Love Me Again, Mom - Chapter 16

After my father was discharged from the hospital, he became dejected and depressed.

And Xu Ze, on his own, was not capable of running the factory.

At a loss, Xu Jiao returned with Song Fei.

She proposed that she and her husband manage the factory together with Xu Ze.

My mother stared at her face.

On that beautiful face were a few faint bruises.

They seemed to be healing.

“What happened?”

My mother pulled Xu Jiao into a room and asked her twice. She started to cry.

“After Xu Tao died, Song Fei hasn’t been very nice to me. Plus, when Dad said he was giving the factory to Xu Ze, he had a huge fight with me. He said what’s the use of Dad doting on me if the family business still goes to the son.”

“We argued, and he said Xu Tao wasn’t that bad at all. He said if we hadn’t slandered her to him, if I hadn’t snuck into his room at night to seduce him, he would never have broken up with Xu Tao.”

“He even hit me, said I deliberately didn’t answer the phone and got Xu Tao killed.”

“Mother, how could he do this to me…”

Xu Jiao had been pampered all her life.

They wouldn’t even let her do heavy chores.

How could she have ever endured such pain?

She was delicate, on the verge of tears, looking at my mother.

Her eyes welled up.

Hoping my mother would stand up for her.

But my mother just looked at her expressionlessly. “Is he wrong?”

Xu Jiao froze, looking at her in disbelief.

“You hated Xu Tao so much. Xu Tao never contacted you. For her to call you, it must have been an emergency, maybe even dangerous.”

“When you hung up the phone, what were you thinking? You know in your heart.”

She walked past Xu Jiao impassively and went out.

I leaned against the wall, as if that could give me some support.

So, my mother could be smart.

She could keenly perceive Xu Jiao’s little schemes.

She could mercilessly expose her tricks.

Expose her malice towards me.

But why, when I was alive, did I never feel it even once?

Why did she have to wait until after I was dead to tell me this?

At dinner, they argued again.

It was about the ownership of the factory.

I had never coveted it.

But both Xu Ze and Xu Jiao took it for granted that it was theirs.

They started to argue, revealing each other’s faults.

But no matter what they said, the topic always came back to me.

Xu Ze said, “When you ruined Mom’s silk scarf, didn’t you blame it on Xu Tao? How dare you criticize me?”

Xu Jiao said, “Why was Xu Tao bullied in high school? Wasn’t it because you unhooked her bra on the way to school and ran off, and the school bullies happened to see?”

“The moment Xu Tao went to college, you immediately made Mom, who was already angry, turn her bedroom into a piano room. What talent do you have? What’s the point of learning piano? You think no one knows what you were thinking!”

“You have the nerve to talk about me! Weren’t you the one who persuaded Mom to make Xu Tao apply to a local university so she could help with the housework? You wouldn’t even wash your own underwear, you threw it all to Xu Tao!”

The bickering.

It was so ugly.

My mother’s face grew paler and paler.

She suddenly stood up. “Enough!”

“Xu Tao is already dead, and you still won’t let her go!”

This broken, rotten, ugly family.

Like a terrifying scroll slowly unfurling.

My mother leaned on the table, her chest heaving. “Xu Tao died so tragically. Even the neighbors, even her landlady cried when they heard. But you haven’t shed a single tear for her.”

“And now you’re bringing up all this mess, and you still have to drag her into it-”

“You’ve had enough too,” my father suddenly interrupted her. “I understand your grief, but are you going too far, Zhao Su? I was in so much pain in the hospital I couldn’t sleep all night, and you didn’t comfort me, you just kept talking about Xu Tao. You didn’t buy me breakfast in the morning, you had to go back and wipe her memorial photo.”

“If you ask me, she was just bad luck. To die on her sister’s auspicious day, so unlucky. Our family’s luck is so bad right now, it’s probably her doing.”

He composed himself and said coldly, “I’ve already asked a master to do a reading. He said as long as we move Xu Tao’s ashes out of the grave and build a well to suppress her in the eighteenth level of hell, her fate will no longer jinx our family.”

“And we will be prosperous again.”

“Really, so unlucky even in death.”

My mother fell silent.

She was like a withered flower, instantly losing all remaining vitality.

After a long, long time, she finally raised her eyes.

With a gaze like a blade cutting to the bone.

She scanned the faces before her, one by one.

My heartless, immoral father, the two-faced Xu Jiao, the selfish and impulsive Xu Ze.

Beneath the seemingly harmonious facade of this family, it was already rotten to the core, like a piece of decaying wood.

When I was still alive, they had only used their hatred and disgust for me as a bond to maintain the appearance of unity.

But now, I was dead.

My tragic death was the trigger.

My mother’s most beloved husband and children finally revealed their terrifying true colors to her.

Looking at the three people with different expressions before her.

Oh no, it was four.

There was also Song Fei, acting as if it had nothing to do with him.

She suddenly became calm.

Her tone was unbelievably gentle. “You’re right.”

“Xu Tao is the only unlucky one in this family. We shouldn’t fight over her.”

“Sit down, let’s eat.”