's house, they knocked on the door, but no one answered. After knocking a few more times, a neighbor finally came out and said that no one in the Xu family was home.
Yu Niang and Aunt Wang had no choice but to go back first.
The next day, because Aunt Wang had chores to do, Yu Niang went into the inner city alone. When she arrived at the Wang family's house and knocked on the door, she saw Granny Xu with a long face.
Yu Niang felt a sense of unease rising in her heart and immediately felt something was wrong, so she asked Granny Xu where her child was.
Granny Xu led Yu Niang into the inner room, where Yu Niang saw a baby with its eyes closed in a white swaddle blanket.
When she got closer, she picked the child up and her trembling hands reached out to touch the child's breath, only to find the skin cold and stiff.
The child is dead.
He died.
Yu Niang couldn't accept it; how could her child have died in just three days?
Yu Niang screamed like a madwoman, tearfully demanding answers, but all she got in return was a single sentence from Granny Xu: "Children are hard to raise, so if they die, they die."
"My son will naturally find other women to bear him sons in the future."
Granny Xu's words caused the resentment and anger in Yu Niang's chest to surge from the bottom of her heart to the top of her head.
Yu Niang put down the child, went to Granny Xu, grabbed her, and slapped her several times across the face. Then she pushed Granny Xu to the ground, straddled her, and began to beat her severely.
"You heartless old woman!"
That's also your Xu family's bloodline!
"Give me back my child! Give me back my child!"
It turned out that Granny Xu was unhappy with the verdict that she would be sentenced to hard labor, so she thought that if she couldn't have a good time, no one else could either.
Granny Xu deliberately took the infant, who was not yet a month old, to the Wang family's door to shout and curse. The little baby could not withstand the cold wind, and children are difficult to raise; many die before the age of three.
Granny Xu was determined to disgust the child and cause heartache to the Wang family, so she didn't pay much attention to the baby's food and drink.
That night, the baby developed a high fever, but how could Granny Xu, who was fast asleep, know?
The next day, when Granny Xu got up to change the baby's diaper, she discovered that the child had already stopped breathing!
At this moment, Granny Xu was truly frightened, and cold sweat broke out on her forehead.
However, after a while, Granny Xu laughed again at the tiny infant's corpse.
"Hmph, good riddance. That slut gave birth to a bastard child, so it's better that she's dead."
"My son will have plenty of women willing to bear him sons in the future."
So, Granny Xu told Xu An about the child's death. Xu An gave Granny Xu a deep look, and Granny Xu quickly explained to her beloved child, "An'er, this wasn't your mother who killed him."
He was just unlucky; he died of a high fever in the night.
Xu An didn't speak, but glanced at the baby in the swaddling clothes who looked like he was asleep with his eyes closed. He turned his back and walked outside, saying, "I'll go find him a coffin. He's still my child, so let him go in peace."
As for Xu An's thoughts, such as "Why did he have a high fever? Why didn't he go to see a doctor?", there's no need to elaborate.
Upon hearing this, Granny Xu followed Xu An and said, "Alright, then I'll go buy some incense and paper money too. After all, they're from our Xu family."
This is why, that afternoon, when Aunt Wang and Yu Niang came to the Xu family's house and knocked on the door, no one answered.
At this moment, Granny Xu, who was pinned down by Yu Niang, was already feeling guilty because she had accidentally killed her grandson, which was why she couldn't stop Yu Niang's sudden attack. However, Granny Xu had recovered her senses by now.
The two continued to wrestle, but Yu Niang, who was still in her postpartum period and had been working hard and not getting enough to eat, was no match for Granny Xu. Yu Niang's face was covered with scratches from Granny Xu, and it was bloody and quite a sight.
"You madwoman! Luckily, my son divorced you, otherwise, you lunatic would have kept my Xu family in constant turmoil!"
Even in the midst of their fight, Granny Xu still had the energy to curse, but Yu Niang couldn't hear a word she said at that moment.
Yu Niang's mind was filled with the image of the baby's stiff body, tightly closed eyes, and pale face. Despite the pain, Yu Niang was determined to hit Granny Xu a few times.
"I didn't even hear my mother say 'mother' before my child died."
That was the child I risked my life to give birth to!
I'll beat you to death, I'll beat you to death, you heartless old woman!
During the struggle, Yu Niang was eventually at a disadvantage. At this moment, Yu Niang, who was being pressed down by Granny Xu, had empty eyes and no strength to resist, like a living dead person.
"Hmph, you still want to fight me? I should have drowned that bastard when he was born!"
Yu Niang, who had already given up and was just passively taking the beating while lying on the ground, immediately widened her eyes upon hearing Granny Xu's words. She groped around on the ground with both hands and found the scissors that had fallen out of the sewing kit during the fight.
With a "plop" sound, Yu Niang forcefully plunged the scissors into the outside of Granny Xu's neck; with a "snap" sound, Granny Xu's carotid artery was punctured, and the spurting blood dripped onto Yu Niang's face.
Granny Xu clutched her neck and fell to the ground. Yu Niang stood there stunned for a moment before gathering her strength and forcefully kicked Granny Xu's body away from her lower body.
Yu Niang finally managed to stand up, and stared wide-eyed as blood gushed from Granny Xu's neck. She looked like she was dead.
Granny Xu, she's dead.
"Haha, haha, haha," Yu Niang went from chuckling softly to bursting into maniacal laughter in just a few breaths.
After laughing enough, Yu Niang looked up and surveyed the "home" she had lived in for less than three years. Then, she staggered to the kitchen, found a tinderbox, and took out all the cooking oil and sprinkled it on the doors of each room.
After lighting the fire, Yu Niang turned around and picked up the baby wrapped in a white blanket from the bed inside the house. Standing in the courtyard, she waited until the fire grew larger before carrying the child out the door.
Meanwhile, the neighbors started shouting, "Fire! Fire! Help! Help!"
The first person to arrive at the Xu family's door was so frightened when he saw Yu Niang with her hair disheveled, her face covered in wounds, and her clothes stained with large patches of blood that he backed away, exclaiming, "Ah, ah, there's a ghost!"
Later, someone naturally found patrolling constables, and some neighbors followed the constables' instructions to help control the fire to prevent it from spreading to the houses of the neighbors on both sides. Yu Niang was also directly placed under the supervision of the constables.
Xu An, the last to hear the news, ran back to the Xu family's door. What he saw was a house burned down to its frame amidst thick smoke, and Yu Niang, who had gone mad, kneeling on the ground holding her child and coaxing the child with "oh oh oh."
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