Chapter 4

I shook my head and took her hand.

“You won’t have my daughter prosecuted over this, will you? She’s pregnant! You’ve already stolen her husband. You can’t have her thrown in jail, too!”

I cried and begged, clutching her clothes. The very picture of a pitiful old woman.

At last an officer came over and took me into the lounge. I watched him walk back to Jiang Qingqing.

“The injuries her daughter caused you don’t even meet the threshold for minor injury. They aren’t grounds for a prison sentence! If you keep using that threat to con an elderly woman, her daughter may stay out of prison, but you certainly won’t. A million yuan! Enough to put you away for years! You can’t wreck someone’s family and then go after her mother, too! People will do anything when they’re pushed far enough. And her daughter’s a judo athlete. Do you really think you could take it if she hit you with everything she had?”

Jiang Qingqing frowned. “I…I never asked her to send that much. I only wanted compensation for emotional distress and medical expenses.”

The officer looked her up and down. “Pinned down and beaten by a pregnant woman. You really are…”

He left it there and pointed toward me.

“Go apologize to her. In person.”

Jiang Qingqing came into the room very reluctantly. Her apology couldn’t have sounded less sincere.

I didn’t care. An apology wasn’t what I was after.

I took her hand. “I don’t understand bank transfers, dear. Let me give you cash instead, to make it up to you. Could you leave Li He? Please. I’m begging you.”

Her eyes lit up. “Really?”

I nodded, doing my best impression of a muddled old woman.

“My poor daughter has already lost her father. She can’t get divorced, too. People would talk about her behind her back.”

She smiled. That seemed to be exactly what she wanted to hear.

“Give me an address, and I’ll bring you the money myself. I won’t tell a soul. Would that be all right? I’ll give you whatever you want, as long as you leave my son-in-law.”

Her smile grew wider. Now there was contempt in the way she looked at me.

She took out her phone, added me to her contacts, and sent an address. It wasn’t very revealing—just a coffee shop.

I said nothing more. Only nodded eagerly.

After leaving the station, I opened Jiang Qingqing’s WeChat Moments feed and went through every post. Using the coffee shop’s address and the time she’d told me to bring the money, I worked out roughly where her office was.

I withdrew a full hundred thousand yuan in cash and arrived at the office building early.

I didn’t go straight in. There were plenty of companies inside, and I didn’t want to alert her.

I watched and waited until Jiang Qingqing finally appeared.

Li He had driven her there. She strutted along in my daughter’s clothes and my daughter’s jewelry, looking very pleased with herself.

She pressed the elevator button for the tenth floor. There was only one company on that floor.

I downed my horribly bitter coffee in one gulp. Why did young people drink this stuff all the time? Were their lives so bitter they needed something even worse to make them feel better?

Scowling, I tucked my bag under my arm and pressed the button for the tenth floor.

Just you wait, Jiang Qingqing.

I’d show you how women of my generation dealt with mistresses.