Knife
Wang Yao snorted coldly, "You didn't? The 'sister' you're talking about is Qin Yaodi, isn't she? Didn't you show Qin Yaodi our family photo? Didn't you take a hundred yuan deposit from Qin Yaodi? Didn't you tell her to wait for me on my way to the county town on the day school starts? Or did you not bargain with Qin Yaodi and end up selling me for a thousand yuan? Do you dare swear to the Guanyin Bodhisattva you worship every day that you didn't do any of these things?"
Wang Yao pointed at the benevolent-looking Guanyin statue and questioned it sharply.
Liu Lan dared not look at the Guanyin statue, but stared at Wang Yao, unable to speak, but her eyes were full of curses against Wang Yao.
Liu Xiangmei had countless questions after hearing Wang Yao's words.
She asked Liu Ailing, "Where did you get the family photo?"
Liu Ailing pursed her lips and remained silent.
Wang Yao replied in a hoarse voice, "They hid the photos that were meant to be burned for Dad."
Before anyone could react, Liu Xiangmei rushed up to Liu Lan again and slapped her across the face.
"That's for your son! That's for your son! Are you even human?"
Liu Lan spat out a mouthful of blood, which included a tooth.
"A thousand yuan, a thousand yuan, and you sold your son's only bloodline? Is your heart made of stone? How could you be so cruel?"
Liu Xiangmei grabbed Liu Lan by the collar, shaking her repeatedly and questioning her incessantly.
But Liu Lan showed no remorse; instead, a slight smile appeared on her lips. "I only have one son, Tianhua. As for the others, who knows where they came from? Those bastards should have died long ago. I gave them their lives!"
Liu Xiangmei was stunned. "What do you mean? What do you mean by that?"
Wang Yao was also stunned. This was something she had never heard of in her previous life. Her father was a bastard and not a child of the Wang family. Then whose father was he?
She always thought that Liu Lan disliked their family because she disliked her mother as her daughter-in-law, but she never expected that Liu Lan disliked her father.
Everyone was full of questions, but Liu Lan refused to say another word and even closed her eyes.
I initially thought it was just a family conflict, but I never expected it to involve so many other things.
The village chief asked, "Where is Wang Sheng?"
Liu Ailing: "Go, go to the fields."
Village chief: "The house is such a mess, what are you going to do in the fields? Go and call Wang Sheng back right now."
Liu Ailing glanced at Liu Lan, and seeing that Liu Lan did not react, she hurriedly ran out.
Everyone remaining in the room was completely silent, not uttering a single word. They were all stunned by Liu Lan's sudden remark.
Old Li felt he should leave now, since what followed were all private matters of the Wang family, and it wasn't appropriate for an outsider like him to be present.
However, he was also worried that Wang Yao and her daughter would be bullied again. Although the village chief was there and there shouldn't be a big problem, he was still a little uneasy because even an upright official can't settle family disputes. After thinking about it, he decided to stay.
When Wang Sheng returned, he saw that there were five people in the small room, plus himself and his youngest son's family who had come back with him, making the room feel a bit cramped.
They had already heard from Liu Ailing about what had happened at home on their way back, so they weren't surprised to see the situation there when they returned.
Wang Tianhua had asked his father several times on the way home, but his father just kept his head down and walked home, only saying one sentence: "When we get back, just say whatever I say."
Wang Sheng sat down next to the village chief. Seeing that the village chief was waiting for him to explain, he rubbed the mud off his hands and said, "It's been decades since then. Why talk about it now? Tianmiao has already been buried in the Wang family cemetery. His life and death are now in the hands of the Wang family."
Liu Xiangmei's emotions had calmed down a bit by now. Hearing this, she sneered, "You still think Tianmiao is a member of the Wang family? How could you bear to sell Tianmiao's only daughter for a thousand yuan? Is this how you treat the Wang family?"
Wang Sheng looked up at Liu Xiangmei, his eyes filled with doubt, "Who wants to sell Yao Yao?"
Wang Yao watched Wang Sheng's performance. Yes, Wang Sheng's performance. She had been fortunate enough to witness this scene in her previous life. The expression was exactly the same, and the words were exactly the same.
The village chief asked, "You don't know?"
Wang Sheng retorted, "What do you know? I'm in the fields every day. My wife takes care of everything at home. I don't know anything about it. What's going on?"
The village chief glanced at Liu Lan, then at Wang Tianhua and his wife. Wang Tianhua, remembering his father's instructions on the way, nodded and said, "Yes, my father never cares about things at home. My mother takes care of everything."
Upon hearing this, Liu Lan, who had been keeping her eyes closed, finally reacted. She glanced at Wang Sheng before saying to the village chief, "Why make things difficult for them? Qin Yaodi is from my maternal side. They don't know her at all. I was the one who contacted her. It has nothing to do with them."
Liu Xiangmei stepped forward and slapped Liu Lan again, the sound of the slap ringing out, "You vicious old hag..."
Wang Tianhua strode forward, pulled Liu Xiangmei away, helped Liu Lan up, and yelled at Liu Xiangmei, "What are you doing? This is your elder, don't you have any sense of respect?"
Liu Xiangmei sneered: "Rank and hierarchy? I didn't kill her because I showed her mercy. Why would I care about any nonsense about rank and hierarchy?"
"Alright, stop arguing. Hey, Tianmiao's wife, calm down. Now is not the time to fight. Let's get to the bottom of this first."
Then the village chief asked Wang Sheng, "My first question is, is Wang Tianmiao your biological son?"
Wang Sheng kept his head down, picking at the dirt on his hands, and remained silent.
The village chief said sternly, "Wang Sheng, I'm not chatting with you. Answer my question."
Wang Sheng then said in a very soft voice, "It's my son."
Village chief: "Don't lie. The technology is very advanced now. We can find out by checking your blood and Wang Yao's blood."
After a pause, Wang Shengcai said, "No."
Village Chief: "Tell me what happened. You'd better tell the truth, or the police will come and question you."
Wang Sheng glanced at Wang Yao, or perhaps he was looking at someone else through Wang Yao, and after a long while, he finally spoke:
“In the winter of 1953, my wife and I went to the city. My wife was almost seven months pregnant at the time. We passed through an alley and heard a child crying. Women can’t stand the sound of a baby crying when they are pregnant. I wanted to go and see, but I stepped on the ice, slipped, and fell. The baby was gone. In the hospital, I thought of the child in the alley. Perhaps it was fate, but the child lay on the ground for a long time and no one took him away, so I brought him back.”
"Are you telling the truth?" the village chief asked.
Wang Sheng smiled wryly: "Now that things have come to this, why would I need to lie to you?"
The village chief breathed a sigh of relief. It was good that Wang Tianmiao hadn't been abducted; otherwise, it would have been a real problem.
He also remembered that Wang Sheng's wife was pregnant at the time, and when she came back from a trip to the city, she was carrying a baby.
The village chief glanced at Liu Lan and continued, "Then let's talk about Wang Yao..."
Wang Yao interrupted the village chief: "Excuse me, Uncle Village Chief, may I say a few words about my matter?"
The village chief nodded.
Wang Yao looked at Wang Sheng: "According to what you just said, you are not my grandfather, but you raised my father. Logically speaking, I should still call you grandfather. But I can't say it because of this old woman on the ground. She wants to sell me to the deep mountains to a mentally challenged person. I really hate her. I wish I could cut her into a thousand pieces. But I still have a bright future ahead of me. She is not worth it."
“The thought of having to be family with someone like her fills me with hatred. So, let’s cut off all ties from now on. Your king and my king will no longer be the same king. Whether we live or die, we will have nothing to do with each other.”
Hearing this, Wang Tianhua became anxious. "How can this be? We've been a family for so long, how can we just break up like this? Besides, it's so good to be a family, helping each other out. Yao Yao, look, you've gone to school, and your mom is staying at home. We can help take care of her. Otherwise, it would be so inconvenient for her to be alone at home all by herself!"
Looking at Wang Tianhua's utterly hypocritical face, Wang Yao retorted, "Don't you have a mother yourself? If you want to take care of someone, then take care of your own mother. My mother is none of your concern."
Wang Tianhua was speechless.
Liu Ailing is different from Wang Tianhua. Wang Tianhua still has some shame, but Liu Ailing is completely shameless. "Wang Yao, although your father is not the biological son of this family, your grandparents raised him. You think you can just let it go with a few words? Let me tell you, no way!"
Wang Yao sneered: "So what do you plan to do?"
As if she had planned it all out, Liu Ailing said crisply, "If your grandparents hadn't taken your father in back then, he would have frozen to death in the freezing cold. So even though he wasn't their biological son, his life belonged to the Wang family. The money the coal mine paid to him when he died was considered a life buyback. You can just take out the money they paid, and we won't argue with you about anything else."
Wang Yao was so angry she laughed. "Shameless people are truly invincible!" she thought. "Who owes you anything? Who are you going to ask for it from? What money do you want from me?"
Liu Ailing: "Your father is dead, how can I take him?"
Wang Yao turned and walked towards the kitchen. When she returned, she was holding a kitchen knife.
Liu Ailing immediately shouted in a shrill voice, "What are you doing? In broad daylight, do you want to kill me? Ah~"
Seeing Wang Yao swinging a kitchen knife at her, Liu Ailing screamed and quickly hid behind Wang Tianhua.
Wang Tianhua kept saying "stay calm" while his body kept dodging, and every time he dodged, he exposed Liu Ailing.
Wang Yao grabbed Liu Ailing by the collar and held a kitchen knife to her neck.
Despite Liu Ailing's usual arrogance and domineering nature, she wouldn't dare to confront a kitchen knife head-on. As soon as she struggled, Wang Yao moved the kitchen knife a fraction closer to her neck.
Wang Yao gritted her teeth and said, "You want money, don't you? Then I'll take you to ask my dad for it. Do you dare to go?"
When Liu Xiangmei saw her usually obedient daughter being forced to use a knife, and realized that the culprit behind all of this was this old woman on the ground, anger rose in her chest again.
He then reached out and grabbed Liu Lan's collar, slapping her several more times.
Wang Tianhua didn't know whether to protect his wife who was being stabbed or his mother who was being slapped first. He didn't dare to step forward to help either of them, fearing that Wang Yao and her daughter would turn around and beat him up.
He was so anxious he paced back and forth, and could only ask Wang Sheng, "Dad, what should we do? You have to think of something!"
Wang Dabao, who had been leaning on Wang Sheng, was also frightened by the scene before him and burst into tears.
Wang Sheng glanced at his unfilial son who only knew how to look for his parents after the accident, and his grandson who only knew how to be naughty, and felt a deep sadness in his heart.
Two boys, yet they're not as spirited as Wang Yao, a girl!
"Do you dare to go? Nod your head, and I'll take you there right away." Wang Yao pressed the kitchen knife against Liu Ailing's neck and asked again.
Liu Ailing was initially a little scared, but looking at Wang Yao's face in front of her, with its tender face and fine downy hair, she suddenly lost her fear. She was just a little girl who hadn't even grown up yet; would she really dare to kill her?
"Go ahead and do it if you dare..."
Before she could finish speaking, Wang Yao began to tighten her grip on the kitchen knife.
In an instant, Liu Ailing felt her neck being slashed by a kitchen knife. She tried to back away, but there was a wall behind her, nowhere to hide. She could only close her eyes and scream, "I was wrong, have mercy on me, I was wrong..."
"Yaoyao, no..."
"Yaoyao, stop..."
Everyone held their breath. No one expected Wang Yao to actually make a move. Just like with Liu Ailing, everyone thought Wang Yao was just trying to scare Liu Ailing.
Seeing the blood dripping from the cleaver, everyone realized that Wang Yao was serious.
Wang Yao let go, and Liu Ailing's body went limp, and she sat down on the ground.
Wang Tianhua then rushed to Liu Ailing's side, covering the wound on her neck, and yelled at Wang Yao, "Are you crazy...?"
Wang Yao raised the knife in her hand and gestured at Wang Tianhua a few times.
Wang Tianhua swallowed back the words he was about to say.
Wang Yao turned to look at Wang Sheng: "Do you agree with what I just said?"
Wang Sheng looked at the still-dripping cleaver and nodded.
Wang Yao walked to Liu Lan's side and threw the kitchen knife next to her. The knife hit the ground with a crisp, cold sound, and blood splattered from the knife, landing right on Liu Lan's face, causing her to shudder.
Wang Yao brought up Liu Lan and pushed her in front of the Guanyin statue. "Do you think that by saying my father isn't your biological son and that you gave him his life, you can atone for your sins in front of the Bodhisattva? Let me tell you, someone like you will not escape any of the eighteen levels of hell. Cherish the time you have left to live."
Liu Lan trembled violently. "No, I saved a life. I'm incredibly fortunate. I wanted to sell you, but only for my son. It was for my son! Is it wrong for a mother to want to protect her son? I did nothing wrong..."
She kept chanting in front of the Buddha, but no one paid any attention to her anymore.
Wang Yao took Liu Xiangmei's hand and said, "Mom, let's go."
Looking at her daughter's blood-stained hands, Liu Xiangmei carefully wiped them clean with her sleeve before saying, "My daughter needs to be clean."
Continue read on readnovelmtl.com