Chapter 544: I Don't Know You Well, Don't Get Familiar
Chapter 544: Chapter 525: I Don’t Know You Well, Don’t Get Familiar
Yang Chun had a great plan in mind, but she hadn’t had a chance to act on it yet. Her health wasn’t good after her miscarriage, and she hadn’t been able to recover properly while living with her in-laws, so she looked very haggard. She decided to focus on her health first. Once she’d recovered and looked a bit better, she would go find Dong Liang.
But she hadn’t expected this. Today, as she was lying on the kang at home, her mother had come back in a fury to tell her that Dong Liang had brought a girl home. The girl was apparently quite pretty and had brought a ton of gifts. The whole street knew, and everyone was saying she was Dong Liang’s new girlfriend.
Yang Chun couldn’t just lie there anymore. She shot right up, climbed off the kang without a second thought, and made to leave for the Dong Family’s home. ‘Dong Liang is mine. Where did this shameless hussy come from, trying to snatch him away? I’ll show her what’s what!’
“You’re going out like that? Look at you! Your hair’s a mess, your face is unwashed, and just look at your clothes. If you’re going to confront someone, you’ve got to at least put on something new. Otherwise, how are you going to get the upper hand?”
Yang Chun’s mother grabbed her daughter’s arm. She knew what her daughter was planning, and she supported it. ‘If only we’d known this would happen,’ she thought. ‘We wouldn’t have done what we did. We should have just waited.’ Then her daughter would be the Dong family’s daughter-in-law by now, and there’d be no room for this other woman.
Yang Chun realized her mother was right. She washed her face, combed her hair, and found some “new” clothes to wear. She hadn’t bought anything new for herself in the past year or two; her husband had never bought her anything while she lived with his family. These clothes were already a couple of years old. ‘This won’t do,’ she thought. ‘When I marry Dong Liang, I’m going to buy myself several new outfits. I’ve been short-changed for too long.’
Yang Chun went to the Dong Family’s home with her mother, but her mother didn’t go inside right away. She stood by the gate and told Yang Chun to call for her if she couldn’t handle the situation on her own.
The moment Yang Chun stepped into the courtyard, she saw Wang Qiu and Xinghua walking out together. The sight of them arm-in-arm made her eyes burn with jealousy. ‘That should be me standing there, not some hussy who crawled out of the woodwork!’
Yang Chun sized up Xinghua and had to admit she was prettier, younger, and better dressed. While her complexion wasn’t especially fair, her skin was smooth and delicate, glowing with a youthful vitality. ‘So unlike me,’ she thought, ‘with my dark circles and exhausted expression.’
But so what? The history I have with Dong Liang goes back years. This girl can’t just erase that. I expect Wang Qiu will be cold to me, but I don’t care. I just need to be thick-skinned. You have to fight for a good life. Once I marry in, Wang Qiu will be the one walking on eggshells around me. What’s a little humiliation now? Compared to my mother-in-law and those sisters-in-law, this is nothing.’
“Auntie, it’s all my fault. I know I didn’t really want to back then, but… but my family did what they did, and I’m so sorry. Please, let me apologize to you and Brother Liangzi on behalf of my parents.”
Yang Chun’s eyes welled with tears, her face a mask of grievance. As she finished speaking, she made a show of starting to kneel.
Even though Wang Qiu was full of resentment, she was fundamentally a kind person. When she saw Yang Chun looking like she was about to kneel, she instinctively moved. ‘I can’t just let her kneel in the middle of the courtyard,’ she thought. ‘If the neighbors see, who knows what rumors they’ll start.’
Xinghua noticed Wang Qiu was about to help Yang Chun up, but she gently pulled her back, stopping her.
Wang Qiu was a little confused and glanced at Xinghua, but Xinghua’s face was placid. Unsure of Xinghua’s intentions, Wang Qiu froze.
With Wang Qiu holding still, it was awkward for Dong Liang to step forward. As a man, it wouldn’t be proper for him to help Yang Chun to her feet.
Yang Chun was now in an awkward position. Based on her knowledge of Wang Qiu and Dong Liang, she was sure they wouldn’t actually let her kneel. She was just putting on a show, playing the victim, expecting the Dong family to forgive her. She never imagined that neither Wang Qiu nor Dong Liang would move to stop her.
‘What should I do now?’ Yang Chun wondered. ‘Am I supposed to actually kneel? No, I can’t do that. What would people say if they saw me?’
Seeing Yang Chun speak the part but not actually move, Wang Qiu understood. ‘It’s all an act.’ If Xinghua hadn’t stopped her, she probably would have fallen for it and rushed to help her up. ‘This Yang Chun really says one thing and does another. I can’t ever fall for her tricks again.’
Seeing that no one was moving, Yang Chun gritted her teeth. ‘Fine, let them see,’ she thought. ‘If people see, they’ll just see me apologizing to the Dong family. If I go this far and they still don’t forgive me, then everyone will think the Dong family is the unreasonable one.’
‘Then I’ll kneel.’ With that thought, Yang Chun resolved herself.
Xinghua saw right through Yang Chun’s intentions. With a small smile, she said, “Auntie, Brother Liangzi, why are we leaving a guest standing in the courtyard? Let’s talk inside. If people see this, they might think we’re trying to make things difficult for her.”
Xinghua’s words cut off Yang Chun’s path to kneeling.
Wang Qiu and Dong Liang understood as well. If they let Yang Chun keep standing in the courtyard, who knew what she might say next or how the gossip would spread.
“Let’s go inside.”
Wang Qiu shot Yang Chun a glare and said reluctantly.
With Yang Chun’s arrival, Wang Qiu and Xinghua couldn’t go prepare dinner. The four of them entered the house.
Wang Qiu pulled Xinghua down to sit with her, and Dong Liang sat down as well. Yang Chun started to take a seat, but when she saw Wang Qiu glaring at her, she stopped and remained standing there awkwardly.
“Auntie, Brother Liangzi, and who is this young lady?”
Yang Chun inquired about Xinghua.
Xinghua just smiled at her without a word. ‘I don’t need to introduce myself,’ she thought.
“This is Xinghua, our Liangzi’s girlfriend,” Wang Qiu announced. “Xinghua is a wonderful girl. She doesn’t mind our Liangzi’s situation, and she doesn’t mind our family’s. She’s a hundred times better than *some* people.”
Wang Qiu introduced Xinghua, slipping in a jab at Yang Chun.
Yang Chun cursed inwardly. ‘Doesn’t mind their situation? If Dong Daguo’s case hadn’t been overturned, if the Dong Family were still drowning in debt, let’s see if she’d still feel that way.’
“So, you’re Xinghua. You’re very pretty. My name is Yang Chun. Brother Liangzi and I grew up together, you know. We were always hanging out and were very close. You can just call me Sister Chun.”
Yang Chun’s tone was friendly, but the implication behind her words was anything but.
“I’m sorry, but I don’t have the habit of just calling anyone ‘sister.’ If my actual sister found out I was calling someone like you ‘sister,’ she’d be furious. Oops, I’m just very direct. I hope you don’t mind.”
Xinghua said calmly. ‘She wants me to call her ‘sister’? Trying to establish dominance over me? Not a chance in hell.’
Yang Chun stared blankly at Xinghua, stunned. She never expected Xinghua to respond like that. She was basically saying, ‘You’re not worthy of being my sister, so don’t even try to act familiar.’ How could someone be like this? ‘This is her first time at the Dong family’s home,’ Yang Chun thought. ‘How can she talk like that? Isn’t she afraid of what Wang Qiu and Dong Liang will think of her?’
Yang Chun looked over at Wang Qiu and Dong Liang.
Wang Qiu’s eyes were filled with satisfaction. ‘Serves her right,’ she thought. ‘She asked for it. We were perfectly fine, who asked you to show up and ruin everything?’
Dong Liang’s expression remained neutral. He knew Xinghua; she was generous and kind, but she had a temper when provoked.
“I misspoke. Xing… please don’t be mad at me. I’m just a bit dense and not good with words. Auntie and Brother Liangzi both know that about me. Otherwise, back then…”
Seeing that no one was coming to her rescue, Yang Chun had to find her own way to save face.
Wang Qiu turned her head away, refusing to look at her. Just mentioning the past infuriated her. ‘How dare Yang Chun bring it up over and over again?’
“Whatever happened with you back then has nothing to do with me, and I have no interest in finding out. It doesn’t matter whether you’re good with words or not. We’re not going to have much to do with each other in the future, so whether you speak well or poorly is irrelevant to me. You don’t need to worry about it, and you certainly don’t need to apologize.”
Xinghua still had a smile on her face, but her words left Yang Chun with no way to gracefully back down.
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