Chapter 440 - 158: Do You Want to Save the Mother or the Baby?
Qin Xiang could tell his little sister was in a volatile mood, so he wisely excused himself. Hearing the footsteps recede, Jie Jingchen stood up. He’d barely taken a step when Qin Mei asked, "What are you doing?"
"Getting your bathwater." Angry as he was, Jie Jingchen didn’t hesitate when it came to taking care of his wife.
"Wait a minute." Qin Mei stood up, took out an ointment, and started dabbing it on the lower lip she had bitten. As she gently applied it for him, she reminded him, "This is for external use."
It would have been fine if Qin Mei hadn’t said anything, but her reminder made Jie Jingchen fight the urge to lick his lip. "What would happen if I ingested it?"
Qin Mei raised her eyes to give him a look, carefully spreading the ointment evenly. "I’d become a widow."
Jie Jingchen’s expression turned ugly. ’Is this supposed to be healing ointment? It’s clearly poison.’ He refused any more of the "medicine," pushed Qin Mei away, and strode toward the bathroom.
Qin Mei froze for a second, then burst out laughing. She followed him to the bathroom and leaned languidly against the doorframe, watching him wash his face. "I was kidding," she teased. "You’re not Wu Dalang, and I’m not Pan Jinlian. I’m not going to poison you to death."
Jie Jingchen’s hands stilled for a moment, but he didn’t stop washing because of what she said. ’It’s not that I’m afraid of you becoming a widow,’ he thought. ’I’m afraid I won’t be able to resist kissing you, and I’ll be the one to drop dead.’
Only after washing his face several more times was Jie Jingchen satisfied. He dried his face with a towel, picked up the bucket, and walked out of the bathroom.
In the kitchen, Qin Xiang was ladling water. When he saw Jie Jingchen approach, his eyes immediately went to his bitten lower lip. He nudged Jie Jingchen’s arm with his elbow and asked teasingly, "My little sister do that?"
Jie Jingchen shot a sidelong glance at the teasing Qin Xiang, the corner of his brow twitching slightly. A cool voice slipped from his throat. "Who else?"
"My little sister is as fierce as ever." But inwardly, Qin Xiang was wondering, ’Just how rough was Jing Si that my sister couldn’t take it anymore and had to bite him? A bit of playful fighting can be a tonic for a marriage, but if you’re going for the kill, it’s not a tonic—it’s a death sentence.’
Jie Jingchen couldn’t be bothered to engage with him. He snatched the ladle from Qin Xiang’s hand, filled a bucket to the brim, and walked off with it.
Jie Jingchen had taken a good half of the large pot of water. Qin Xiang shrugged, filled his own bucket, and then put another full pot of water on the stove. After adding some more coal, he picked up his bucket and headed for Jing Qi’s room.
「The next day, at the Xu residence.」
Liu Guihua had been discharged from the hospital, and Xu Chunwang was bringing her home. The moment they stepped inside, they were startled to find a disheveled Xu Chunyan there.
"Sis, why are you home?" Xu Chunwang asked, surprised. "You should be at work right now."
Seeing her brother and mother, Xu Chunyan couldn’t hold back any longer. She threw herself into Liu Guihua’s arms and began to sob, her cries raw and hoarse.
Liu Guihua stood stiffly, staring at her miserable daughter—especially her eyes, which were so red and swollen she could barely open them into a slit.
"Sis, don’t cry! What happened? Who bullied you? Was it the Jie Family?" Xu Chunwang was furious. In the past, he would have grabbed a kitchen knife and gone straight to their door, but now he didn’t dare. The lesson Qin Mei had taught him was too painful; he never wanted to go through that again for the rest of his life.
"SOB... SOB..." Xu Chunyan was crying so hard she could barely breathe, looking so weak it seemed she might faint at any moment.
Liu Guihua was still recovering from a serious illness and wasn’t in a good state of mind to begin with. Her daughter’s wailing only made her feel agitated and overwhelmed.
’My son has been crippled, and now my husband has been sent to the Northwest for labor reform. Both pillars of our household have fallen.’ Their immediate family had been completely abandoned by the greater Xu Family. They were utterly alone and helpless now.
"Stop crying! Crying, crying, crying, what good does it do? Can crying solve anything?" Liu Guihua was incredibly irritated. After their family’s disaster, she too had spent her days in tears. But it had proven that crying solved nothing; it only wrecked your own body.
She had once been very heavy, but her weight had plummeted. Now that she was thinner, her skin sagged, making her look even older.
Xu Chunyan stopped wailing, but she couldn’t stop the sobs that wracked her body.
"Chunwang, help your sister to a chair," Liu Guihua told her son. Her body was too weak to bear being clung to like that.
Xu Chunwang obediently helped the sobbing Xu Chunyan to a chair.
Xu Chunwang had also grown thinner, though not as drastically as Liu Guihua.
"Now, tell me. What happened?" Liu Guihua sat in the chair opposite Xu Chunyan, while Xu Chunwang stood beside his mother.
"Mom, I... I got a divorce," Xu Chunyan said, her voice so hoarse that you could barely make out her words.
There was nothing wrong with Liu Guihua’s or Xu Chunwang’s hearing; they heard her perfectly. Liu Guihua’s already sickly complexion turned an even more ghastly shade of pale. "What did you just say?" she asked in disbelief.