Chapter 304: Pretending to Be Deaf and Dumb
"Aiyo, how come she’s gotten so thin in just a few days? She was so plump and fair when she was with the Wang Family, and now, in a matter of days, she’s turned into a shadow of her former self. Tsk tsk, it’s really karma."
"Isn’t it just karma? She was so heartless back in the day, you’d never see a woman as cruel as that. When trouble hit home, she ran faster than a rabbit, even more so than people from five different families. It’s beyond me how she has the face to come back. If it were me, I’d have doused her with foot-washing water."
"What can you do when she’s got such good fortune, having borne three sons for the Wang Family? Considering those children, the Wangs couldn’t just treat her badly."
"She’s shameless, a disgrace to us women. Ptooey—"
...
A bunch of women surrounded Lady Lin, hurling every nasty thing they could think of at her. If it had been before, Lady Lin wouldn’t have been able to hold back; she would’ve either shouted back or gone straight to slapping them in the face.
But the Lady Lin of today lacked confidence and was haunted by guilt.
All she could do was grit her teeth and endure, pretending she hadn’t heard.
Seeing Lady Lin playing deaf and dumb only made the old grannies more infuriated. One of them, hot-tempered, tripped Lady Lin as she struggled with a bundle of straw, not watching where she was going; Lady Lin fell to the ground with the straw in her arms.
The grannies, watching Lady Lin face-plant into the mud, clapped their hands in delight, and one even pretended to help Lady Lin up, only to pinch her a few times more.
When Lady Lin fell, she landed right on a bluestone step, felt a dizzying blow to the head, and having been pinched several times, couldn’t make out who did it.