Chapter 29: Can’t Wait Another Minute

Chapter 29: Chapter 29: Can’t Wait Another Minute

She was even more terrified of him and didn’t dare utter another word of rebuttal.

Zhang Jianwei’s face was grim, his fists clenched tight.

"You two, explain yourselves! Why were you so cruel to Song Yao? What on earth did she do to get on your bad side? Did she eat too much? Or spend a bit of your money?"

Song Shunqiang was still on the floor, trembling like a leaf, his teeth chattering.

"I’ll talk! I’ll talk! I won’t hide it anymore!"

"She’s just a girl. Sooner or later, she’ll marry. And once she marries, she belongs to another family. No matter how much effort you spend raising her, you’re just raising her for someone else... It’s not worth the money or the trouble..."

Hearing this, Shen Zhenwu’s brow twitched, and his temples throbbed violently.

He took a sudden step forward and roared.

"She’s a human being! Didn’t it ever occur to you that you might torture her to death?! What if she had frozen to death after you threw her out on the road that night? That’s a human life! Is that all it means to you?"

Song Shunqiang was instantly speechless.

It wasn’t that he didn’t want to answer, but that he didn’t dare voice the words on the tip of his tongue.

He was afraid that speaking would implicate him further, afraid of being arrested and thrown in jail.

Xiao Li had no patience for this. With a SHINK, he drew a dagger and plunged it into the floor beside Song Shunqiang’s hand.

"I’m asking you a question. You’d better answer me honestly! Otherwise, the next stab will go right through your hand!"

Song Shunqiang stammered, unable to string a coherent sentence together.

"If a daughter dies, she dies. We were so poor we couldn’t keep food on the table. One more kid is one more mouth to feed. One less just frees up space."

"Our home was already crowded. In the winter, we had to take turns on the heated bed. With one more person, there wouldn’t even be room to roll over. Rations were never enough, and firewood was scarce. Who was going to feed a new mouth? Her dying was a relief. It didn’t cost a cent, and she wouldn’t be a burden to us adults."

"Besides, we can always have more. If we have a boy, the family line continues. We’ll have someone to work the fields, feed the livestock, and burn incense for the ancestral tablets."

None of the men in the room said a word.

They all hung their heads, as if afraid of being tainted by the bad omen.

But Liu Yumin suddenly burst out laughing, her eyes fixed squarely on Song Yao.

"Did you hear that? It wasn’t me who wanted you dead. It was your bad luck, being born a girl! If you’d been born into any other family, you might have made it. But no, you had to be born into the Song Family."

"If you want to hate someone, don’t come after me. Go hate them. And if you’re looking for someone to blame, blame yourself for being such a disappointment! You should never have come back alive, and you certainly shouldn’t have dredged this all up. Did you think you could change your fate? You’re just a nameless little girl, a nobody. Does anyone here even treat you like a person?"

Shen Zhenwu was about to explode when he heard that.

He had just rolled up his sleeves, ready to strike, when Song Yao suddenly pulled something out.

It was a yellowed strip of cloth, stained with dried, brownish marks.

"Who says we don’t have proof? You think this was done in secret? You forgot I still have this."

"This is a corner of the swaddling clothes I was wrapped in. It’s embroidered with words, hand-stitched by my mother. You tried to take my life but missed this piece. You never dreamed that I would not only survive, but find this again."

Shen Zhenwu’s rage boiled over. He kicked out at Liu Yumin.

"Today, I’m making an exception and hitting a woman!"

The kick landed squarely on her ribs.

Liu Yumin shrieked in pain and collapsed on the floor.

The blow stunned everyone in the room.

Zhang Jianwei and Xiao Li were the first to react. One grabbed him from the left, the other from the right, and they managed to restrain Shen Zhenwu.

The others snapped out of it and swarmed in, grabbing his arms and wrapping their arms around his waist.

A chorus of desperate pleas erupted.

"Chief! Calm down!"

"Chief, don’t hit her again!"

"You’ll really be in trouble if you kill her!"

The color drained from everyone’s faces.

No wonder Shen Zhenwu never laid a hand on a woman.

Because when he did, he was clearly capable of killing them.

Shen Zhenwu was forced back into his chair, and only then did he begin to regain some composure.

His chest heaved, his clenched fists still trembling.

Even Song Yao was so frightened her back went ramrod straight.

She had never seen Shen Zhenwu in such a violent rage.

’For a moment, she suspected he might have actually snapped Liu Yumin’s neck.’

Zhang Jianwei shot them a look, and the hospital director and a department head immediately rushed forward to check on her.

The director palpated the area and listened before saying gravely,

"At least three or four broken ribs. If we don’t get her to a hospital now, her lung could be punctured. Her life is in danger. We need to get her X-rayed, put her on oxygen, and prep for surgery. If there’s internal bleeding, she could be dead in ten minutes."

Zhang Jianwei immediately ordered,

"You two, give a hand and get her to the emergency room now!"

Two guards supported her and carried her out.

Song Yao didn’t dare to breathe a sigh of relief until she saw Liu Yumin being carried out.

She was terrified in hindsight.

’In this life, her entire standing depended on this new, convenient father of hers.’

’If something happened to Shen Zhenwu, everything she had built up since her rebirth would go up in smoke.’

At that thought, she could no longer be bothered to play the part of a frail victim.

She sat up straight and cast a cold glance at Xiao Li.

"Xiao Li, please keep a close eye on the Chief. Don’t let him lay a hand on anyone else."

Xiao Li nodded.

He immediately positioned himself half a step away from Shen Zhenwu.

Shen Zhenwu was still simmering with rage.

But with the woman gone, he could only turn and unleash his verbal tirade on Song Shunqiang.

"That bitch Liu Yumin has the gall to talk about my daughter? Bullshit! If you two hadn’t swapped her, would my real daughter have ended up like that? All I, Shen Zhenwu, ever dreamed of was having a daughter to dote on—to treat like the most precious treasure. And instead, you two animals..."

He grew more furious as he spoke and started to get up again, ready to fight.

But everyone had just witnessed the power of that kick.

Who would dare let him near anyone now?

The moment he lifted his leg, several people reacted instantly.

"Chief!"

It wasn’t just Xiao Li who moved to block him; Zhang Jianwei and his aide also stepped in front of him in unison.

Shen Zhenwu’s eyes were bloodshot with rage as he roared,

"Get the hell out of my way! If I don’t end the two of them today, my name isn’t Shen!"

He tried to break through, but the three of them together managed to pin him by the shoulders.

"Chief, even if you’re going to take action, you need to get the whole story first, file a report, and go through the proper channels!"

Zhang Jianwei’s voice was steady.

"I can’t stand it for one more minute!"

Shen Zhenwu violently shook his arm, nearly breaking free from their grasp.

Seeing that he had completely lost control, Song Yao had no choice but to step forward.

"Dad!"

That single word froze the almost-uncontrollable Shen Zhenwu in place.

His whole body jolted. He turned around in disbelief.

"You... what did you say? What did you call me?"

Song Yao repeated, crisply,

"Dad."

Shen Zhenwu swayed and collapsed back into his chair.

He then lowered his head and covered his face with one hand, muffled sobs escaping from behind his palm.

Zhang Jianwei and his aide, both fathers themselves, felt their eyes sting at the sight.

Song Yao was overcome with a storm of mixed emotions.

’The lonely road she had walked all these years, all the wrongs she had endured, flashed through her mind.’

’But now, it felt as though all those emotions were being gently cradled.’

’Perhaps... being Shen Zhenwu’s daughter wasn’t such a difficult thing to accept after all.’

The thought surfaced so suddenly that it surprised even her.

She climbed out of bed and walked, step by step, to the side of the man who was crying uncontrollably.