Chapter 5: I Can Still Hold This Family Together

In her dream, Li Fenlan was the same—clutching the money she had earned through hard work, determined to bring her daughter back. Her younger brother also tried to persuade her, “Sis, come back home! I’m strong, I can earn money to support you!”

But back then, she had refused to give in. She caused a lot of trouble, which ended up hurting their mother and straining her relationship with her brother to the point where they barely spoke anymore.

And in the end, what did she get? A tragic death in a sea of fire, nothing more!

“Mom, I don’t want it!” Xie Yunshu shoved the money back into Li Fenlan’s hands. She knew this money was saved bit by bit from her mother working as a helper at a small restaurant.

Li Fenlan frowned. “Mom’s giving it to you, so just take it! I’ll slowly find another job. Just because I’m no longer at the packaging factory doesn’t mean I’ll starve! Yunshu, listen to me—stop causing a fuss! Lu Zhixing is the attending doctor at the hospital. In the end, you’ll be the one who suffers…”

She said this and couldn’t help but cover her face. “It’s my fault—I’m useless! I shouldn’t have agreed to marry you off to him in the first place. If your father hadn’t passed away so early, how could it be your turn to suffer at his hands?”

Li Fenlan was naturally soft-tempered. In the early years, the presence of a man in the house gave her a sense of security, and later, when her daughter stepped up, life wasn’t too hard. Like most mothers, she was resilient and could swallow all kinds of grievances, but the one thing she couldn’t stand was seeing her children get hurt.

The Lu family had power, and she didn’t know how to fight for her daughter. All she could do was cry and blame herself.

Xie Yunshu was much calmer now. She held her mother’s hand and comforted her, “Mom, the packaging factory gave me 5,000 yuan in compensation. You can just stay home and cook. Don’t let Mingcheng go do odd jobs anymore—let him focus on school. Only by going to college will he have a future!”

“What? You got compensation?” Li Fenlan’s cheeks were still streaked with tears. She looked at her daughter, eyes wide with disbelief. “How much did you say?”

Xie Yunshu smiled. “Five thousand yuan!”

“Director Li agreed to it?” Li Fenlan wiped her tears, then quickly grabbed Xie Yunshu’s hand, her brows furrowed. “Yunshu, listen to me—don’t let Lu Zhixing find out about this money! He doesn’t care about you at all. You don’t have a job now—you need to hold onto that money yourself!”

Xie Yunshu had to admit, her mother was far more clearheaded than she was—she understood that men couldn’t be relied on. The only thing you could really count on was money.

“Mom, how could I possibly give it to Lu Zhixing? After everything he’s done to me, I just want to divorce him now!” Xie Yunshu didn’t hide her plans. “I’m going to ask him for 3,000 yuan as a settlement, and then I’ll start a small business.”

Divorce?

Li Fenlan was stunned. She was angry at Lu Zhixing’s treatment of her daughter, sure—but she had never considered divorce as a real option. No job, and then divorced? How would her daughter survive? Besides, she understood Yunshu’s feelings—her daughter still had feelings for Lu Zhixing…

“Yunshu, don’t be impulsive…” she said quickly, watching her daughter’s expression carefully. “If you divorce him, what will you do in the future?”

A divorced woman would have a hard time remarrying a decent man. If Lu Zhixing could change, there might still be hope for their marriage.

Xie Yunshu felt a pang in her heart seeing her mother like this. In her past life, her mother didn’t push for divorce in the beginning either. But after watching her daughter slowly wither in an oppressive marriage, she eventually encouraged her, again and again, to leave.

“Mom, I’ll earn money to support you and help my brother go to college!” As she spoke, Xie Yunshu pulled ten 50-yuan bills from her innermost pocket and handed them to Li Fenlan. “Here’s 500 yuan for you. Tomorrow I’ll go out and see if I can find some work. A grown woman won’t starve to death, right?”

She hadn’t relied on Lu Zhixing before, and she’d survived just fine. If she didn’t chase after love, even without a job, she could still live well in this life. She could still hold this family together.

In her dream, she didn’t rely on Lu Zhixing—she wouldn’t in this life either!

Li Fenlan’s eyes began to well up again. She shoved the money back and said, with a bit of temper, “Who asked you to support us? I have hands and feet—I’m not so old that I can’t move!”

Xie Yunshu chuckled and didn’t argue about the 500 yuan. Like a little girl again, she hugged her mother’s arm and rested her head on her shoulder. “Mom, can I stay here tonight?”

She didn’t want to see Lu Zhixing at all right now—afraid that her disgust and hatred for him would boil over.

Li Fenlan gently smoothed her daughter’s hair, knowing how wronged she felt. “Your old bed’s still there. Mingcheng refuses to sleep in it no matter what.”

The Xie family’s home was small, just two rooms. The outer room served as kitchen, dining area, and living room. The inner room was divided with a cloth curtain. Originally, the siblings had shared a room, but as Xie Yunshu grew older, they put up another curtain in the middle.

Her bed was just over a meter wide, hand-made by their father when he was alive. Mingcheng’s “bed” was far cruder—just a few stools topped with wooden planks, barely qualifying as a bed.

The siblings had always had a close bond. After Yunshu got married, Mingcheng insisted on keeping her bed for her. He always said, “This is also sis’s home. How can it not have a place for her to sleep?”

Li Fenlan used to laugh at his childishness. She would say, “Your sister married a big-time doctor—of course she has a proper bed now!”

But now, all she wanted to do was cry. Her daughter hadn’t married a good man. Everyone outside said Yunshu was being unreasonable, but only she knew—her Yunshu was not that kind of girl!

She was bright and cheerful, never one to be crushed by hardship. At sixteen, an age when most girls cared about looking pretty, she worked every day in a blue work uniform at the packaging factory, never once complaining why her brother got to study while she had to work.

Clearly, her daughter was smart too!

That’s why Mingcheng always felt guilty. When their father passed, he had been too young to take up the burden. Only Yunshu had stepped up.

But Lu Zhixing—how could he treat her like this? Her daughter wasn’t some irrational lunatic!

Xie Yunshu saw her mother’s face fall and quickly changed the subject. “Has that brat Mingcheng been studying properly? When he gets back, I’m going to check his homework. If he’s slacking, I’ll give him a beating!”

Mentioning her son cheered Li Fenlan up a bit. Through her tears, she managed a smile. “Mingcheng knows to study. He reads until midnight every day.”

The mother and daughter chatted about school for a while, and the suffocating atmosphere finally began to lift. Xie Yunshu let out a quiet sigh of relief. She wasn’t afraid of hardship—just afraid of seeing her mother cry…

In this life, she would make up for every regret from the last.

Meanwhile, Lu Zhixing had taken Zhou Xinyue’s son to the hospital. After some chaos, the doctor finally came out with gauze in hand. “It’s nothing serious—just a minor scrape.”

Zhou Xinyue was still crying, looking up at him like he was the sun itself. “Zhixing-ge, if it weren’t for you, I wouldn’t have known what to do.”

Thinking of Xie Yunshu’s cold indifference earlier, Lu Zhixing felt a strange unease. He didn’t comfort Zhou Xinyue like he used to—just paid the medical fees and said, “Xinyue, I still have things to deal with at home. Since Xiaowei’s okay, I’ll head back.”

Zhou Xinyue bit her lip. “Are you worried your wife will misunderstand? I can explain.”

Lu Zhixing rubbed his temples. “No need. She’s not unreasonable.”

He had gone too far before—committing her to a psychiatric ward just to protect Zhou Xinyue’s reputation. Her anger now was understandable. Letting Xinyue explain would only make things worse.

She had even mentioned divorce today. He couldn’t keep disregarding her feelings.

After he left, Zhou Xinyue sat beside her son—not with concern, but with disgust. She glared at him. “Useless. You got hurt for nothing! How can I keep Uncle Lu if you’re this pathetic?”

Xiaowei was not even ten, small and thin, clearly terrified of her. “I’m sorry, Mom.”

Zhou Xinyue didn’t respond. She got up and walked out. “Get down and follow me. You think this kind of injury deserves a hospital stay?”

Xiaowei hung his head and climbed down from the bed, silently following behind. The gauze on his knee had started bleeding again from walking, but he didn’t dare say a word…

Lu Zhixing rode his bicycle home. Passing the supply store, he hesitated, then went in and bought a package of crabapple cakes. He remembered how much Yunshu used to love this kind of sweet. Later, because he didn’t like them, she had mostly stopped buying them.

The sweet, fragrant scent drifted from his coat. He smiled to himself. After all these years of marriage, this might be the first time he’d ever bought her a snack.

Maybe she wouldn’t be so angry anymore? Divorce should never be said lightly—it damages a marriage too deeply.

Winter nights in Haicheng turned dark early. By the time he got home, it was already past seven, and the sky was pitch-black.

But the courtyard where he lived—was shrouded in total darkness…