“Uncle Wang didn’t want me to tell you,” Ye Youchun said hesitantly, a troubled look on her face. After a moment’s pause, she felt it would be wrong to keep it from them and continued, her expression easing slightly. “But it’s fine now—those two were driven out by Uncle Wang and won’t be coming back.”
Su Chi asked anxiously, “What exactly happened?”
Ye Youchun laid out the whole story before them.
Cai Zhi’s father’s family was in Zhongtang Village. A few days earlier, Cai Zhi had visited his relatives and heard from his father that the widowed fulang Xin in the village had been hired by a business owner, with good pay.
They said the man was a well-known madman in the village, and they couldn’t understand what had possessed that business owner to go looking for him specifically.
Strangely enough, after the widower had gone to work, his madness had gradually improved.
Cai’s father sighed as he spoke, lamenting why such a wonderful opportunity hadn’t fallen to his own child—that poor widower had been so lucky.
“That boss family is surnamed Xie, I think,” Cai’s father had said, glancing at his eldest son. “Right—I think they’re from your wife’s village. Something ‘Yu’—can’t quite remember the name.”
Xie, from Qingluo Village—how could Cai Zhi not understand?
He instantly knew that this “possessed” woman was none other than Su Chi’s wife, Xie Yushu.
Cai Zhi left without a word after hearing this, his face dark as if struck by lightning. He didn’t even respond when his father called after him to stay for dinner. He went straight home with a heavy head and told Su Ping everything.
“There’s such a thing!” Su Ping slammed the table and let out a sharp cry.
“I knew that woman who’d marry Su Chi couldn’t be a decent person!”
“She takes in some widowed fulang who’s got nothing to do with their family and gives him a job, but won’t even think of us? What a heartless, ungrateful bunch! Su Chi’s an ingrate, and so is his wife—won’t help their own relatives but goes out of her way for a complete stranger. The Xie family sure puts on airs!”
The more Su Ping ranted, the angrier she became, her chest heaving.
Cai Zhi was equally incensed, his eyes red—whether from anger or sorrow, it was hard to tell. “Father said Xie’s Seafood pays shockingly well, and the work isn’t even hard. If it were heavy labor, how could that scrawny widower handle it? He didn’t even want the house he had—took his child and went. And that Xie woman even arranged housing for them. I’ve never seen such a generous boss.”
The two of them stood there cursing Xie Yushu for being ungrateful and Su Chi for being unfilial, going over the same lines again and again. After they’d yelled themselves hoarse, they exchanged a glance. After so many years of marriage, they had an unspoken understanding. Fuming, they marched straight to Wang Wen’s house.
Wang Wen was cheerfully mixing wheat bran with chopped-up leaves and water for his chickens and ducks. The birds loved it.
The more they ate, the more eggs they’d lay, and their meat would stay firm and tender. He was raising them specifically to nourish the young couple.
As he was feeding them, he turned and saw two people at his gate who made him lose his appetite just by looking at them.
Seeing them suddenly, Wang Wen’s heart sank. He felt immediately disgusted. He put down his basin and hurried over, trying to close the gate—he wasn’t about to let those two set foot in his yard.
But Su Ping shoved hard, banging the gate open with a loud crash. Wang Wen stumbled back several steps, staggering before steadying himself.
Su Ping opened with an accusation: “Brother-in-law, your family has acted disgracefully.”
Before Wang Wen could say a word, the two of them pointed at his nose and launched into a torrent of reproach. Through their filth, Wang Wen finally pieced together why they’d come.
They had the nerve to come begging for work at the Xie household—yet with such repulsive attitudes.
Time and again they’d claimed they were severing all ties, yet every time they came back with their oversized faces, begging for handouts. Wang Wen was so disgusted his brows knitted together. Even the chickens and ducks in the yard were disturbed, flapping their wings at the intruders in a chorus of clucks and squawks.
Wang Wen grabbed the big broom leaning against the wall and lashed out at them without mercy, the bristles smacking their heads and bodies. Su Ping and Cai Zhi, caught off guard, yelped in pain.
Wang Wen yelled as he swung: “Get out! Get out! Don’t dirty my home—scram!”
Cai Zhi shoved his wife, urging her to fight back.
Su Ping snapped out of it too. As a woman, being so thoroughly beaten by her brother-in-law was humiliating. She was about to grab the broom from Wang Wen when a chill ran down her spine.
She turned and saw who was behind her—just as Wang Wen’s broom smacked her back a few more times. She winced in pain, her face paling. Wang Wen’s voice rang out:
“Youchun, perfect timing—help me drive these two pests out! Just seeing them makes me sick!”
Ye Youchun stood behind them, her presence radiating an invisible pressure. She was a good half-head taller than Su Ping, a look of impatience plain on her face.
Seeing her take the broom from Wang Wen, the couple shuddered inside.
This Ye woman was used to hard physical labor—her strength was nothing like that of an ordinary fulang. One swing of that broom, and they’d be flayed alive.
As Ye Youchun took the broom and swung it at them, Su Ping scrambled away with Cai Zhi in tow, making a hasty retreat. And Ye Youchun still called out after them:
“Come back again, and I’ll beat you dead.”
At that point in her story, Ye Youchun’s usually expressionless face finally showed a flicker of emotion.
All those outrageous, wicked things Su Ping and Cai Zhi had done to Su Chi and Wang Wen—she would have loved to give them a proper “reception.”
Fighting in the village was common enough. If she’d actually beaten those two half to death, the villagers would have turned a blind eye.
Knowing his father was fine and hadn’t been taken advantage of—even got to beat them himself—Su Chi finally relaxed. “Thank goodness you showed up in time. My aunt and uncle… they’re just too much.”
Su Chi was still shaken, his right hand clenched tightly. Suddenly, a warm palm wrapped around his. “Don’t worry. If they dare come again, I’ll hire some people in the village to check on Father every hour.”
If they came back, she’d have those hired folks give them a warm welcome. People like that just needed a good beating to learn their lesson.
After all the pain they’d caused Su Chi, Xie Yushu had long wanted to teach them a lesson.
Having eaten her fill, Ye Youchun remembered something else: “Boss, about the Bai family—I just recalled something. Su Ping’s ge’er, Su Sheng, married into a family surnamed Bai.”
At Ye Youchun’s reminder, everything clicked into place. Xie Yushu immediately connected the dots between the Bai family’s recent poaching of kelp supplies and Su Ping’s family coming to harass Wang Wen. Her brow lifted slightly: “So that’s it.”
That made sense—everything fell into place. The Bai family…
Su Chi watched the two of them trade cryptic remarks, growing more anxious by the second. He turned to Xie Yushu and asked nervously, “What about the Bai family? Why are you suddenly bringing this up?”
He remembered his father mentioning that Su Sheng had married into the Bai family, but why were they talking about it now?
Xie Yushu signaled Ye Youchun with her eyes to wait outside. Ye Youchun understood and got up to leave.
Once they were alone at the table, Xie Yushu took Su Chi’s hand and spoke softly: “Nothing serious. You go to the shop like a good fulang—I’ll be back by evening.” She pressed a kiss to his forehead.
She chose not to tell him for now, not wanting him to worry.
Her fulang always took her affairs too much to heart. If he found out there was trouble at the base involving the Bai family, he’d blame himself, thinking he’d dragged her into it.
Xie Yushu knew her fulang too well. She’d carry this herself—she couldn’t bear to let him fret.
Before they left, Su Chi packed up all the leftover breakfast—the pancakes, a thick stack of them—wrapped them all together.
He gently told Xie Yushu to eat some if she got hungry while working. Ye Youchun took the bundle, and then Xie Yushu led her out of the Xie household one after the other.
On the way to Qianwan Village, Ye Youchun told Xie Yushu everything she’d learned about the Bai family over the past two days—their business and domestic situation, all of it.
The Bai family had started small, getting lucky years ago and making a fortune, becoming a prominent wealthy household in Bailian Town. In recent years, their business had been poorly managed, and with a large family spending money like water—outpacing their income—they’d lost their earlier drive. They were scrambling for new ways to make money. Somehow, a few days ago, they’d suddenly set their sights on the kelp business.
After hearing all this, Xie Yushu finally understood what had gotten into the Bai family and why. It all made much more sense now.
So the Bai family hadn’t gone mad for no reason—there was a trail to follow.
It must have been Su Chi’s cousin Su Sheng stirring things up behind the scenes, whispering poison in the Bai family head’s ear. That was the root of this whole mess.
At the bottom of it, Su Ping and Cai Zhi resented her and came up with this scheme to spite her, trying every way to sabotage her—otherwise, they couldn’t swallow their pride.
They must have told Su Sheng about it and egged him on to go complain to the Bai family head, exaggerating and twisting the story, which led the Bai family to pull this stunt.
Xie Yushu also thought of something else—wasn’t Su Sheng just a concubine? Would the Bai family head really dote on him that much?
She doubted that was the case.
This move from the Bai family was less about favoritism and more about saving face—egged on by the concubine, combined with their own shaky finances, they wanted to take a gamble.
Having sorted out the full picture, Xie Yushu didn’t feel relieved—her heart tightened.
Dealing with such a family of shameless, audacious relatives made Xie Yushu’s heart ache for Su Chi. What kind of life had he been living all these years? And how had he ever gotten through it?
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