Chapter 293: Sheng Wanyan’s Thoughts
Dahua broke down and wept, her heart twisting with bitter resentment. Why was God so desperately unfair?
All she wanted was a chance at a better life. She didn’t want to be trapped in the countryside forever, a wretched woman bullied by her mother-in-law, forced to break her back in the dirt every single day just to earn enough work points to survive. But why? Why wouldn’t the universe give her even a single chance?
She was so sure that she was far more suited to be a pampered daughter-in-law and a dutiful wife than Sheng Wanyan. She would have been an exceptional mother, a perfect woman. Yet, why did those wealthy, prestigious families always insist on picking spoiled city girls?
Beneath her deep unwillingness, a crushing wave of shame washed over her. To be utterly rejected and insulted so brutally by a man—a man she had harbored such dirty designs on—was humiliating. If anyone ever found out about this, how could she ever show her face again?
Worse still, Gu Tingxiao had exposed her entire plan, stripping away any possibility of switching the babies. If she truly couldn’t bear a son, how was she supposed to survive the rest of her days with three daughters? She had originally pinned all her hopes on smuggling her daughter into an elite family so that the girl would grow up successful. That way, even if she never had a son, she would at least have someone powerful to take care of her in her old age.
But now, everything was gone. Every single opportunity had vanished into thin air.
Gu Tingxiao walked back into the ward, his heart completely guarded, though he immediately sensed a heavy, strange shift in the atmosphere. The encounter in the corridor had only solidified what he and Sheng Wanyan had suspected about the bizarre behavior of the family next door.
He stepped up to the wooden crib to look at his daughter. Staring down at her, he noted that she possessed the exact same beautiful eye shape as his wife; there wasn’t a single doubt in his mind that this child belonged to his bloodline. He was the one who changed her diapers and washed her little bottom every single day, after all, and he had long since memorized every distinct feature on her tiny body.
He smoothly pulled the privacy curtain closed. Sheng Wanyan looked up, noting the tight, displeased expression on his face, and a flicker of worry crossed her features. “What’s wrong?”
Gu Tingxiao set the enamel basin down and sat on the stool beside her. “Did anything happen in here while I was gone?”
Sheng Wanze raised his chin proudly from his seat. “With me keeping watch, nothing could happen even if someone tried.” He had kept his eyes locked firmly on the crib, utterly determined to ensure his little niece wouldn’t be stolen under his watch.
Hearing Gu Tingxiao’s question, Sheng Wanyan immediately deduced that something untoward must have occurred while he was down at the shower facilities. “Don’t worry, I’m alright,” she said softly, before turning to her brother. “Brother, why don’t you go wash up now?”
Sheng Wanze was a sharp man and understood that the young couple needed some private space to talk. He immediately gathered his clothes and towel and headed down the corridor toward the bathhouse.
As he stepped out into the hallway, he spotted Dahua curled into a tight squat by the entrance, weeping hysterically. He raised an eyebrow, instantly piecing the puzzle together. Well, well, he thought, my brother-in-law sure is a magnet for trouble.
What a pity. Why on earth would any woman think to seduce a man like Gu Tingxiao? The guy was as rigid and straightforward as a block of wood, entirely blind to feminine wiles and utterly brutal when he drew a boundary. It looked like this poor girl had been absolutely pulverized by his brother-in-law’s biting sarcasm. Gu Tingxiao really was something else.
Sheng Wanze threw her one final, amused glance before walking past and entering the bathhouse.
Back behind the curtains, the young couple was having a frank conversation. Sheng Wanyan looked at Gu Tingxiao as he laid out every single detail of the encounter in the hallway.
Gu Tingxiao was visibly nervous, his eyes darting to her face, terrified that his wife would be angry with him. After all, what woman could easily tolerate another person trying to seduce her husband, even if he had shut it down instantly? This was a messy reality, and he was deeply afraid of causing her any distress or discomfort during her recovery. Of course, he knew that if any man ever dared to approach his wife with such vile intentions, he would unleash hell to destroy him completely.
Sheng Wanyan’s eyes narrowed into slits as she listened. She trusted Gu Tingxiao implicitly, but she harbored absolutely zero tolerance for any outsider coveting her man—let alone someone bold enough to take blatant, physical action.
Through the thick fabric of the curtain, the harsh, grating voice of Dahua’s mother-in-law could be heard sharply lecturing her screaming granddaughter. Sheng Wanyan’s expression grew ice-cold. Since you were perfectly willing to destroy my family and steal my daughter’s future just to secure a comfortable life for yourself, she thought, then I have absolutely no reason to sympathize with whatever misery your in-laws inflict on you.
She turned a calm gaze onto her husband. “Repeat exactly what happened out there. And say it louder.”
Gu Tingxiao looked at her anxiously. Sheng Wanyan’s face was an unreadable, expressionless mask, leaving him entirely confused. But driven by a frantic desire to survive his wife’s displeasure and make her happy, he immediately elevated his booming military voice, recounting the hallway drama so clearly it echoed through the entire ward.
“Wanyan, that woman was incredibly gaunt and hideous! I didn’t even grant her a single proper look,” he announced loudly. “You are absolute perfection. I would have to be completely blind to cast a single glance at a creature like that.”
“You don’t need to worry at all. I marched right away from her before she could even finish unbuttoning her collar.”
Sheng Wanyan nodded, thoroughly satisfied, while Gu Tingxiao sweated under the pressure of his own survival instincts.
“She only managed to graze the very edge of my jacket sleeve,” he added quickly, desperate to clear himself. “If the fabric offends you, I’ll take the clothes out and burn them to ash right now.”
Sheng Wanyan offered a small, content nod. The very next second, a loud, violent crash shattered the silence from the adjacent bed space.
“That absolute whore! She actually had the audacity to go out and seduce a man!”
Dahua’s mother-in-law completely abandoned her crying granddaughter, charging out of the ward in a fit of pure, unadulterated rage. In the old woman’s mind, it would be a blessing if that money-losing infant girl simply cried herself to death anyway; that way, the household wouldn’t have to waste resources feeding an extra mouth, and the saved grain could go directly into the stomachs of her treasured grandsons.
Right outside the bathhouse entrance, Dahua was just attempting to push herself up from the concrete floor when her mother-in-law descended upon her like a fury. The old lady viciously grabbed her by the hair, dragging her back down to the ground, and began raining a torrent of heavy blows across her face and body.
“You shameless bitch! You actually dare to wander the hallways trying to pick up men?!” the old woman screamed, her face contorted with rage. “I’ll beat you to death, you filthy whore, for trying to humiliate and cuckold my son!”
“I am forcing my son to sign the divorce papers tomorrow morning!”
Hysterical with anger, the old lady delivered a dozen stinging slaps in rapid succession, quickly drawing a large, whispering crowd of patients and nurses into the corridor.
“You lied straight to my face, claiming you were stepping out to catch a breath of fresh air, only to sneak down here to launch yourself at a soldier!” the mother-in-law roared, continuing to strike her. “Your body hasn’t even finished healing from childbirth, yet your mind is already festering with such disgusting, depraved thoughts! Aren’t you utterly revolting?!”
The old lady beat and berated her relentlessly, and the gathering onlookers easily pieced the scandal together from her shouts. A ripple of disgust passed through the crowd. Good heavens, the whispers flew, she’s actively trying to hook up with random men barely a week after giving birth? That is incredibly desperate. Her body was still in a fragile, postpartum state; to prioritize such vulgar, illicit desires instead of focusing on her recovery was truly pathetic. No wonder her family despised her.
“Mother…!” Dahua wailed, pinning her arms over her head as she writhed on the floor. “Please stop hitting me! Please, I beg you, stop!”
Pinned beneath the old woman’s weight, she could only desperately beg for mercy. She had undergone labor only seven days prior, and her physically weakened body was entirely incapable of weathering such a violent assault.
But her mother-in-law was entirely determined to break her for her betrayal. “Why don’t you take a look in a mirror?! Who besides my son would ever be desperate enough to saddle themselves with a creature like you? You possess an incredibly plain, ugly face, yet you’re lying here daydreaming about elite men!”
The old lady continued her relentless assault until a team of duty nurses finally rushed forward, physically pulling her away from the bleeding woman. The mother-in-law stood back, panting and spitting curses, while Dahua lay completely motionless against the concrete, battered and bruised.
She was utterly ruined. The entire ward, the staff, and the neighboring patients had witnessed her absolute disgrace.
“I am writing to my son tonight! We are divorcing you tomorrow!” the old woman barked one final time.
Hearing the word divorce, Dahua cast a terrified, weeping look toward her mother-in-law, but the sheer severity of her injuries left her too weak to lift herself off the floor. The old lady turned on her heel and marched straight out of the hospital gates, eager to drag her son to the administrative bureau.
Ultimately, the nurses had to carefully hoist Dahua onto a gurney and wheel her back into her bed space. Her dark skin was mapped with deep, purple contusions and swelling. She didn’t utter a single syllable to anyone, burying her face in her patched blanket as she wept silent, bitter tears.
True to her word, the old woman returned the following morning, dragging her sullen son along. They forced the weeping, trembling Dahua out of her hospital bed and marched her directly toward the local marriage registration bureau to finalize the separation. Dahua resisted with everything she had, sobbing and begging her husband for mercy on her knees. But a scandal of this magnitude was a permanent stain; no respectable rural family could ever tolerate a daughter-in-law who had publicly disgraced their lineage by soliciting another man.
Dahua was dragged away by her furious in-laws. Yet, to Sheng Wanyan’s complete surprise, a few hours later, the entire family marched back into the ward together, acting as though absolutely nothing had happened. They even quietly settled the remainder of her hospital medical bills, coexisting in an eerie, tight-lipped harmony.
Sheng Wanyan studied the shift from behind her curtain, a cold smile touching her lips. She understood the psychological leverage at play perfectly. Dahua was a deeply manipulative, desperate woman, but her survival instincts were sharp; she had undoubtedly managed to pacify her in-laws by convincing them to cooperate in a shared delusion of future wealth.
However, now that Gu Tingxiao had completely exposed and dismantled her plan to swap the infants, Dahua would never dare breathe a single word of her failed plot to her mother-in-law. As long as she kept that terrifying truth buried, her in-laws would continue to tolerate her presence, holding onto the false hope of an elite connection.
Looking across the gap at Dahua’s heavily bruised, swollen face and her completely broken spirit, Sheng Wanyan finally felt a deep sense of peace. The threat to her daughter was entirely neutralized.
