Chapter 95: Bad Luck

Chapter 95: Chapter 95: Bad Luck

Zheng Cuiyun thanked him while stuffing food into her mouth, eating so furiously that her temples beaded with sweat.

Li Hanchen saw this the moment he walked in and immediately pulled out some meal tickets to stuff into the young comrade’s hands.

Zheng Cuiyun slammed her chopsticks down and whirled on Shen Songyao, her voice frantic.

"Where’s Li Wen? Give him back to me!"

"Where on earth have you hidden him?!"

Shen Songyao leaned lazily against the doorframe, her arms crossed over her chest.

"Where my son goes... what’s that got to do with you?"

"You... You..."

Zheng Cuiyun’s finger was shaking so hard, she couldn’t squeeze out another word.

Shen Songyao shot her a glance and spoke slowly.

"So, you’re here to pick up your son?"

"In that case, how do you plan to repay me for the cost of raising him?"

As soon as she heard that, Zheng Cuiyun immediately pulled a wad of cash from her pocket.

"Here, it’s all here!"

The communications officer was still standing right there. She was betting that Shen Songyao would be too embarrassed to make a scene and would have to just swallow the loss.

Who would have thought that Shen Songyao would just smile and ask casually,

"Oh? Have you counted it? How much is there?"

She squinted, glanced at the money, and wagged a finger.

"Five hundred yuan? Ha! Zheng Cuiyun, is your face made of bricks? How can you be so thick-skinned?"

"Li Hanchen gets a stipend of 132 yuan a month, and he sent every last bit to you, rain or shine. Not a cent was missing—I have the remittance slips for every single transaction. And now you just toss out a wad of old bills and say ’it’s all here’?"

"You might as well tell me the sun rises in the west."

"That was all spent long ago!"

Zheng Cuiyun shouted, her neck stiff with defiance.

"Not a single cent is left! It all went to his schooling, doctor’s visits, and textbooks!"

Shen Songyao spread her hands.

"Oh, all spent? Then let me ask you, who was paying for your son’s food, clothes, schooling, and medical care? Me or you?"

"Let me make one thing clear. My money is for raising my own biological children. You want to raise a child? You pay for it yourself. Understand?"

Zheng Cuiyun must have been dizzy with anger, because she blurted out,

"That’s money Li Hanchen earned! You just sit around at home all day. What gives you the right to call it yours?"

Shen Songyao burst out laughing on the spot.

’Oh, dear. Was she actually expecting Li Hanchen to back her up?’

Still laughing, she shot a pointed, sidelong glance at Li Hanchen across from her.

Li Hanchen understood instantly and jumped in.

"Yaoyao is my wife. The money I send her is hers."

Shen Songyao nodded immediately, giving him a playful wink.

Then she turned back, lifting her chin slightly at Zheng Cuiyun.

"Anything else to say?"

Zheng Cuiyun exploded. She leaped to her feet, slapped her thigh, and started wailing.

"My son! Where have you hidden my son?"

"Give me back my son! Give me back my son..."

She shrieked her heart out, spittle flying so close it nearly hit the collar of Shen Songyao’s shirt.

Shen Songyao couldn’t be bothered to listen anymore and turned to call for Li Hanchen.

"Let’s go. We’re going home!"

Before leaving, her voice turned cold.

"If you’re here to discuss this sincerely, I won’t stop you. But if all you’re going to do is throw a tantrum, don’t come looking for me again."

She added a quick instruction to the young comrade in the communications room.

"Next time, don’t even call me. Just send her packing!"

The young comrade nodded quickly in agreement.

Zheng Cuiyun’s legs suddenly went weak. She scrambled after them, shouting.

"Wait! Let me see Xiao Wen! Just one look! Just one look!"

"If he’s alright, I’ll go back and scrape the money together right now! I’ll go home, turn the house upside down, find the passbook, sell our eggs, borrow from the neighbors! I swear I’ll have the money here within three days!"

Shen Songyao glanced up at the sky, then looked down at Zheng Cuiyun.

"Fine. Follow me."

When she led them to Cao Chun’s place, Li Wen was squatting by a basin, scrubbing a pot.

His face was a shade darker, his cheekbones jutted out sharply, and his shoulders seemed to have thinned considerably.

The moment Zheng Cuiyun saw him, tears gushed from her eyes.

"My son! Oh, my son! Mama’s heart and soul! My sweet boy!"

Shen Songyao cleaned out her ear and held up a hand to stop her.

"Stop! You’re wailing like it’s a funeral. What bad luck."

The words had barely left her mouth when Zheng Cuiyun flinched, her crying getting stuck in her throat.

Cao Chun had already come to stand beside Shen Songyao, one hand on her hip as she asked at the top of her lungs,

"Is this that sister-in-law of yours?"

Shen Songyao nodded.

Cao Chun immediately raised her voice.

"Well, I’ll be. I thought this child was born without a mother!"

"Tsk, tsk, tsk. You carry a child for ten months just to abandon him whenever you please? How did your heart get to be such a stone? Even an anvil isn’t as hard as you!"

Zheng Cuiyun threw herself in front of Li Wen, reaching out to touch her son’s gaunt cheeks as her tears splattered down.

Li Wen stared at her quietly, his eyes vacant.

"Mom, are you here to take me home?"

Zheng Cuiyun nodded and pulled out the five hundred yuan from her pocket.

"You take this for now. I’ll get the rest when I go home and bring it in a couple of days. I swear, I’m not lying!"

Shen Songyao scoffed.

"Trust you? That’ll be the day."

Zheng Cuiyun anxiously pushed forward, trying to shove the money into Shen Songyao’s hands.

"Take it! Really, take it! Count it! It’s all there!"

Shen Songyao put her hands behind her back.

"Listen carefully. 132 yuan for eighteen months comes to 2,376. If you’re short by even a dime, the deal’s off."

"Oh, and I almost forgot. You also have to cover Mrs. Cao’s wages for looking after Xiao Wen, which is fifteen yuan a month. For eighteen months, that’s another two hundred and seventy yuan. The grand total is two thousand six hundred and forty-six."

When Zheng Cuiyun heard that, the tears froze on her face. Her eyes looked like they were about to pop out of her head, and she finally squeezed a sentence through her teeth.

"No wonder your own mother threw you out like trash long ago."

She could blurt out such a curse because Song Pengfei and Liu Yumin had already told her everything about Shen Songyao’s origins.

But Shen Songyao knew nothing about this.

She just assumed the "own mother" Zheng Cuiyun was talking about was still Liu Yumin, the woman who always gave her dirty looks and treated her like a nuisance.

At the mention of Liu Yumin, Shen Songyao actually relaxed and smiled.

"She disowned me? Perfect. Saves me the trouble of having to pretend to be a dutiful daughter during the holidays."

Zheng Cuiyun’s lips trembled. The words rolled around in her throat, but she didn’t dare spit them out.

It turned out that Liu Yumin and Song Pengfei had already spilled the beans to her.

Shen Songyao wasn’t the Song Family’s biological daughter at all.

Years ago, a party had given them a large sum of money to entrust the child to their care. Afterwards, they continued to send money intermittently for ten years, supposedly for her food, drink, and schooling.

But then one day, the money suddenly stopped coming.

The first year, Liu Yumin figured the other party might have just been busy and forgotten. The second year, she started to have her doubts.

By the third year, when there was still no sign of any money, she finally figured it out.

They had no intention of taking responsibility for the girl anymore.

But by then, Shen Songyao had grown into a young woman. Keeping her around meant they could still get a bride price for her; they couldn’t let more than a decade of raising her go to waste.

So the Song Family kept her, but their attitude toward her grew uglier and uglier, and they stopped letting her go to school.

When Shen Songyao asked why, Liu Yumin just shot back,

"Studying that stuff is useless. Your real job is to serve your husband’s family in the future."

Back when the child was handed over, the other party had left them with a harsh warning.

If anyone dared to let Shen Songyao know who she was or where she came from, they would turn around and accuse the Song Family and Liu Yumin of kidnapping the child, landing them straight in jail.

The matter was kept under such tight wraps that even Zheng Cuiyun, who had been married into the family for nearly ten years, was only hearing about it for the first time.

Initially, Zheng Cuiyun had been nice to her, secretly giving her an extra piece or two of meat, only to have Liu Yumin smack her chopsticks away on the spot.

After that, she gradually learned to keep her mouth shut.

She had always thought the Song Family just favored sons over daughters; she never imagined such a massive secret was buried beneath it all.