Fan Jialuo held Xu Yiyang’s hand as they walked along the dark path. Above their heads were the shadows of the towering trees, and below their feet was gravel. From time to time, a whistling wind would blow, bringing a trace of coolness. Autumn had arrived.
Xu Yiyang placed all of his weight on his big brother’s arm, while his short legs bounced around like a little walking spring. His childhood really began on the day he met his big brother, and he now finally understood what pure happiness was.
The two walked hand in hand to Building No. 1, only to see a dark figure squatting in front of the garbage bin, picking up the contents of several trash bags and muttering, “Why don’t they know how to sort it. It clearly states what kind of garbage should be thrown in each bin, so why do they always throw it away randomly. Can’t you sort the garbage properly to reduce my burden? I’m tired too…”
A ringing phone interrupted the dark figure’s mutters. When she answered the phone, a very impatient voice came from the other end. “Qu Xianfen, I’ll be back tomorrow. If you sign the divorce papers, then we can break up amiably.”
The dark figure immediately stood up and exposed herself to the light. She was a resident from the fourth floor, and she was wearing a set of loose home clothes. Because she was just picking up garbage, the hem of her clothes were stained, and her hair was not combed, just tucked behind her ears casually, so she appeared sloppy and haggard. She said nervously, “Pan Dawei, I’m telling you, I will not divorce you even if I have to drag you to death!”
The person on the other end sneered and said, “You don’t have to sign, I’ll take you to court. Do you have the ability to drag me to death?”
The phone was hung up quickly. The woman dialed back in a panic, but there was only a beep from the other end, and it wasn’t answered. Obviously, she was blocked by her husband. She looked at the phone screen that had turned off, then at the messy garbage bag at her feet, and finally couldn’t help but cry.
Fan Jialuo and Xu Yiyang walked past her quietly and were about to enter the door when they heard her choked up voice from behind, “Are you Mr. Fan Jialuo who lives on the eighteenth floor?”
Fan Jialuo sighed silently, then turned around, asking gently and politely, “I am, may I ask why you stopped me?”
The woman wiped away her tears and said in a hoarse voice, “Hello Mr, Fan, my name is Qu Xianfen and I live on the fourth floor. I have watched your program and I know that you are a psychic. I just want to ask you, is there any way to make my husband stop thinking about divorce?”
Fan Jialuo looked her up and down and asked, “Are you sure that there is still a need for this marriage to survive?”
Qu Xianfen was unable to hide under his gaze. Yes, she was indeed having a bad time. Her clothes were baggy and dirty, her cheeks were swollen and haggard, and her hair was greasy and messy. One could see her situation at a glance. Moreover, everyone in her family were loud and would shout loudly when they scolded her, for fear the whole building wouldn’t know that she was just an unpaid nanny and punching bag.
Was it necessary to live on like this? Didn’t she envy Xiao Lu when the other returned home after divorcing her husband. Of course she was envious, and she dreamed of escaping from her current life even in her dreams, but she couldn’t escape!
We’re sorry for MTLers or people who like using reading mode, but our translations keep getting stolen by aggregators so we’re going to bring back the copy protection. If you need to MTL please retype the gibberish parts.
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“You can get a share of the property after the divorce, right?” Fan Jialuo asked very patiently.
“I can’t. Before we got married, my husband got an advance on his salary for the next 20 years in exchange for shares in the company. This counts as premarital property, and is protected by law as his sole property. And his company’s stock price is currently lower than when we first got married, so it won’t provide any post-marital gains. All of his properties are in his parents’ name and cannot be considered joint property. That is to say, if I don’t get divorced, I will still have a place to live and food to eat, but if I get divorced, I will have nothing.”
Qu Xianfen raised her head and smiled bitterly, “Mr. Fan, it’s not that I don’t want to divorce, but that I can’t. I devoted my youth to this family, and gave up my studies and job opportunities to take care of the elderly and children. I’m now a useless person, so where can I go after getting divorced? How can I live?”
She looked around blankly, and found that her surroundings were all dark.
Fan Jialuo’s brows wrinkled as he said, “ But if you don’t try to leave, how do you know that you don’t have a way out?”
“I don’t have any skills, so I’m sure that I can’t find a job, and if I can’t find a job, then I won’t have any money. If I don’t have money, won’t I starve to death sooner or later? Mr. Fan, do you have any way to help me?” Qu Xianfen’s tears had stopped, and she now had a strangely calm atmosphere. Even when she was asking for help, she didn’t have an urgent or longing expression, as if she was just asking in passing.
“Sorry, I can’t help you. People with their hands and feet will never be unable to feed themselves.” Fan Jialuo held Xu Yiyang’s hand and continued to walk forward, his tone almost indifferent.
Qu Xianfen was not disappointed, nor was she angry. She just quietly watched their backs leave, then showed a wry smile. She had long since known that no one could help her. People with their hands and feet could indeed support themselves, and no matter what she would always have a bite to eat. However, she was unreconciled. Had she really contributed nothing to this family? After getting divorced, would she be dismissed with only a divorce certificate? Who took care of her husband’s parents for so many years? How did his son grow up?
Was it really not as tiring to do housework at home as those men said? No, it was exhausting. Day after day, she was dying of exhaustion.
She had to get up before dawn every morning to buy vegetables, spend more than an hour cooking, and then she had to bear all kinds of criticism after finishing. The floor couldn’t be mopped, so she had to kneel down and wipe it bit by bit with a rag. The slightest bit of dust would cause her mother-in-law, who claimed to be a clean freak, to scold her. After cleaning the whole house it would already be noon, so it was time to make lunch. After making lunch, she’d continue to clean the kitchen. After washing the whole family’s clothes, it would be time to make dinner. When the family had finished dinner and could rest, she still had to wash the dishes, clean the floor, and tidy up everywhere.
It was past nine o’clock at night by the time she finished, and the day passed like this. Others would work eight hours, but she worked almost 18 hours continuously. If her parents-in-law or son had a headache, then she had to stay at their bedside all night to take care of them.
She did all of this, but they were still not satisfied. Her husband didn’t come home all year long, her mother-in-law always complained that her cooking wasn’t good and the house wasn’t clean, and her father-in-law regarded money as his life, scolding her for wasting money whenever he saw a package being delivered or worse, beating her. However, those packages were always daily necessities or electronic products for her son, and almost none of them belonged to her. Her son disliked her old and haggard appearance, and never wanted to call her mother in front of her classmates. Once, when she went to pick her son up from school, she saw him holding her husband’s mistress’s hand as they walked to her car.
The woman was wearing a luxurious dress and exquisite makeup, dressed like a noble lady. She rubbed her son’s head and spoke to him with a smile, her attitude as affectionate as if they were a family. Her son didn’t resist, and when a classmate ran over to ask, he proudly said, “This is my mother.”
Qu Xianfen’s brain roared when she heard those words at that time, and she felt as if she had been struck by lightning. However, she could only look down at herself and laugh sadly. She was wearing ordinary home clothes, with a haggard and swollen face, drove a cheap second-hand car, and carried a canvas bag worth a few dozen yuan. Who would believe that she was President Pan’s wife? Maybe her son had always regarded her as a disgrace? After hearing the derogatory comments day after day from her parents-in-law, he followed suit and never regarded her as his mother.
She could endure the beatings and scoldings from her in-laws, and she could ignore her husband’s neglect, but her son’s dislike was truly seared into her heart. She also wanted to take care of herself, but her husband never gave her money, and she had to obtain the family expenses from her mother-in-law. Once she exceeded the budget, she would be reprimanded and abused.
She gave almost everything for this family, but in the end, she got nothing. Her husband wasn’t hers, her son wasn’t hers, and her parents-in-law never treated her as a human being. How could she be reconciled? But what could she do even if she wasn’t reconciled? Did she have the ability to change her own destiny? She couldn’t even make her son call her mother in public…
Thinking of this, Qu Xianfen smiled bitterly and threw the messy garbage into the trash can.
As soon as she stepped into the house, her mother-in-law, who was sitting on the couch and watching TV, began to question, “It took you so long to throw away the garbage, what have you been doing?”
“I was sorting it.” Qu Xianfen looked down while she changed her slippers, her voice very calm.
“My toenails have grown a lot. Soak my feet and clip them,” her father-in-law commanded casually.
“Okay.” Qu Xianfen brought a basin of hot water to soak her father-in-law’s feet. He had severe athlete’s foot and a fungal nail infection, so the smell was really bad when he took off his socks. His nails were also difficult to clip because the nails were infected and had become very thick and hard, so she had to grind them down little by little.
Her mother-in-law sat far away while her father-in-law took off his socks and covered her nose with a disgusted expression, but Qu Xianfen, who had been treated so harshly by them, coped with everything in front of her calmly. Day after day, year after year, she took care of them as if they were her own parents, doing the dirtiest and most tiring work for them, so what was soaking their feet and clipping their nails? She had even carried their shit and urine, and sucked out the thick phlegm in their throat.
She thought that in this world, sincerity could be exchanged for sincerity, but she had tried for more than a decade, but all she got in return was an exhausted body and a broken heart.
She slowly trimmed her father-in-law’s toenails with a file. Her expression was serious but her gaze was lax, and while her eyes wandered around the living room, she found that there seemed to be something missing.
“Mom, where is my piano?” Her numb face finally showed a hint of anxiety.
“It was in the way there, so I let someone take it away and sell it. You don’t know, but Kai Kai runs into the piano when he uses the bathroom at night, and once he even stubbed his toenail, that’s so painful!” The grandma wrinkled her eyebrows in distress, as if she personally went through her grandson’s experience.
However, Qu Xianfen was completely unable to accept this explanation. “You can move it if you think it’s in the way, but why sell it? It’s a relic from my mother, and I grew up playing it! Where did you sell the piano? I have to get it back.” Qu Xianfen threw away the file and stood up, but was kicked over by her father-in-law.
“What are you looking for, a broken piano? What’s there to find? Hurry up and trim my toenails, the water is getting cold.”
Qu Xianfen got up and asked loudly, “My grandma left that piano to my mother, and my mother left it to me. It’s a family heirloom. How could I sell it? Why didn’t you tell me a single word about it?”
“It’s a broken piano that can’t be sold for a lot of money. Is that worth you screaming at us? Those who wouldn’t know would think it’s an antique that our Pan family could take advantage of. It’s only people from small families like you who would treat it as a treasure!” Her mother-in-law rolled her eyes in disdain.
Qu Xianfen’s tears flowed down uncontrollably. It wasn’t just a piano, but it represented her most beautiful memories, her unfulfilled dream. How could these people just throw it away? Yes, it was worthless, but her grandmother and mother had carried her onto the bench and held her hand as they taught her to play beautiful music on that piano, allowing her to understand what she wanted to do when she grew up—she wanted to learn piano and become a performer. However, this dream was abandoned because of marriage.
She walked to the place where the piano was originally placed and spun around in a panic. She looked up and down, left and right, as if in this manner she could find what she had lost. Her in-laws began to scold her, saying that she was out of her mind and had to be sent to a mental hospital, and that they wanted their son to divorce her…
The door to the opposite bedroom was opened and Pan Kai, the young master of the Pan family, poked out half of his head and shouted, “Are you finished? Can you stop scolding her?”
Qu Xianfen, who thought that her son was defending her, suddenly lit up.
However, Pan Kai roared again, “I’m playing games. If you want to scold her, then go out and scold her, don’t disturb me! I’m sick and tired of it. You don’t work all day and only know how to quarrel. My father marrying you is really eight lifetimes of bad luck! If you weren’t my mother, I would have dragged you out by the hair!”
The door was slammed shut with a bang, and her in-laws’ curses really diminished, but they began to grab mops and brooms and start a full-scale martial arts battle. Qu Xianfen had persisted in living in such an environment for more than a decade, but what could she do other than persist? She had no skills, no savings, and her age was far beyond the best time for job hunting. Which company would want her? Where could she go after leaving this cold house?
In that case, why not go to hell together? When her father-in-law grabbed her hair and slammed her against the wall again and again, when her mother-in-law pointed at her nose and scolded her like an animal, and when her son suddenly came out and slapped her face with a slipper, Qu Xianfen thought of this.
The last part gave me whiplash
Her son slapped her with a slipper!?
What is wrong with these people??
Oh and she can play piano? She can use that to earn a living! But maybe she’s been called useless so many times she couldn’t think of that smh
Never ever would I give up on my dream for a mere man 🫡 Ladies, put yourself first