Free Web NovelChapter 32: Chapter 32: Changing His Mind
She put on a fawning smile and looked at Gu Lihui. "Li Hui, Mom’s uncultured and doesn’t know how to talk. Don’t be mad."
"I’m not mad. Just hurry up and get me something to eat, I’m starving to death." A vein throbbed on Gu Lihui’s forehead, and anyone who wasn’t deaf could hear the anger in his voice.
"I’ll go right away." Chen Suxiang’s heart skipped a beat. Without another thought, she quickly agreed and scurried toward the door of the hospital room.
"Heh, that old lady is a real character." Seeing Chen Suxiang leave, someone in the room snickered.
"I know, right? Who curses their own daughter-in-law for giving birth to a baby with no asshole? Isn’t that the same as cursing her own grandson for having no asshole?"
"The part after that was even funnier, hahaha... She actually said it was a child her daughter-in-law had with someone else... Hahaha, no wonder her son got so mad. I’ve never seen someone who doesn’t wish their own grandson well and actually hopes her son gets cuckolded. Is that really his biological mother?"
"Maybe she’s a stepmother? All nice on the surface, but secretly hates her stepson’s guts?" Someone furtively shot Gu Lihui a look of infinite sympathy.
"It’s hard to say... She’s no saint. She’s probably not just vicious to her stepson behind his back; I bet she gives his wife a hard time to her face, trying to drive a wedge between the couple. Tsk tsk, no wonder his wife is a no-show now that he’s in trouble. You can tell she must have been tormented by her. If he were her biological son, how could a mother bear to treat his wife like that? Wouldn’t that just be sabotaging her own son?"
"That’s not necessarily true. What if the daughter-in-law is the one who’s no good? No matter how deep the grudge, for her to just walk out on him when he’s in the hospital is pretty cold."
"You’ve got a point."
The other patients in the room keenly sensed that the patient in the new bed definitely had a story, and one by one, their gazes filled with deep interest and curiosity.
Suddenly, they no longer felt their own discomfort. Their backs didn’t ache and their legs didn’t hurt. Most importantly, with this shot of adrenaline, even those who had been about to doze off were now wide awake.
They split into two camps, their debate growing more and more heated, with neither side willing to back down. They had completely forgotten about the main subject of their gossip...
The room wasn’t that big. The BUZZING voices started as whispers but grew louder and louder, and most of their words still found their way into Gu Lihui’s ears. His face instantly flushed crimson, and he gritted his teeth, secretly hating his own mother for causing him such immense embarrassment.
’If you don’t know how to talk, then don’t talk at all. Look at all the nonsense she spouted. Every sentence was like a knife twisting in the flesh. No man could stand it.’
He took a long, deep breath. Just as he was stewing in frustration, Chen Suxiang’s head suddenly poked back into the room. The moment they saw her, the voices in the room vanished strangely. Everyone pricked up their ears.
"Li Hui, do you have any money on you? Give Mom a little."
"You didn’t bring any money?" Gu Lihui was astonished.
"Who keeps money on them at home? Besides, your nephew came all this way to deliver the news. He’s so young, how could he explain things clearly? I was so worried I just dropped everything and rushed over." Chen Suxiang looked at her son uneasily and gave a sheepish laugh.
The truth was, she had been at home all day waiting. First, her eldest son didn’t show up. Then, her eldest daughter-in-law didn’t arrive either. Finally, seeing it was getting late and her husband would be wanting his meal, she was afraid he’d get angry and start hitting people again. So, muttering curses under her breath, she dared not delay any longer and quickly made a meal for her husband first. Only after that did she call her second daughter-in-law to help prepare food for everyone else.
Because of this, everyone’s lunch was naturally late. As it happened, she was eating with her second son’s family when her daughter’s son arrived. The moment he walked in, he didn’t say a word; he just smelled the food and made a beeline for the dining table.
A half-grown boy of fourteen or fifteen is at the age where he could eat you out of house and home. To be honest, her heart sank just seeing how much her grandson could pack away. But she didn’t dare tell him not to eat—she had experienced her daughter’s mother-in-law’s temper once before and never wanted to experience it a second time, not even in her dreams.
Originally, she had prepared a specific amount of the good dishes, just enough for herself, her husband, her two sons, and her grandson.
Since her eldest son hadn’t come back, she had even hidden a little bit of it away.
So when her daughter’s son got to the table, he started grabbing food like a starving wolf, oblivious to everyone else. He even nearly got into a fight with her son’s son over a chicken leg. It put everyone on guard; they all just focused on shoveling food into their own mouths, and no one cared to ask what he had suddenly rushed over for.
Only after the meal was finished did her daughter’s son, while rubbing his bloated stomach and complaining that he felt sick, mention that he had already eaten before he came...
She had wanted to curse him out right then and there, but she forced herself to hold it in.
’Damn it, you said you already ate before you came, but the moment you sat down you acted like you hadn’t seen meat in eight lifetimes, desperately stuffing it into your mouth! What the hell was that?’ But in the end, she could only swallow her frustration and go find some hawthorn to brew into a tea to help his digestion.
After all that fuss, when she finally had a spare moment to ask, she learned that the reason her grandson had come was because her eldest son had been splashed with acid for some unknown reason and was in the hospital.
She was horrified and asked a few more questions, but he couldn’t answer a single one. Seeing she couldn’t get any more information out of him, she didn’t have the mind for anything else and just rushed over to see for herself. Luckily, there was only one hospital in town, so she found her eldest son’s room as soon as she went in and asked.
Before she left, she had intended to bring her second son, but he made the excuse that he was tired and didn’t want to move. He said his sister-in-law was there anyway, so there was no point in so many people going. Since her second son wasn’t coming, there was no reason for her to ask only her second daughter-in-law to come see her brother-in-law. As for her husband, that was even more out of the question; he hadn’t cared about any of his three children since they were little.
’When the children were young, he never once paid them any mind, even when they had headaches or fevers. Sometimes, I truly suspect, were my three children even from the Gu Family line at all?’
"I don’t have any money on me either. That bitch took the ten-some yuan I had just now, said she was going to pay the hospital. I haven’t seen her come back, so I have no idea if she actually paid or not." Gu Lihui clutched his rumbling stomach, feeling it churn emptily as waves of acid rose in his throat.
Without much thought, he took out his keys and gave them to Chen Suxiang. "Go to my place, see what’s there, and hurry up and get me something to eat."
This was the only option.
Chen Suxiang took the keys and nodded. Before leaving, on some strange impulse, she asked, "Is there any money at the house? Should I grab some from home first?"
"What money could be left at home? I told you to cook, so just go cook. And don’t go rummaging all over my place." Gu Lihui suddenly remembered that all his money was hidden in a secret compartment in the cupboard—a spot his mother happened to know about. ’If she were to reach her hand in there...’
He instantly regretted it. He had no idea if that woman was still home. ’If she is, then it’s fine. My mother wouldn’t dare go for the stash with her there, for fear of exposing the secret.’
’But what if that woman wasn’t home?’
’Then there’s no guarantee my mother wouldn’t get curious and take a peek at my private savings. And if she saw how much money I had, with her personality, wouldn’t she just claim she was ’keeping it safe for me’ while trying to pocket it all for herself? That was money I had painstakingly saved up over all these years.’
As this thought crossed his mind, his expression turned even uglier and he immediately went back on his word. "Mom, give me back the keys. What if you lose them? Besides, that woman, Zhang Minzhen, is at home. If that doesn’t work, go find my older sister. Right, just go to my older sister and get some money to buy food. What’s the point of cooking yourself?"
