Chapter 436: 436 Questioning
Chapter 436: Chapter 436 Questioning
It was a gray-haired old woman holding a child’s hand, with another older child carrying a little one on her back.
The old woman’s clothes were patched, her face dusty, and the four children were also dressed in patchwork clothes, looking sallow and emaciated.
The appearance of the five people stunned everyone, who curiously looked at the old woman.
The old woman glanced around and fixed her cloudy eyes on Father Wu.
“Little Dog, do you not wake up in the middle of the night with fright?”
The old woman’s voice, aged and filled with endless hatred, frightened the crowd.
Father Wu hurried forward to assist the old woman, but she shook him off.
“What? Do you want to trick me away again and find a way to kill me?”
The old woman’s words made Father Wu’s face change dramatically, and he dropped to his knees with a thud.
He had always thought his old mother was dead, never expecting to see her again.
“What’s going on? She’s clearly alive? Ah Xue, what’s happening?” Father Wu turned to look at Mrs. Wu.
Mrs. Wu was also dumbfounded by shock.
She looked blankly at the old woman, then at Father Wu, and finally at the pale-faced Wu Haipeng.
“I don’t know!” Mrs. Wu murmured.
The old woman, hunched over and very old, clearly had exerted all her strength to get here. She stared at Mrs. Wu: “Your son is married, and you’ve finally become a mother-in-law. Do you think your daughter-in-law will humiliate and torment you as you did to me, and eventually start a fire that nearly burned our whole family to death?”
Mrs. Wu staggered, her face ashen.
“Don’t talk nonsense, I didn’t!”
Mrs. Wu’s defense seemed particularly weak at this moment.
Wu Haipeng was already panicking, hastily asking Mrs. Wu, “Mom, who is she?”
In fact, he already had a suspicion; seeing Mrs. Wu not answer, he left her and went to the old woman, asking Father Wu, “Is this Grandma?”
Father Wu remained in shock, dazed.
“Grandma? I don’t dare call myself your grandma!”
The old woman, hunched over, tilted her head to look at Wu Haipeng: “Your looks don’t follow your vicious mother. What a pity, you are the child of that vile woman and can’t be entered into our Wu Family’s genealogy!”
Father Wu still appeared dazed. The old woman was about to say something more, but the child standing behind her fainted.
Tang Chuxia and Elder Huang were there, quickly going over to check on the child.
They found that the child was starving, severely malnourished.
Elder Huang instructed someone to prepare red sugar water to give to the child.
Being too hungry, the child’s stomach couldn’t handle much food; they had to drink some sugar water to ease it before feeding them some porridge.
The old woman seemed to regain all her energy after the child fainted; she yelled at Father Wu, “Little Dog, do you see? These four children are your grandchildren. What sin did they commit? Just because their father was your child, your vicious wife schemed them to death. My three grandsons, such a good daughter-in-law, all died from illness!”
The old woman’s lament was like the cries of an aged beast, her hoarse voice continuously wailing from her abdomen.
Her fingers, as old and knotted as tree stumps, pointed at Mrs. Wu; the hatred in her eyes was terrifying.
No one present dared to speak.
Mrs. Wu just stood there, face pale, saying nothing.
“Died from illness? Didn’t they burn to death?”
Father Wu didn’t believe it. The old woman laughed maniacally, but her laughter was terrifying.
“Burned to death? Indeed, people burned. That was your wife afraid of being killed by you, who dragged bodies from the cemetery and threw them into the fire.”
In the old woman’s eyes, nearly covered by her eyelids, were flames.
Even a line of bloody tears emerged.
Perhaps out of exhaustion, she slumped to the ground, and seeing she was in bad shape, Tang Chuxia hurriedly handed her a bowl of water.
The old woman tilted her head to look at Tang Chuxia, saw the concern in her eyes, nodded, and accepted the water to drink.
At her age, she could still read people well.
“Good child, thank you!”
After drinking a bowl of water, the old woman felt a little better.
All four children gathered around the old woman.
“Originally, I didn’t want to come to find you, this heartless bastard, but you insisted on wiping us out completely. My grandson finally got married and had children, life was just getting better, yet you had them killed! My three grandsons and granddaughters-in-law, even Dajuan died protecting this old woman!”
The old woman was perhaps too heartbroken; her whole body was trembling violently.
She held the four children close.
“You all are too cruel. I gave birth to you; you just can’t see me live a good life? Won’t even spare the children?”
The old woman truly spat blood with each word.
Her hatred had reached its peak.
Father Wu knelt before her, repeatedly kowtowing.
“Mother, I really didn’t know! I thought you were gone, I even held a funeral for you!”
To the old woman’s words, Father Wu’s response was only a cold laugh.
“Funeral? Indeed, we watched from outside, watched as you held a funeral for us, yet we were alive and well! Live people eating the food of the dead, what do you think would happen?”
The old woman’s words were too painful to hear.
Many of the elders present, as well as those of high status, and even some of Father Wu’s comrades, were there. Although the events were distant memories, everyone had some impression.
The old woman and the four children appeared so pitiful, while Father Wu and Mrs. Wu were clean and tidy, living a very comfortable life.
Everyone looked at Mrs. Wu and Father Wu with scornful eyes.
“Mother, I deserve to die, I can’t believe I didn’t discover this!”
Father Wu’s forehead was bleeding from his kowtowing, having been so glorious before, he was now utterly disgraced.
Originally he was the father at his son’s grand wedding, fulfilling a long-cherished wish, only to find out that his life was not what he thought.
“You do deserve to die, four lives! You felt ashamed of Dajuan, and Dajuan divorced you. Just because this old woman embarrassed your wife, you wanted to wipe us out completely?”
The hatred in her voice was too obvious.
Father Wu raised his head, blood from his forehead flowing down his cheeks; he didn’t wipe it away but grabbed Mrs. Wu’s arm: “Was it you?”
Mrs. Wu shook her head, firmly denying it.
Wu Haipeng was dumbfounded, hurrying to pull the two apart.
“Dad, calm down and find out what really happened first!”
He couldn’t accept that his mother was such a vicious person, nor could he accept his father’s abandonment of his parents.
“Let me explain!”
A middle-aged man still stood at the doorway, his patched clothes not much better, but his face full of vicissitudes suggested he was honest.
“My name is Wu Tiegen, I’m the village chief of Wu Village. I came with Auntie this time!”
Wu Tiegen appeared a bit nervous, even as a village chief, he had never seen so many city folks.
He rubbed his hands, walking up to Father Wu: “In terms of seniority, I should call you cousin!”