Chapter 31: Aggressive and Overbearing

So, Gu Yuzhu watched as her biological mother, Madam Yan Fengru, stood there with her eyes slightly lowered, looking every bit the picture of a wronged stepmother silently enduring abuse from her stepdaughter. Just hearing it made one’s heart ache, and witnessing it would bring tears to the eyes. That pitiful, aggrieved stepmother image was deeply etched into everyone’s hearts.

Gu Yuzhu was young and short, so she easily caught sight of her mother’s slightly upturned lips. That was definitely not due to some artificial lip-lifting technique—pfft! That kind of thing didn’t exist in this era! So in conclusion, Madam Yan Fengru’s scheming nature was something her daughter Zhu Zhu didn’t have to worry about at all!

Gu Yuzhu felt the heavy weight in her heart suddenly lift.

Madam Zhou, too, had long known her friend’s character and way of handling matters, so she wasn’t overly worried about her getting the short end of the stick. But now, seeing the scene unfold with her own eyes, she felt completely reassured.

Gu Caihe had brought all those people to the Yan family’s home—clearly just to cause trouble. Since the drama had already begun, naturally, it had to continue. Madam Zhou entered through the back door with Gu Yuzhu in tow, and the tall, slender young boy hesitated for a moment before following them inside.

“Caihe, don’t speak so harshly. She is still your stepmother, after all. You—”

“Pah! I only call you father because, after all, you did give birth to me and raise me. But once there’s a stepmother, there’s a stepfather. You’re now only the father of Gu Qingbai and Gu Yuzhu. Huihui has been so wronged, and even Changwen—he’s about to start school, and my Huihui wanted to give him a duck egg to eat, but her little aunt had to fight over it with her. Has she never seen good food before or what?”

Gu Caihe had her hands on her hips and didn’t show the slightest courtesy even to her own father.

Gu Dapeng was at a loss for words, unable to refute a single thing.

“This Gu Caihe is way too aggressive. It was just a duck egg! And a foraged one at that. That little Gu girl looks so well-behaved—she doesn’t seem like the kind to steal from her niece.”

“Exactly! A duck egg, seriously? If two kids fight over it, it’s not likely to stay whole, right? More likely, that Han Hui didn’t manage to grab it in time, and Yuzhu picked it up. How is that stealing?”

One auntie analyzed the situation and got pretty close to the truth.

However, there were dissenting voices too. “You can’t say that. Even if the duck egg was picked up by the Gu girl first, the Han girl is still a junior, and her intention was kind—she wanted to give it to Gu family’s eldest grandson. As an elder, why couldn’t she just let the younger one have it?”

That being said, Gu Yuzhu and Han Hui were about the same age, but technically they were of different generations!

In this era, elders were expected to suffer in silence. If a younger person went too far, it was disrespectful, but if they hadn’t done anything wrong, then an elder shouldn’t stoop to their level. All in all, if you really started to dig into it, the arguments could go on for days.

So even if Gu Yuzhu was in the wrong, Gu Caihe storming into her stepmother’s house and pointing fingers while cursing was still out of line.

Most people shared this sentiment.

However, some didn’t like Yan Fengru either and felt that she was just pretending—playing the victim and acting pitiful. Look at Gu Dapeng standing helplessly by her side. That woman was nothing but a cunning fox spirit.

One of those with that opinion was Madam Xiao Jiang. She’d never given up. People are like this—when something doesn’t matter to you, you don’t pay it any mind. But once your heart is set on something or someone, it starts to gnaw at you.

Madam Xiao Jiang wasn’t exactly living the best life these days.

Her son, Tieniu, was of age now, but since she was a widow without much ability, they hadn’t even saved up enough to hire a matchmaker to look for a girl. Even if she wanted to, her family couldn’t come up with the betrothal gifts, so no one was willing to marry their daughter into such a household.

Madam Xiao Jiang had been considering swallowing her pride and pestering the Feng family for money—after all, her son’s uncles might help. But that was a last resort. If she could avoid such shameless tactics, she would.

That “solution,” of course, was to find a new man to take responsibility. And in her mind, her former brother-in-law Gu Dapeng was the perfect candidate.

That’s the flaw in her personality—once she got fixated on something, she couldn’t let go.

She thought Gu Dapeng was a reliable man, a good candidate to rely on, and fantasized about how good life would be if she married him… But unfortunately, Gu Dapeng had eyes only for that fox spirit Yan Fengru.

Madam Xiao Jiang was so angry she could’ve shattered her silver teeth from grinding them.

Her mother, Madam Yuan, had suggested that if Gu Dapeng really wasn’t an option, they could look for someone else. After all, there were plenty of widowers or poor men who couldn’t afford brides these days.

Realistically, Madam Xiao Jiang could remarry—she wasn’t that old, and even though she was a bit older for childbirth, partnering with a widower to get by in life would be just fine.

But if the widower had children, who would be willing to fork out money to find a bride for her son Feng Tieniu?

So after much discussion, she and her mother agreed—Gu Dapeng was still their best bet. At least Gu Dapeng’s own son was her nephew… If Madam Xiao Jiang could really marry in, then getting Gu Dapeng to pay for Tieniu’s match would be doable. With the connections through Xiao Jiang and Madam Yuan, Gu Qingshan would have to grit his teeth and accept it.

After all, it would be between his maternal grandmother and aunt—what else could he do but swallow it?

Leaving aside how much Madam Xiao Jiang was fuming with anger, Gu Caihe’s insults were getting worse. Even Gu Qingshan thought it was going too far. Then Gu Yuzhu came out. She let out a deliberately delicate wail—not loud, but just enough to draw everyone’s attention. Then she started sobbing softly.

“It’s… it’s all my fault. I… Brother Fu is going to school too. I picked up the duck egg first, but Hui girl insisted she saw it first. But I was already holding it, and she still wanted to snatch it from me, saying she saw it first…”

“Brother Fu is going to school, and I just wanted to give it to him too…”

After all, Gu Yuzhu was an adult at heart. She knew exactly how children should cry to appear most pitiful. There was technique involved. Her looks were already sweet and fair-skinned, and her tearful little face now looked absolutely heart-wrenching!

Even Gu Caihe forgot to curse for a moment, her face flushing red in fury.

Meanwhile, the surrounding villagers were whispering to each other.

“Oh, so that’s what happened? The Gu woman really went overboard—didn’t even figure out the whole story and just stormed into her stepmother’s house to make a scene. She’s so uncultured!”

“Right? If we didn’t know better, we would’ve thought her daughter suffered some grave injustice!”

“Such a little girl, already lying like that? What’ll she be like when she grows up?”

“I’ve always said that Han girl is trouble. Just a kid and already ordering her aunt up trees to pick loquats, making her fall and hurt herself. Now she can’t even pick up a duck egg and wants to accuse others? Tsk tsk!”

“You shut your mouth! I’ll rip that tongue out!”

As soon as Gu Caihe heard this, she shrieked and lunged at the woman who had spoken. The woman dodged, and Caihe was immediately grabbed by her husband, Han Zhengqing.