Chapter 5 – Getting Even with the Lu Family by Extorting Medical Fees

Li Zhi was in so much pain her face turned pale. A pair of warm hands had already lifted her up from the ground.

She looked up and met Fu Tingzhou’s concerned gaze, and an inexplicable wave of grievance surged in her heart — even a stranger could care for her like this.

But Lu Yanzhi, the man to whom she had once given her heart and soul, had never treated her like a wife or even a person. He saw her only as his possession.

In her past life, she must have been bewitched to have insisted on him no matter what, ruining her own life in the process.

Tears slipped down silently, her eyes reddened, and her damp eyelashes trembled lightly. Her lips quivered, and her whole being radiated a fragile yet resilient brokenness, making others instinctively want to protect her — to keep her from further harm.

Fu Tingzhou, seeing her tear-streaked face, felt something crash into his chest.

He gently helped her to the bedside. Unable to leave her side at the moment, he pressed the call button for the nurse and doctor.

Holding her injured arm, he softly reassured her, “Li Zhi, the doctor and nurse will be here soon. Just hang in there a little longer.”

Li Zhi bit her lip hard. “…Okay!”

Chen Guizhen, always ready to make a scene, saw the physical contact between them and began yelling while pointing at them, “Look! Look at that! I told you they were having an affair! Everyone saw it — I’m not slandering her!”

Li Zhi cried even harder. “Chen Guizhen, you’ve gone too far! You hit me! Last year, on the day of my college entrance exam, you fell down, and I missed the exam because I took you to the hospital. And now you’re slandering me? Don’t you have a conscience?”

Most people naturally sympathize with the weak, especially since they knew Li Zhi had been abandoned at her wedding and bullied by her future mother-in-law. Seeing her cry like that made people even more sympathetic.

Bullied before she even married in — what a tragic life.

“Young lady, good thing you didn’t marry him. It’s not too late to call off the engagement. A husband who doesn’t respect you and a mother-in-law who bullies you — there’s no happiness waiting in that home.”

“Girl, make her pay your medical bills! She hit you and still thinks she’s in the right? With a family like that, anyone who marries into it is doomed.”

Chen Guizhen snapped, “Hey! Can you people even talk properly? Women lining up to marry my son could circle the whole of Yangcheng! Ever heard the saying, ‘Better to tear down a temple than ruin a marriage’? Encouraging people to break off engagements — you’ll be struck by lightning! This is our family’s private matter. Mind your own business!”

A middle-aged woman retorted, “It’s because your family is so overbearing that you’ll be struck by lightning.”

Chen Guizhen’s face turned ashen. She was just about to yell back when Lu Min and Lu Yanzhi arrived.

Lu Yanzhi asked in a low voice, “Mom, what are you doing here?”

Chen Guizhen replied, “I came to stand up for you. You’re my son — I’ve never even laid a finger on you all these years, and Li Zhi dares to hit you with a kettle? This is outrageous! She’s not even married in and already dares to bully you. I came to reason with her, and what did I see? She’s all lovey-dovey with another man, hugging and touching! Li Zhi is a shameless woman — clearly, she’s found someone else. Break off the engagement right away! Our Lu family is a proper, respectable household. We cannot let someone like her in — it would disgrace our ancestors!”

Lu Yanzhi turned toward the hospital room and his pupils contracted. Why him?

Fu Tingzhou — the man who always outshone him in the military.

Lu Yanzhi clenched his fists at his sides, his dark eyes cold and menacing. He spoke in a low, grim voice, “Tingzhou, why are you here? What’s your relationship with Li Zhi?”

In the military, wherever Fu Tingzhou was, everyone else faded into the background. It was said that most of the women in the cultural troupe wanted to date him — even his own sister, Lu Jiaxin, admired him.

They had specially invited him to the wedding, hoping to pair him with Lu Jiaxin.

Chen Guizhen was stunned. “Son, you know him?”