Chapter 140: It’s All Fate

Chapter 140: Chapter 140: It’s All Fate

Granny Sun thought she had lost her mind.

How could she tolerate such provocation? She immediately had her son send Ji Xuelan and her daughters back to Dafeng Village.

She was waiting for the Ji Family to come and beg her!

"Mother, take another look at me."

Ji Xuelan turned her battered, unrecognizable face directly toward Yang. Then, she placed Sanyang on the kang bed and rolled up her sleeves for Yang to see.

Bruises in shades of blue and purple, new injuries layered over old ones. There wasn’t a single patch of unscathed skin.

"And you still want me to go back? They’ll beat me to death, then drown Sanyang, and they’ll sell off Daya and Erya too. She’s wanted to sell those two girls more than just once or twice..."

When Granny Sun had Sun Shou send her back to her maiden home, she had actually felt a sense of relief.

Returning to the place where she had grown up, she finally felt a sliver of security, and her heart was full of grievances she needed to air.

But no one was willing to listen.

Aunt Kang was scowling and grimacing, while Mrs. Zhu taunted her and gloated at her misfortune.

Even her own mother urged her to go back, kowtow, and apologize, saying things like, "Couples fight at the head of the bed and make up at the foot," and that there was no reason to run back to her maiden home over a few grievances.

She repeatedly assured her that Granny Sun wouldn’t really drown Sanyang, nor would she sell Daya and Erya, as long as Xuelan was willing to yield.

The day after she was sent back, before she even had breakfast, Aunt Kang had her father and third uncle hitch up the cart to take her back. No matter how much she cried and begged, it was useless.

When they arrived at the Sun family’s home, she watched with her own eyes as her father bowed and scraped before them, forcing smiles and speaking placating words. Then she watched helplessly as he left the Sun family’s gate and walked further and further away...

All hope turned to ash.

She turned a deaf ear to the taunts from Granny Sun and Mrs. Du. When Sun Shou tried to hit her again, she grabbed a kitchen knife and chased him out of the house.

The Sun family thought she had truly gone mad this time, so they immediately sent her back to the Ji Family without delay.

She was like livestock, like an object, kicked back and forth between the two families.

As people from both villages pointed and whispered all along the way, she felt nothing at all.

Getting divorced, it turned out, wasn’t the scary part. The scary part was leaving her husband’s family only to find there was no longer a place for her in her own.

If it were just her, a rope or a river would have been enough to end this worthless life.

But she couldn’t. She still had three daughters. If she were gone, what would happen to them?

’How bitter life must be for a child with no mother to love them!’

Ji Mingfang looked at his sister’s bruised body, his fists clenching so tightly they cracked.

Ji Liansong, who had been listening in silence, suddenly spoke. "Forget it. The Sun family... it’s better not to go back."

Yang was stunned, then grew anxious. "Their father, what are you saying? If Mother hears you..."

She turned back to persuade Ji Xuelan. "Xuelan, you’ve been sensible since you were little and never gave your mother cause to worry. You can’t be foolish at a critical time like this! If a woman is divorced, her life is over! People will point and gossip wherever you go. Our family will become the laughingstock of the village. Your father, your brother, and I won’t be able to hold our heads up when we go out..."

"Mother!" Ji Mingfang strode over, pulled Yang aside, and stood in front of Ji Xuelan. "Are you trying to drive my sister to her death?"

Yang explained anxiously, "She’s my own flesh and blood. How could I not wish the best for her? Why would I drive her to her death?"

"Sun Shou is a beast! He was never worthy of my sister! Back when our eldest aunt acted as matchmaker, you married my sister off to him without even asking. You said it was good because she’d be close to our aunt and they could look out for each other. And the result? My sister is being bullied like this, and instead of going to the Sun family to settle the score, we’re supposed to grovel and send her back to suffer more? If that’s not driving her to her death, what is?!"

"I... I..." Flustered by her son’s interrogation, Yang was at a loss for words, stammering incoherently.

She glanced toward the main house again and sighed, her face full of sorrow.

"Ming Fang, I’m doing this for your sister’s own good. You don’t understand the hardships of being a woman... Xuelan, listen to your mother. Just grit your teeth and endure it. This is how all women get by..."

Ji Xuelan suddenly let out a hollow laugh.

"There’s something I’ve never been able to understand... Once I’m married off, am I no longer your daughter? Is this no longer my home? When I’m wronged and bullied, am I supposed to just swallow it all alone? Not only will my own family not back me up, but you even tell me that suffering is a blessing and I should just accept my fate... Mother, can you tell me? I’ve wondered for so many years and I still don’t get it. I really..."

Her throat felt as if it were blocked by a stone, and she couldn’t go on.

Yang was rather frightened of this version of her daughter. She was like a completely different person from the obedient girl she used to be. It was a little unsettling to watch.

"Isn’t it just fate...? You never managed to give them a son, so of course they’d have complaints... And you injured your mother-in-law. What kind of daughter-in-law raises a hand against her own mother-in-law...?"

She sighed again and again for a moment, then continued:

"Your grandmother’s words are harsh, but not without reason. ’A married daughter is like spilt water.’ That’s the old way. It’s not that your maiden family won’t take you in, but have you ever seen a daughter get divorced and come back to be supported by her parents? Look at our village chief’s sister. When her husband died and she was sent back to her family, didn’t she have nowhere to go? She’s returned to the village in glory now, but isn’t that because she has a capable son? That’s why I say, a woman needs a son..."

Ji Xuelan wanted to argue that the reason Mrs. Meng had nowhere to go was that her parents were dead and her brother and sister-in-law refused to take her in.

But her own parents were both alive, so why...?

She closed her eyes in anguish, only to find that her tears had already run dry.

A moment later, she spoke in a hoarse voice.

"Mother, don’t try to persuade me anymore. It’s useless. Even if I went back right now, knelt and kowtowed, and begged the Sun family for forgiveness, they wouldn’t change their minds. Because Sun Shou... he’s been with a rich widow from town for a long time."

Ever since she became pregnant with Sanyang, Sun Shou was never home.

Although Sun Shou was a good-for-nothing, he was born with a handsome face that women adored. The rumors about him in the village were constant.

Ji Xuelan had vaguely guessed what was happening, but she didn’t dare poke through that thin paper window, so she could only pretend not to know.

She swallowed her pride for the sake of her children, but that widow wouldn’t let it be, constantly prodding Sun Shou to divorce her.

Sun Shou coveted the woman’s wealth and beauty, but he didn’t agree right away.

It wasn’t just because of Ji Xuelan’s years of devoted service, but because he wanted to wait and see if the baby in her belly was a boy.

If not, it wouldn’t be too late to divorce her then.

If it was, he could have the best of both worlds.

He would live a carefree life with the widow in town, while Ji Xuelan stayed in the village to raise the children and serve his parents.

During festivals, he would bring the widow back, and Ji Xuelan would even have to address her as "Big Sister."

This wasn’t just Ji Xuelan’s imagination; Sun Shou had told her so himself.

His ego swelled in the widow’s perfumed boudoir, and eventually, he stopped hiding it from her at all.

Ji Xuelan no longer remembered how she had survived those days.

By day, she bustled about, heavily pregnant. By night, she watched over her daughters and wept in secret.

She knew perfectly well that her husband was fooling around with another woman, but ridiculously, she had still placed her hopes on her own belly, believing that if she could just give birth to a boy, Sun Shou would have a change of heart.

"Mother, you taught me to obey my husband, to be diligent, to be filial to my parents-in-law. I did all of it... Tell me, why did it still turn out like this?"