Chapter 117: Chapter 114: Don’t Act Like a Chaste Martyr

The three of them packed up their stall and went home. Little Douzi and Dandan headed to an old lady’s house to do their homework, while Lin Lan was in the vegetable patch picking green beans and loofahs.

KNOCK KNOCK! Someone was pounding on the gate. “Is anyone home?”

Wangcai began to bark, WOOF WOOF! He thrashed about, trying to charge out and drive away the intruders, but he was chained up and too far from his target.

Lin Lan walked out of the vegetable patch holding two loofahs. Seeing an old woman in her sixties and two other women in their thirties or forties standing at her gate, she asked, “Who are you looking for?”

“That’s Auntie Ye, his Sister Ye, and his Second Sister Ye,” Yang Liying said coldly as she came outside holding a freshly washed tofu cloth. She stared at the three women by the gate.

Auntie Ye looked at Lin Lan, weeping. “Little Lin, I’m begging you, please let our Ye San go. Please…”

Lin Lan’s expression hardened. “Leave,” she said, looking at them. “You are not welcome here.”

Sister Ye took a step forward, her voice low and pleading. “Little Lin, please, I’m begging you. Could you put in a good word for us at the Public Security Bureau? Get them to release our Ye San. He hasn’t even gotten married yet. If he goes to prison, his life will be…”

“Ye Shuqing!” Yang Liying slammed the basin onto the ground with a THUD. Her face was dark as she stepped forward and pointed at the second sister. “You all have some nerve! How dare you come here and beg my Lin Lan? If you’re so capable, go talk to the Public Security Bureau yourselves!”

“…” Sister Ye was so taken aback by Yang Liying’s retort that she was left speechless.

Seeing her chance, Auntie Ye rushed forward, bowing repeatedly to Lin Lan. “Lin Lan, I know our Ye San was wrong! But please, for the sake of an old woman like me coming all this way to beg you, please be merciful and let him go! If you don’t, how will he ever be able to face anyone after he gets out of prison?”

Lin Lan stared at her coldly. “You need to get one thing straight. Who’s the one who won’t let things go here?”

Yang Liying pulled Lin Lan aside and stared coldly at the old woman, her voice dripping with sarcasm. “Auntie Ye, whether your precious Ye San lives or dies has absolutely nothing to do with our Lin Lan. Don’t you dare try to make it seem like we forced him into this.”

“Besides, aren’t you, his own mother, the one who failed to teach him how to be a decent human being? If you had disciplined him properly from the start, would he have done something so despicable?”

“Yang Liying, you can save your sanctimonious talk,” Second Sister Ye said, shooting a sidelong glance at Lin Lan with a sneer. “She’s just a widow, not some untouched maiden. Stop acting like she’s a virtuous martyr. Besides, it’s not like anything actually happened to her…”

Sister Ye said hastily, “Shuhua, if you can’t say anything sensible, then keep your mouth shut!”

SMACK! The loofah in Lin Lan’s hand hit Second Sister Ye in the face, breaking into pieces. Lin Lan pointed a finger at her and yelled, “Get out! Get out of my house!”

Second Sister Ye wiped the loofah pulp from her face. Her mouth opened to let out a curse, but before she could speak, an enraged Lin Yuezhen charged at her, swinging a large broom and beating her about the head and shoulders.

After taking a few blows to the head, Second Sister Ye and the other two Ye women shrieked, covered their heads, and fled in a panic.

Lin Yuezhen slammed the courtyard gate shut with a BANG.

Outside, Auntie Ye pounded on the gate, unwilling to give up. “Lin Lan!” she yelled. “Just let Ye San go, and we’ll give you money! I’ll make him slave away for you for the rest of his life!”

Sister Ye joined in, shouting, “Lin Lan, we’re all from the same production team! Besides, it’s not like you were actually harmed! Please, just go talk to the police…”

The courtyard gate suddenly swung open, and the three Ye women, caught off guard, nearly fell flat on their faces. SPLASH! A foul, sour stench filled the air, and the three of them were left standing there, utterly drenched and disheveled.

Lin Lan stood there, a swill bucket in one hand and a gourd ladle in the other, which she used to point at the three women. “You shameless filth! Get the hell away from my house and don’t come back!”

Hearing the commotion, Zhang Yazhen ran to her doorway. When she saw the fight brewing at Lin Lan’s house, she grabbed a tall stool, propped it against her wall, and leaned over to watch the show with glee. Other villagers who were passing by stopped to ask what was happening.

“…” Sister Ye stammered, unable to explain.

Humiliation turned to fury in Auntie Ye. “You stinking widow!” she shrieked. “I tried to be reasonable, but you’re shameless! It was obviously you who invited my son over for a secret meeting, and now you have the gall to frame him! The Ye family won’t let you get away with this!”

“You old hag, trying to use your age to get your way! Washing your filthy mouth out with swill would be a compliment!” Lin Lan lifted the bucket and flung its contents at the women.

Ye Shuhua frantically slapped at the sour rice grains, vegetable scraps, and colorful bits of seasoning clinging to her clothes. She stomped her foot in fury. “You bitch! I’m going to tear you apart!”

“I’d be glad to oblige!”

Yang Liying roared, standing in the gateway with the large broom. Beside her, Lin Yuezhen held a carrying pole, glaring daggers at the women.

Auntie Ye beat her chest and lunged forward. “Come on! I’ve lived long enough! You rotten whores, if you’ve got the guts, then kill me today!” Spitting a torrent of curses, she threw herself at Yang Liying and the others.

’Lin Lan finally understood what Yang Liying meant when she said his mother was to blame for how Ye San turned out. It’s true what they say: a fish rots from the head down.’

’It’s terrifying when a bad person grows old,’ Lin Lan thought. ’I can’t win against that, but I can hide from it.’ With a SLAM, she shut the courtyard gate again, leaving the old woman to scream her curses outside.

By now, more and more people were returning home from work. He Xianghua had also rushed to the scene. “Auntie Ye!” he rebuked her. “Your Ye Gang has gone down the wrong path, sneaking into Lin Lan’s house in the middle of the night with a knife…”

“Ptooey!” Auntie Ye spat right in his face. “Bullshit! That little widow was in heat and seduced my son! She’s the one who invited him over in the middle of the night…”

“That’s the biggest load of horseshit I’ve ever heard!” Yang Liying flung the gate open and charged out. “If they had a rendezvous, why would he need a knife? And would she have pinned your Ye San to the door with that same knife before running to call the police?”

Yang Meihua stepped forward and pointed at Auntie Ye. “Granny Ye, with a mother like you, it doesn’t matter how many sons you have—they’re all destined to end up in a prison cell for ’re-education’!”

Li Guizhi took off her straw hat and addressed the crowd. “Today, I must speak up for Lin Lan. Ye San climbed over her wall in the middle of the night and beat her family’s dog to death…”

“Lin Lan ran to my house in the middle of the night, her face pale with fright, and Little Douzi couldn’t stop crying. The poor thing! It was my husband, Rongqing, who had to run to the Yang San family home to get Ding Bang. Only after Ding Bang arrived did they go to the Public Security Bureau to file a report.”

Zhang Rongqing added, “The police came and even took pictures. The knife Ye San brought with him was over a foot long, and there are still marks from it on Lin Lan’s door latch. If you don’t believe us, go to the Public Security Bureau. You can surely see the evidence there.”

“Granny Ye, you should save up some good karma! You were a widow raising four children yourself once. No one in the production team ever came to bully you at your doorstep like this!”

“Doing something so wicked during the Ghost Festival, and to someone from his own team! Isn’t he afraid the Ye family ancestors will come for him in the middle of the night?”

By then, other members of the Ye family had arrived. Hearing all this, they were mortified and quickly dragged the mother and her two daughters away.

After that day, no one from the Ye family came to bother Lin Lan again. However, they started spreading rumors around the production team, telling anyone who would listen that Lin Lan was a vicious woman who had stabbed their son’s hand clean through and gotten him thrown in jail.

As a result, the people of the first production team became even more wary of Lin Lan and no longer dared to cause her any trouble.

Lin Lan was finally able to focus on preparing the materials to build her oven. She visited several black markets but couldn’t find any iron plates or sheet metal, to say nothing of baking pans.

When Li Xiangyang heard about her predicament, he arranged to get an iron plate and four baking pans. He packed them in a wicker back-basket and brought them to the gate of Lin Lan’s courtyard. He knocked and called out, “Is anyone home?”

“I’m here!” Lin Lan turned, saw who it was, and walked to the gate with a smile. “Oh, it’s you, Xiangyang! What brings you here?”

She was wearing a long, floral-print dress made of fine cotton. It had a small, turned-down collar and a cinched waist that accentuated her graceful, well-proportioned figure.

Source: Webnovel.com, updated by NovelKeep