Chapter 97: Chapter 97: Aunt Knows She Was Wrong

Zhao Youcai shivered violently. He clenched his fists so tightly that the old wounds on his knuckles began to bleed again, but he felt no pain.

He glanced at Su Yufen, still sobbing on the ground. His expression was complicated, but the disgust remained.

But more than that, there was the weariness and resignation of a man pushed to his absolute limit.

In the end, he said nothing. He didn’t try to pull Su Yufen up again. He only forced a single, resentful word through his gritted teeth.

“Scram!”

Then, he spun around abruptly. Under the crowd’s complicated stares, he walked away alone, heading for home without a single glance back.

His retreating figure looked desolate and pathetic.

Su Yufen sat slumped on the cold ground, watching Zhao Youcai’s distant back, then looking at the Su Family’s tightly shut gate. The sea breeze, thick with the smell of salt and fish, filled her hollow chest.

’She knew this marriage was dead.’

The gate to Su Tang’s home, which had just been closed, felt like an invisible barrier, shutting out the noise and prying eyes of the world outside.

Inside the courtyard, Su Wenbin and Min Ling still hadn’t recovered from the shock and embarrassment of the recent scene. Their faces were etched with worry and confusion.

Su Tang, however, acted as if nothing had happened. She set down her basket of seaweed, walked straight to a corner of the yard, and took a half-dry piece of clothing from the laundry line. She began leisurely beating the dust from it.

Mr. and Mrs. Su watched Su Tang, who was so calm she almost seemed indifferent, as if it had nothing to do with her.

Just then, the courtyard gate was slammed open.

Su Yufen stumbled in like a lost, tormented spirit.

Her hair was a mess, her face a mixture of tear tracks and dirt. Her eyes were swollen red like walnuts. She was the very picture of misery, with none of her usual sharp-tongued, spiteful demeanor remaining.

“Tangtang! Tangtang!”

She spotted Su Tang in the corner at once, as if clutching at her last straw of hope.

She rushed over recklessly, only to drop heavily to her knees a few steps away from Su Tang.

The action startled both Su Wenbin and Min Ling.

“Yu Fen! What are you doing? Get up!”

Min Ling hurried to help her up.

“Sister-in-law! Leave me be!”

Su Yufen forcefully shook off Min Ling’s hand, her knees seemingly nailed to the rough ground. She tilted her head up, her tear-filled eyes fixed desperately on Su Tang.

Her gaze was filled with despair, regret, and a plea that bordered on total collapse.

“Tangtang! Your aunt was wrong! I’ll kowtow to you and admit my fault!”

As she spoke, she actually began to kowtow toward Su Tang. THUD, THUD, THUD. Her forehead struck the ground with heavy, dull sounds, and a red mark appeared after just a few times.

Su Tang’s movements, beating the dust from the clothes, finally stopped.

She turned, lowering her gaze to look at the aunt kneeling at her feet. Her face was expressionless, her eyes as calm and unrippled as a deep pool.

There was neither satisfaction nor pity.

“Aunt, please get up. This is pointless.”

Su Tang’s voice was faint, betraying no emotion.

“No! I won’t get up!”

Su Yufen seemed to have found her only outlet, and the fear and grievance she had suppressed for so long burst forth like a collapsing dam.

“Tangtang! You can hit me, you can curse me! Your aunt truly knows she was wrong now! Before… the way I treated you before, always looking for trouble, saying all those awful things… I didn’t… I didn’t really hate you!”

“No matter what, we’re still family.”

She sobbed so hard her whole body trembled. Snot and tears smeared her face, and her voice was hoarse and broken.

“I… I was scared. I was scared of Zhao Youcai. He’s petty and suspicious! I… I’m just a useless woman, and my own family… they couldn’t help me much, so I could only… I could only go along with him!”

“He couldn’t stand your father, and he couldn’t stand you, so he was always nagging me… saying your family looked down on him… saying that I, as your aunt, had no authority and couldn’t even keep a junior in line…”

Su Yufen’s cries were filled with despair and self-mockery.

“I… I just thought… I thought that if I could just put you down a peg, if I could embarrass you, then Zhao Youcai… he might be a little happier. He might spare me a second glance, think I was a little useful, and then I could… I could live a slightly better life in that house…”

She had finally revealed the most shameful and pathetic motive buried in her heart.

All her spite, all her trouble-making, had merely been to win a pitiful shred of approval and room to breathe from her violent, suspicious husband.

Like a pet, wagging its tail and begging for scraps, that attacks others in exchange for a sliver of its master’s satisfaction.

The courtyard fell deathly silent.

Only Su Yufen’s suppressed, intermittent sobs could be heard.

Min Ling covered her mouth, her eyes turning red. Her gaze toward her sister-in-law was filled with complicated pity.

Su Wenbin’s face was ashen. He clenched his fists, his jaw tight, clearly stung by this raw truth.

Su Tang listened quietly, her face still devoid of expression.

Only when Su Yufen’s crying subsided into helpless whimpers did she finally speak.

“Aunt, the person you should have been trying to please was never Zhao Youcai.”

That sentence cut through the chaos of Su Yufen’s despair.

She looked up blankly, her tear-blurred eyes gazing at Su Tang.

Su Tang’s gaze was clear and sharp. “You’ve lived your life like a vine, clinging to others just to breathe. But no matter how tightly the vine clings, when the tree falls, the vine rots with it.

Do you think a better life bought by tearing others down can last? Can it bring you peace of mind?”

Su Yufen opened her mouth but was speechless.

She had never thought about it from that perspective.

Ever since marrying Zhao Youcai, she had only known how to be dependent, how to use the most demeaning methods to trade for a few pathetic resources for survival.

Just then, Su Wenbin, who had been silent all this time, let out a heavy sigh.

That sigh was filled with disappointment, as well as the weight of a decision finally made.

He walked over to Su Yufen. He didn’t help her up, but simply looked down at his own sister—once so domineering, now so utterly wretched—with a complicated expression.

“Yu Fen.”

Su Wenbin’s voice was low and hoarse, carrying an undeniable finality.

“Get up. Stop kneeling. It’s useless.”

He looked at Su Yufen’s swollen forehead and despairing eyes, his tone heavy but clear.

“You saw how Zhao Youcai was acting outside. Does he have a single shred of affection left for you as his wife? Suspicion, disgust, public humiliation…

Are you not tired of a man like that, of a life like this? How much further are you going to let yourself be degraded?”

Su Wenbin’s voice suddenly rose, filled with a brother’s heartache and bitter disappointment.

“If that Zhao Youcai can drag you here to make a scene in public today, he’ll do something even more despicable tomorrow! Once his suspicion is aroused, it will never go away! In his eyes, you’re not his wife anymore. You’re a festering sore! A disgrace!

“Staying by his side is just waiting for the day his anger burns you alive!”

He crouched down, meeting Su Yufen’s eyes, and said, word by word, his voice firm and resolute.

“Divorce him! Yu Fen! Divorce him now! Come back home! As long as your sister-in-law and I have food to eat, we won’t let you starve! It’s a thousand times better than staying with Zhao Youcai, being humiliated, suspected, and tormented to death like a dog!”

Source: Webnovel.com, updated by NovelKeep