Free Web NovelChapter 54: Chapter 54: Old Scores (3)
Gu Wu seethed with resentment.
He knew his wife was a muddle-headed woman and usually didn’t want to argue with her, so he rarely interfered in household matters. But he never could have imagined she would handle things this way—
"What happened to all the money from that one gold bar?" Gu Wu, his eyes bloodshot, stared daggers at Chen Suxiang. The fury in his gaze was enough to burn a person alive.
Gold bars? What gold bars? The Gu Family was supposed to be dirt-poor, peasants for generations. How could gold bars possibly be involved?
Now, it wasn’t just the Zhang family members exchanging bewildered glances. Even Gu Jinhua stared at her mother in shock and suspicion. She had never heard her mother mention that their family had any gold bars.
"It... it was spent..." Chen Suxiang shrank back guiltily, shuffling to the side on her seat, not daring to look at Gu Wu.
"Spent? You didn’t feed our in-laws well, so I assume you didn’t pay them a single cent for their work either, did you? Then tell me, where exactly did all that money go?" Pushed to his limit, Gu Wu paradoxically grew calm and stopped himself from lashing out, choosing to question her carefully instead. However, anyone who knew him could see a much fiercer storm brewing in his narrowed eyes.
"It—it was just spent, that’s all. It was so long ago, who can remember where it all went?" Seeing that Gu Wu wasn’t hitting her, Chen Suxiang grew a little bolder.
"Then what about the food? I remember you bought meat every single day back then. You used the excuse that there wasn’t much of the good stuff, so you always cooked separate meals for our in-laws and for us. So where did all that good food you cooked go? Whose stomachs did it end up in?"
Gu Wu could still remember seeing with his own eyes how those meat dishes were cooked separately. To "entertain" their in-laws, even he hadn’t touched a bite. Afterward, Chen Suxiang had even deliberately, yet casually, shown him the in-laws’ leftovers a few times. Most of what remained were vegetable dishes. He still remembered how she had curled her lip in disdain and muttered, "Look at them, they really know how to enjoy the good stuff. Once they’re full of meat, of course they’d look down on plain old radishes and greens..."
A flash of guilt crossed his heart. ’If Wen Xiu hadn’t exposed this today, I would have been kept in the dark my entire life, never knowing the truth was so vastly different from what I believed.’
He was so angry he wanted to laugh. To think that back then, after seeing those leftovers, he had scolded his wife and told her not to say such things, but deep down, he had still felt a slight resentment toward their in-laws. At the time, he thought his wife had, for once, not been so foolish. He then completely dismissed the matter and never asked about it again.
Who knew that the person he thought was too stupid to cause any real trouble was actually so cunning that even he had been completely fooled?
Hearing Gu Wu’s question, Chen Suxiang stammered for a long time before finally steeling herself and saying, "Did you really think that gold bar was worth that much? I didn’t get much money for it at all back then."
Whose stomachs could the meat have gone into? ’Of course my grandson and I ate it...’ But how could she dare say that out loud?
Gu Wu carefully recalled the past and suddenly let out a cold laugh. No wonder after the in-laws finished their work and left, the family went back to only occasionally buying meat. And no wonder their eldest grandson had inexplicably thrown a tantrum, crying and demanding that the in-laws come back to work again.
So that was the reason—
But their grandson couldn’t have eaten all that food by himself. ’That old woman must have eaten her fair share, too, right?’
At this point, Gu Wu completely believed Wen Xiu’s words. He believed that his wife hadn’t even paid for the lumber for the wardrobes and other furniture the Zhangs had made later. He gave a cold snort and decided he would settle this account with Chen Suxiang in detail behind closed doors after the Zhang Family left.
He stood up, his face full of shame, and bowed slightly to Zhang Dazhuang and Wen Xiu in apology. "My dear in-laws, the Gu Family truly handled this dishonorably. I will calculate the payment for the labor and the lumber and give it to you shortly."
"We said from the beginning we didn’t want payment for the labor, so there’s no reason for us to take that money now. We’ll only accept payment for the lumber," Wen Xiu interjected, shaking her head and refusing before Zhang Dazhuang could speak. ’Are you kidding me? I’m not even finished. If I agree to take the labor payment now, are they going to think I’m digging up this old grudge just for a bit of money and food? Wouldn’t that make our family look petty? They’d just look down on us even more afterward.’
She snorted inwardly. The anger on her face wasn’t extinguished by Gu Wu’s apology; instead, it burned even hotter. She stood up, looking down at Chen Suxiang, and said bluntly, "I didn’t bring this up today for the money or to complain about a few meals. If it were just about the bad food, I wouldn’t have even mentioned it. My dear in-law, I just want to ask you: my husband and our two sons worked their hearts out making that furniture for your family. If you were dissatisfied with something, why didn’t you say so to their faces? Why go around slandering the three of them behind their backs, saying they were lazy, deliberately dragged out the work, and wasted your lumber? When you said those things, did you even consult your conscience? Don’t you feel guilty at all?"
"...I... I didn’t. How could I go around saying things like that..."
Chen Suxiang was riddled with guilt by Wen Xiu’s questioning. Staring at her aggressive posture, her heart raced, and she forgot she was sitting down. She instinctively tried to back away, lurching backward... Fortunately, Gu Jinhua grabbed her in time, saving her from falling flat on her back.
"Heh."
Wen Xiu laughed aloud, pleased by Chen Suxiang’s pathetic state. "Fine. You say you never said it. Then do you dare make a solemn vow in front of everyone today? That if you did say it, may you, your son, and your daughter all die a horrible death and be struck by lightning?"
"How can you be so vicious? My mother said she didn’t say it, so she didn’t! What right do you have to make her swear such a horrible oath? Don’t think you can bully us just because there are more of you and you know how to fight!"
Gu Jinhua didn’t even need to look at Chen Suxiang’s face to know it must be deathly pale. Her mother was extremely superstitious. Even back when burning incense and worshiping Buddha was forbidden, she would secretly kneel, pray, and chant sutras at home, begging for the Buddha’s protection.
’Zhang Minzhen’s mother is going too far! They’ve been in-laws for so many years, how could she not know this about my mom? And yet she’s still clinging to this stupid old issue, forcing my mom to make such a vicious vow.’
"Hah. If you don’t dare to swear, just say so. Don’t turn it around and try to pin labels on me. Am I the one who’s vicious and bullying, or are you the ones who are actually like that?"
Wen Xiu sneered at the mother-daughter pair, and after tossing out that last sentence, she said no more.
The situation was already obvious. Anyone with eyes could see what was going on. There was no point in her continuing to press Chen Suxiang; it would just make her seem unforgiving. It was better to leave it at that. In any case, she had achieved her goal. All that mattered was that she had made Gu Wu aware of the facts. ’He’s probably the only sensible person in the Gu Family, after all.’
As for Chen Suxiang’s excuses, she had no interest in hearing any more of them.
