When She Stops Being Dramatic

Chapter 48: Chapter 37: The 50s Long-Suffering Wife (37)

Old Mrs. Wang: ’Even though Zhu Yun wasn’t fortunate enough to become my daughter-in-law and someone else took her place, her words really struck a chord with me. Nothing feels as secure as having cash in your own hands.’

”They say you raise sons to provide for your old age, and Mr. Wang here is supposedly the most filial son in all the surrounding villages. Tsk, tsk. I never thought that after becoming a heartless man and a modern-day Chen Shimei, you’d add ’tormentor of his own mother’ to your list of titles.”

Old Mrs. Wang: ’Oh, my wretched life...’

Zhu Yun rattled on, leaving everyone a bit stunned. Wasn’t it only natural for a mother to watch her son’s child? Giving your parents a hundred yuan or so a year was considered filial piety, something you could brag about for months.

But then again, Zhu Yun wasn’t wrong about a single thing she said.

Everyone turned to look at Wang Xianbing and Lin Jin with disapproval, judging them as the kind of people who would surely prove to be unfilial.

Old Mrs. Wang was furious too. ”Fifty yuan a month! I can let it slide with your brothers—they’re usually filial to me and don’t have much money anyway. But you?”

”You’re usually so stingy, fobbing me off with a yuan here or there. The moment you need something, you ask for it back. And now you’ve tricked me into coming here to wait on your wife?”

”Are you going to kick me out and send me back home as soon as the child starts school?”

”Wang Xianbing, have you forgotten? When you were in school, to pay for your tuition, I only slept three or four hours a night...”

Old Mrs. Wang began to recount, one by one, all the hardships she had suffered while raising her children.

A vein throbbed on Wang Xianbing’s forehead. He shot a glance at Zhu Yun, and the momentary mix of stunned admiration and bitterness he’d felt earlier turned into pure, teeth-gritting hatred.

’This woman is going to marry the guy across the hall, and she isn’t even married yet, but she’s already stirring up trouble for my family!’

’She’s really something else. She just opens her mouth and turns black into white, managing to link every single thing to money.’

Chu Shenyu frowned slightly, stepping in front of his fiancée to shield her and returning the cold glare.

”Mom,” Wang Xianbing said, continuing to coax her in a low, placating voice. ”What kind of person is Zhu Yun? Why are you even listening to her? It’s because you had me marry her that I became a pariah in the factory district. Our family’s savings were wiped out just to make a clean break from her.”

”If you want your son to get a divorce and go back to the countryside to farm, then by all means, let Zhu Yun lead you by the nose.”

”Thirty yuan. Expenses are high in the city. You have to leave your son and grandson a way to survive, don’t you?”

Old Mrs. Wang gritted her teeth. ”Forty. I’ll cook for you at home, so I can definitely save that much. I brought a lot of new cotton and fine cotton cloth this time, all for my grandson.”

”If you think your mother is in the way, then I won’t even bother going upstairs. I’ll just turn around and leave right now.”

Feeling like everyone was backing him into a corner, Wang Xianbing nodded irritably. ”Fine. But you have to promise me—no matter what Lin Jin does wrong, or how Zhu Yun from across the hall tries to provoke you, you can’t cause a scene.”

”Otherwise, I’ll be stripped of my directorship!”

Old Mrs. Wang nodded, chuckling in satisfaction. ’Money makes everything negotiable.’ Having secured the promise that she’d get the money as soon as they were upstairs, she turned and shot a glare at Zhu Yun. ”You little vixen! I knew you were a troublemaker, always at home flirting with this man and that man. If it weren’t for my son, would you be in the city enjoying this good life? I wonder how many babies you’ve already carried in that belly of yours!”

’She still remembered her son sending a telegram asking for money. A thousand yuan! And it all went to this little vixen!’

”You drained our family of all its money, and you’re still not satisfied! You’re insatiably greedy! Who would want a wife like you? They must have been completely bewitched by that pretty face of yours, right?”

”You black-hearted slut, you’d better hurry up and give us our money back, or you’ll be sorry...”

In her younger days, Old Mrs. Wang had been a formidable character; no one in the entire village dared to bully her. Arguing, throwing herself on the ground, and making a scene—those were her specialties. Wang Xianbing and Lin Jin exchanged a look, both letting out a simultaneous sigh of relief.

’With his mother around, they didn’t believe they could handle Zhu Yun. After all, Old Mrs. Wang had tormented Zhu Yun for seven years; she had plenty of ways to deal with her.’

’All they had to do was play good cop from the sidelines.’

The residents of the family courtyard, ignoring the sun already high overhead, excitedly watched the war of words unfold.

Zhu Yun raised an eyebrow. ”Wang Xianbing, Lin Jin, are you sure about this? I don’t mind explaining to everyone here exactly why I received so much compensation money from your family.”

”Speaking of which, Shen Yu and I were able to...”

His face dark, Wang Xianbing pulled his mother and his wife upstairs.

Ordinarily, he wouldn’t have a guilty conscience, but Lin Jin had indeed been involved in that May First incident. They had stopped Chu Shenyu from getting a drug test at the time, but Chu Shenyu had immediately obtained concrete proof the very next day. He had even forced Wang Xianbing to sign a document, precisely to prevent them from backing out or turning the tables on him later.

Having been outsmarted by Zhu Yun too many times, Wang Xianbing had developed a conditioned reflex. Whenever she so much as opened her mouth, he wished he could find a crack in the ground and crawl into it.