Chapter 5

Chapter 5

While I was still in Hecheng, my mother called and asked me to come to her home for dinner.

We rarely saw one another, but today was a special day. I was willing to make the trip.

At the back of the hospital’s staff residential compound, lights glowed from a two-story house. It was the best home in the entire compound.

The self-righteous Liu Ming had refused to live in my mother’s villa. In the end, she begged me to secure this staff house for them, at a cost greater than buying an entire villa.

The door opened, and my mother came forward warmly.

“Yinyin, you must be tired from driving. Come in.”

She placed a pair of fluffy slippers by my feet, looking embarrassed.

“I made these for Hengyu. He hasn’t worn them yet.”

I did not look at the slippers. I stepped past them and went inside.

My mother smiled awkwardly. “It’s fine if you don’t want to change. Go wash your hands, and we’ll eat.”

Both floors together covered less than two hundred square meters. For an heiress like my mother, born with a golden spoon in her mouth, the place was tiny.

Yet she lived here with great contentment.

I could not stop myself from looking around. Hand-knitted cushions lay on the wooden chairs. A white cloth covered the dining table, where roses bloomed in a vase.

Everything in the house radiated a happiness so bright it hurt to see.

“Yinyin, taste this. See if your mother’s cooking has gotten worse.”

Once we sat down, she put a piece of pork rib in my bowl.

Tastes changed. I had stopped liking this dish long ago. Still, under her expectant gaze, I ate it.

The meat was bland and had not been steamed long enough. It was tough to chew.

Only after I swallowed did my mother reveal why she had invited me.

“A new administrator at your Uncle Liu’s hospital keeps making trouble for him. Could you smooth things over? And can you ask them to stop assigning him night shifts? Your Uncle Liu is getting older. His health can’t take it.”

She smiled as she spoke, fine lines gathering beneath her eyes.

I did not agree. Instead, I asked, “What else?”

She pressed her lips together, her smile turning ingratiating.

“You know Hengyu is already thirty and still unmarried. Your Uncle Liu has always wanted him to find an outstanding woman like you. A few days ago, he saw the news about your broken engagement and suggested the two of you give it a try. Don’t worry, though. I refused immediately.”

My voice went cold. “And then?”

I knew her. If she had truly refused, she would never have told me.

“Then I thought about it again, and your Uncle Liu does have a point.”

“I know you’re strong-willed and don’t want a man who can overpower you. Hengyu has such a gentle nature. If you two got together, you wouldn’t have any trouble with a mother-in-law. After a few years of marriage, you could have a child, and I would help you raise it. Wouldn’t that be perfect?”

“Yinyin, I know your career matters to you, but a woman still needs marriage and children. Look at how happy I am now.”

I cut her off. “You do know Liu Hengyu got a girl pregnant in college, and that she went to the university about it?”

My mother faltered. “That was a long time ago. The girl had no self-respect either. You can’t put all the blame on Hengyu.”

I laughed.

It had been a long time since anything made me feel sick on the spot. Those revolting words had come from my own mother’s mouth.

I had had enough.

I shot to my feet and flipped the table. Every dish crashed to the floor.

Bang!

“Ah! What are you doing?”

My mother could not dodge in time. Greasy soup splashed all over her.

Feet thundered down the stairs. Liu Ming and Liu Hengyu rushed into the room and froze at the devastation.

My mother’s eyes reddened. She threw herself into Liu Ming’s arms and wailed.

“Ming, what a miserable fate I have, to give birth to a daughter like this!”

Liu Ming opened his mouth, but the instant he met my eyes, he closed it again.

Liu Hengyu was the one who had no fear of death. He came to my side and earnestly urged me to repent.

“Little Sister Shuyin, no matter what happened, you can’t treat Mom like this.”

I laughed in disbelief. “Mom?”

A shy look actually appeared on his piglike face.

“Once you marry me, Aunt Xin will be my mom too. I’m just getting used to it early.”

The bastard.

He really dared set his sights on me.

Bang!

I snatched the cushion from a chair and flung it into his face.

“Get away from me. I’m terrified of pig heads.”

He was so filthy I did not even want to dirty my hand by striking him.

Seeing Liu Hengyu hit, my mother immediately stopped playing the delicate victim in Liu Ming’s arms. She lunged to strike me.

“Xu Shuyin, how dare you hit Hengyu! I don’t have a vicious daughter like you!”

Liu Ming held her back.

“Xin, I’m sure the child didn’t mean it.”

“That doesn’t give her the right to hit him! I haven’t said one harsh word to Hengyu in all these years, and she attacked him!”

How touching. A mother’s courage.

She had never shown it for her own daughter. Only for someone else’s son.