Chapter 234: Gu Tinghao Goes to Get the Money Back
Jingjing is his own daughter!
How could she be so cruel to her own child?
Why was he so blind when he chose to marry her?
It was too late for regrets now. Because Wang Chunmei was pregnant, an immediate divorce was off the table.
Father Gu stood up and fixed a cold stare on his fourth son. Gu Tinghao might be a poor judge of character, but the Gu family would not allow themselves to be easily manipulated.
“I do not care what transpires between you and your wife,” Father Gu declared, his voice hard. “But no one—absolutely no one—is permitted to exploit a child or descendant of the Gu family! From this day forward, Jingjing will reside here at the main house. You are to hand over ten yuan for board and twenty kilograms worth of food coupons to your eldest sister-in-law every single month.”
He narrowed his eyes. “If we send my granddaughter back to your quarters, I have no doubt your wife would try to sell her off!”
How could Gu Tinghao refuse? At this point, he genuinely wanted to keep his wife as far away from his daughter as possible.
“Furthermore,” Father Gu continued, delivering his final verdict, “if Wang Chunmei fails to return every last cent of that division money, I will personally oversee your divorce the moment that baby is born!”
This was the very first time Father Gu had explicitly ordered Gu Tinghao to consider a divorce. Hearing his father’s absolute command, Gu Tinghao opened his mouth to speak.
In the end, the words died in his throat. He remained silent, a tacit acceptance of his father’s terms.
Earlier that day, Wang Chunmei had assumed Gu Tinghao was coming to the Wang estate to bring her home. To her shock, he merely dropped off the obligatory New Year gifts and left immediately.
He coldly told her to remain at her parents’ house to focus on her pregnancy, stating she no longer needed to worry about managing their household.
The sheer finality of his tone struck fear into Wang Chunmei’s heart. After mulling it over, she decided to sneak back to their quarters at the family compound.
The moment Gu Tinghao returned home and found her there, he immediately grabbed her by the arm to drag her back to the Wang estate.
Wang Chunmei fiercely resisted, refusing to step outside. Because of her pregnancy, Gu Tinghao couldn’t use excessive physical force to move her.
“Tinghao! What do you think you’re doing?!” she shrieked.
Gu Tinghao closed his eyes, drawing a deep, steadying breath before looking directly at her.
“Wang Chunmei, I am giving you exactly three days to retrieve every single cent of that money.”
“If you fail, we are going straight to the civil registry to file for divorce.”
Hearing this, Wang Chunmei stared at him in absolute disbelief, a spike of genuine panic breaking through her arrogance.
“Gu Tinghao! I am carrying your child!” she screamed. “How dare you be so heartless as to threaten me with a divorce?!”
Furious, Wang Chunmei lunged forward to strike him. Gu Tinghao didn’t flinch or defend himself, simply letting her hit his chest as he made his stance perfectly clear.
“Are you the one asking about heart? Do you even possess a conscience?!” he roared back. “Have I not treated you perfectly throughout our entire marriage? Is there a limit to your greed?”
Gu Tinghao stared at her, his eyes bloodshot. Ever since he had married Wang Chunmei, he had offered her nothing but patience and absolute obedience, defending her constantly and even turning his back on his own parents for her sake.
Yet her mind was occupied entirely by her maiden family and her own selfish desires; she had never spared a single thought for him or their household. Without the backing of the Gu family, what future did Gu Tinghao even possess?
Seeing the broken, hardened look in his eyes, Wang Chunmei was suddenly terrified, completely unable to hold his gaze. She couldn’t fathom that her fiercely devoted husband had finally turned against her.
For the first time, she truly understood the gravity of Gu Tinghao’s threat, and for a moment, she was entirely paralyzed, unsure of her next move.
“Wang Chunmei, Jingjing is our daughter. How could you systematically scheme against your own child?”
Thinking of how timid and fearful his daughter had become under Wang Chunmei’s constant emotional abuse, Gu Tinghao’s heart physically ached.
It was no exaggeration to say that every child born into the Gu family entered the world holding a golden spoon, draped in absolute security. Yet his daughter lived her days suffocated by fear and insecurity.
“Do I—or the Gu family—even exist in your eyes anymore?”
Wang Chunmei immediately resorted to her usual tactics, bursting into theatrical tears and violently sweeping items off the table to shatter on the floor.
In the past, the moment she began weeping, Gu Tinghao would instantly rush forward to comfort and coax her. This time, her tears held absolutely no power.
“I am giving you three days, Wang Chunmei,” Gu Tinghao reiterated coldly.
“If I do not see that passbook in three days, we are getting a divorce!”
With that final ultimatum, Gu Tinghao turned his back, walking out of their quarters to return to the main villa to check on his daughter.
Left alone amidst the shattered debris, Wang Chunmei sank to the floor, weeping and screaming in genuine panic.
She finally comprehended the absolute determination behind Gu Tinghao’s words. Without wasting another second, she scrambled up and fled back to the Wang estate under the cover of night to demand the money from her mother.
However, Mother Wang flatly refused to surrender the funds, merely ordering her daughter to go back and sweet-talk Gu Tinghao into submission.
At that moment, reality crashed down on Wang Chunmei. Her mother was actively deceiving her!
Through her tears and hysteria, Wang Chunmei wailed that Gu Tinghao was actively initiating divorce proceedings against her.
“Oh, please! You are pregnant with his child. Do you honestly believe Gu Tinghao would dare divorce you?” Mother Wang scoffed. “My girl, this is obviously just an intimidation tactic orchestrated by the Gu elders. They’re just trying to scare you.”
Mother Wang offered a few more hollow words of comfort. Hearing this, Wang Chunmei touched her stomach, looking at her mother with lingering uncertainty.
“You are carrying the Gu family’s male heir. How could the Gu family possibly cast aside their own grandson? Think about it—does that make any sense to you?”
Wang Chunmei ultimately chose to believe her mother’s logic, completely blind to the reality that if she failed to recover the money, the Gu family was fully prepared to cut their losses, even if it meant sacrificing the unborn son.
Her brazen attempt to abandon Gu Jingjing and pass her off to Gu Tingxiao had ruthlessly crossed Old Master Gu’s absolute bottom line.
To willingly discard one’s own flesh and blood was a supreme disgrace, a vile insult to the loyal, courageous legacy of the Gu clan!
Later that night, Wanyan chatted quietly with Gu Tingxiao before drifting off to sleep. “Do you think Wang Chunmei will actually manage to get the money back?”
“She will,” Gu Tingxiao replied firmly.
“How can you be so sure?”
Gu Tingxiao didn’t necessarily understand the depths of Wang Chunmei’s psychology, but he understood his brother perfectly. No matter how far Gu Tinghao had strayed, the blood of the Gu line still flowed in his veins. And deep within the bones of every Gu descendant lay a dormant, unyielding ruthlessness.
“Because Grandpa will never allow anyone to successfully alienate the Gu brothers,” Gu Tingxiao explained softly.
“At one point, Grandpa was the sole surviving member of our entire family. Then came Dad and Second Uncle. We are merely the latest generation. Every other branch, every other relative, sacrificed their lives on the battlefield for this country.”
Wanyan felt a sharp ache in her heart hearing the history. Life was peaceful and affluent now, but during the brutal era of the Republic of China, the nation was engulfed in war, and the Gu family had thrown themselves entirely into the fray.
In the end, only Old Master Gu had survived the slaughter. Though he possessed the commanding, heroic aura of a general, he was fundamentally a man deeply rooted in the memory of his fallen kin.
Old Master Gu had survived carrying the shattered hopes and legacy of the entire Gu clan on his shoulders. How could a man like that ever tolerate a petty woman like Wang Chunmei actively attempting to fracture his surviving family?
Three days elapsed. When Wang Chunmei failed to produce the funds, Gu Tinghao didn’t hesitate. He grabbed her by the arm and marched her directly toward the civil marriage registry office.
This time, Wang Chunmei was utterly terrified. Mother Wang, finally realizing that Gu Tinghao wasn’t bluffing, scrambled to intervene and persuade him to back down.
“Tinghao, please! Every married couple experiences friction,” Mother Wang pleaded frantically. “You just need to sit down and talk things through. How can you rush straight to a divorce…”
The connection Mother Wang flaunted most proudly in her social circles was her son-in-law, Gu Tinghao. Who in the capital didn’t want to curry favor with the Gu family? The Wang household had extracted countless political and financial advantages through this singular marriage tie.
“Mother-in-law, why do you think it has come to this?” Gu Tinghao replied, his voice devoid of warmth.
“These are my grandfather’s exact words: Wang Chunmei’s loyalty belongs exclusively to the Wang family. The Gu family cannot afford to harbor such a daughter-in-law!”
Hearing that the mandate had come directly from the old general himself, Mother Wang panicked completely.
Father Wang had also rushed back from his office in a cold sweat. Earlier that day, his executive superiors had explicitly informed him that the Gu family no longer recognized the Wang clan as their in-laws!
Old Master Gu had issued a direct, lethal decree: the Wang family was permanently barred from leveraging the Gu family’s political influence ever again!
While the Wangs were considered a prominent household in their own right, their status was less than dust compared to the towering authority of a founding general like Old Master Gu.
“Hurry up and hand over the money!” Father Wang roared at his wife. “What kind of mother-in-law plunders the capital of the Gu family?!”
After snapping at his wife, Father Wang plastered on an ingratiating smile and stepped forward, inviting Gu Tinghao inside for a cup of premium tea.
“No thank you,” Gu Tinghao replied coldly. “I am simply here to retrieve the Gu family’s property.”
Defeated, Mother Wang had no choice but to reluctantly retrieve the passbook containing the sixteen thousand yuan and hand it over to her son-in-law.
“Tinghao, look, the funds have been returned in full,” Father Wang offered nervously. “As for the old general’s decree…”
Gu Tinghao looked at Father Wang, then cast a final, dead-eyed glance at Wang Chunmei, who was standing with her head bowed, too terrified to speak.
“The Gu family remains the Gu family,” Gu Tinghao stated flatly. “And the Wang family remains the Wang family.”
