Gu Lihui flew into a rage. Berating Gu Nuan Nuan wasn't enough; he immediately turned his fire on Zhang Minzhen. "Look at this thing you've raised! If you don't know how to raise a child, you should've said so sooner. Sending her to my mom would be a thousand times better than you ruining her like this."
"What do you mean, 'thing'? How could her own father say something like that?" Gu Lihui's words instantly infuriated Zhang Minzhen.
Motherhood makes one strong. Even a woman who was normally gentle and even-tempered couldn't bear to hear someone speak about her child that way—not even the child's own father.
Hearing her husband praise his mother only added fuel to the fire. Old resentment mixed with new anger, and the words tumbled out of her mouth unchecked. "Tell me, besides being a girl, what's so wrong with Nuannuan? She's obedient and well-behaved. She always ranks in the top five at school, and her teachers do nothing but praise her at parent-teacher conferences. Today is her birthday! The boat trip we had planned was canceled at the last minute because your brother came back. Are you saying she's not even allowed to be a little upset?"
She sneered. "You say I'm ruining her? In my opinion, my Nuannuan is ten times better raised than your second brother's son, the one who grew up with your mother. Don't you dare talk to me about how wonderful your mother is. I may not have brought up what happened back then, but that doesn't mean I've forgotten. Others might forget what it was like when Nuannuan was born, but are you, her father, telling me you've developed amnesia?"
Seeing Zhang Minzhen so enraged, Gu Lihui was momentarily speechless. He stammered awkwardly, "I only said that because I was angry. Why are you bringing up things from back then? That was years ago. Why do you have to keep holding a grudge?"
The more Gu Lihui spoke, the more he convinced himself he was in the right.
'Women are just so petty,' he thought, 'always bringing up ancient history. That's my own mother. So what if she went a little too far? She's still our elder. For a junior to hold a grudge against an elder... what is that if not a sign of poor upbringing?'
He shot a displeased look at the mother and daughter and curled his lip. 'It's true what they say: like mother, like daughter.'
"Heh. So even now, you're still going to blindly side with your mother, without any sense of right or wrong. Why don't we tell other people what your mother did and let them judge? Let's see if I'm the one holding a grudge, or if your mother was just too heartless, shall we?" Seeing that Gu Lihui not only refused to admit he was wrong but was also giving her a look of utter contempt, a rush of hot blood surged to Zhang Minzhen's head.
"Just knock it off," Gu Lihui said, his voice laced with displeasure.
This only made Zhang Minzhen angrier. "What, she can do it, but I can't talk about it? Your mother came all the way to the hospital back then, but when she heard the nurse say it was a girl, she turned around and left without even a single glance at the baby.
"At the same time, my second sister-in-law was also giving birth, so my mother had to take care of her and couldn't come help me. In the end, with no other choice, my eldest sister-in-law came to lend a hand. And what your mother did... I can't even... Can you even call that something a human being would do?
"During my postpartum confinement, she didn't just refuse to send anything, she forbade anyone else in your family from sending anything either. On top of that, she would show up every few days to criticize my sister-in-law, and she never left empty-handed. It was bad enough that she secretly took the food my family had given me, but she even stole the brand-new winter jacket and swaddling blanket that my own mother had handmade for the baby! She stole them and sold them!
"We didn't even realize the jacket and blanket were missing until the dead of winter, and there was nowhere to buy replacements at such short notice. In the end, my mother and my sister-in-law had to pull an all-nighter to rush-make a new set for the baby."
Tears welled in Zhang Minzhen's eyes as she recounted the past. It wasn't that she didn't hate her back then; it was that there was nothing she could do about it. Abandon her child, get a divorce, and remarry?
Back then, what family didn't have stories of a mother-in-law tormenting her daughter-in-law? Of course, few were as extreme as hers. But if she had wanted a divorce over it, her own parents would have been the first to object.
Besides, where would she live if she got divorced?
She could go back to her parents' home; they loved her enough that they wouldn't be so heartless as to turn her away. But would her sister-in-law and two younger brothers' wives truly be willing to have a divorcée living with them? After a while, her only option would be to remarry as quickly as possible.
And a second marriage would likely be even worse than her current one.
And that wasn't even considering that she couldn't bear to part with her child. Even if she could, who could predict the vicious gossip and difficult circumstances a divorced woman would face?
There had been a divorced woman in their neighborhood back then who had tried to seek refuge with her family. But her parents and her brother and sister-in-law, ashamed of the disgrace, had refused to let her in, hoping to force her back to her husband's family. The woman was too proud for that; she threw herself into the river that very night...
"Can't you stop being so vicious? Have some decency. We're family; what's all this talk about 'stealing'?"
Zhang Minzhen's words made Gu Lihui's face flush with guilt. He knew better than anyone why his mother had taken Nuannuan's new clothes and blanket. Deep down, he didn't really think his mother had done anything wrong. After all, Nuannuan hadn't frozen in the end, had she?
"...I'm vicious? I have no decency? Gu Lihui, I really overestimated you. It turns out you and your mother are two peas in a pod. That talent for twisting right and wrong really runs in the family."
Zhang Minzhen was absolutely livid. She stared at Gu Lihui in disbelief, feeling as if she were looking at a complete stranger. "I'm actually glad your mother looks down on my Nuannuan. If she'd been raised with that kind of 'good upbringing'—learning to be a petty thief—I'd cry myself to death."
"Shut your mouth."
Sensing the strange looks from the people around them, Gu Lihui shot Zhang Minzhen a dangerous glare. The veins on his clenched fists bulged as he let out a low, furious growl. If they weren't in public, where a bigger scene would be even more humiliating, he would have slapped her into submission right then and there.
'It's always the quiet ones who bite,' he thought. To think she usually acted so mild-mannered, so gentle and refined. All it took were a few words, and she was making a scene in the middle of the street...
Gu Lihui's expression darkened.
What his father had once said, drunk and offhand, was true after all: a woman would never be obedient unless you beat her. Just look at his own mother. She could be an absolute terror to everyone else, but in front of his father, she wouldn't dare act so presumptuously. She was as meek as a kitten.
He had to reflect on his own actions. Had he been spoiling this woman too much over the years? Is that why she now dared to make a scene and humiliate him in public?
He stared at Zhang Minzhen, his face grim, his expression a clear warning: say one more word, and he wouldn't hold back.
Gu Nuan Nuan glanced at Gu Lihui's reaction, and her heart skipped a beat.