Reborn on My Wedding Night: This Time, I Won't Fail My Soldier Husband
Dong Yulin shook the newspaper in his hand. "What are you so anxious about? Our two families are just a street apart; if there were any trouble, we would have heard about it by now. No news is good news."
Yet, his trembling hands betrayed the anxiety he had been feeling all day.
Before the wedding, his daughter had been vehemently opposed to it, and it was her mother who had taken decisive action to get her into the car.
His daughter was incredibly stubborn; he wondered if she had scratched the groom's face on their wedding night.
If they returned for the formal visit tomorrow and Lu Yuzhou had scratch marks on his face, he would be the laughingstock of everyone.
To think that two prestigious professors in Beijing could raise such a willful daughter.
"Professor Dong, Professor Shu, are you home?"
A few knocks came at the door, and Dong Yulin jumped in fright, lifting his feet as if to hide in the bedroom.
It's over, it's over, it's all over...
His daughter must have really torn the roof off the Lu family's house, and now they were here to cause trouble.
"Stand still!"
Shu Yufen barked angrily, "Our daughter isn't just mine alone. If we are to be scolded, we will be scolded together. In any case, I have accepted Lu Yuzhou as my son-in-law, and no one can change that."
The wedding banquet had already been held, and they were just a marriage certificate away from being official; Shu Yufen would not allow any accidents to happen.
Dong Yulin wiped the cold sweat from his forehead, but still shielded Shu Yufen behind him as he looked toward the door. "Huh? Why is it Sister Hong?"
"What is she doing here?"
Shu Yufen pulled the door open, but before she could ask anything, Wu Hongying shoved the hand she was holding of Jiang Xiaohua forward. "Professor Shu, I admit I used to be a nanny in your house, but I earned money with my own two hands, and I don't feel inferior to anyone. Besides, I'm not a nanny anymore, so what right does your daughter have to hit my daughter?"
Jiang Xiaohua looked timid, holding out her two palms, which were covered in beads of blood from scraped skin.
She glanced at Wu Hongying and burst into loud sobs. "I knew Sister Yaoyao got married, so I wanted to go give her some eggs to eat, but she pushed me to the ground and called me the daughter of a servant. She said the things I gave her were dirty and she didn't dare eat them, wuu wuu wuu..."
The neighbors were all drawn out by the crying, gathering outside the Dong family courtyard. "How could she hit a child? This Shuyao, has all her education gone to waste?"
"Just because she married into a military family, does she have to act like she doesn't know anyone anymore?"
"Professor Dong and his wife have spoiled her since she was little; she's far too arrogant for a young girl."
"The country has been liberated for so long, and she's still playing these feudal master-servant games. If this were in the past, she would have been dragged off for re-education."
Shu Yufen's face turned dark. "Wu Hongying, you say my daughter hit her, so it must be my daughter? Do you have any proof?"
She had been such an honest person when she worked as a nanny for them, but ever since she brought her husband and daughters up from the countryside, she had become like a rotten apple.
She was not one to bicker, but that didn't mean she was stupid.
"Would a child lie?"
Wu Hongying pushed Jiang Xiaohua forward again. "Look at this, her hands are bleeding."
"Then what do you want? What are you asking for?"
What Wu Hongying hated most was this condescending, arrogant attitude of Shu Yufen, as if she were a true city dweller.
It was as if no matter how hard she tried, she could never become a proper city person.
"Professor Shu, it's not that I want to extort you. You know my husband is just an ordinary foundry worker; he does dirty, tiring work, and his salary isn't high. Unlike you and Professor Dong, I..."
"Can you not understand human speech?"
Shu Yufen crossed her arms and looked down her nose at them. "I asked what you want. What are your demands? Why are you rambling on about all this nonsense? What? Does the fact that my husband and I are well-read and knowledgeable bother your family? Your husband's job as a foundry worker was something I helped him get. If you look down on this job so much, then don't do it. Going back to the countryside to farm seems to suit you better."
She thought the foundry job was tiring and low-paying, and one should be grateful to even have it.
If it were really as Wu Hongying said, how could Old Jiang afford to support the family?
Professor Shu's words were harsh, but they made sense.
It was the couple's own ability that made them professors; what was there to be sour about?
Wu Hongying took a deep breath. "Pay us fifteen yuan. I need to take Xiaohua to the clinic."
"Oh! So you want money!"
Shu Yufen took twenty yuan out of her pocket. "You should have said so earlier!"
"The remaining five yuan is for Xiaohua's pocket money."
"You!"
"Is that all?"
"If you're done, then leave!"
"Are you planning to stand at someone else's door like a gatekeeper?"
The casual, dismissive tone, as if she were shooing away chickens and ducks, made Wu Hongying furious.
Just as a fight was about to break out, Jiang Xiaochun ran over from somewhere. "Mom, little sister, what are you making a scene about?"
"Professor Dong, Professor Shu, I apologize to you on behalf of my mother. I'm sorry, I'll take them home right now."
She looked guilty and bowed ninety degrees to apologize to Shu Yufen.
Shen Zhinian, who had walked her home, frowned, his disgust for the Lu couple growing even stronger.
Bullying others with their status—they were the same kind of people as Dong Shuyao.
"Go home? Your sister was hit by Dong Shuyao, why are you, as her older sister, siding with outsiders?"
"Stop talking!"
Jiang Xiaochun pushed Wu Hongying while turning back to bow and apologize to the Dong couple. "Even if Yaoyao hit Xiaohua, it must be because Xiaohua was being disobedient. How could you come to find Uncle Dong and Auntie Shu?"
At first glance, these words confirmed the accusation that Dong Shuyao had hit Jiang Xiaohua.
No matter how disobedient a child is, you aren't their parent, so what right do you have to hit them?
Shu Yufen slammed the door shut. "If it weren't for the fact that I feel sorry for Xiaochun, I would have kicked this whole family out long ago."
Dong Yulin pushed up his gold-rimmed glasses, not entirely agreeing with his wife.
Was she really pitiful?
He thought Wu Hongying and Jiang Xiaohua, who were being pushed out to play the villain, were even more pitiful.
However, as a man, he didn't want to badmouth a young girl behind her back, so he didn't say anything more.
Time would prove the true character of a person.
"Oh my, I need to go cook."
Dong Yulin's comical trot toward the kitchen made Shu Yufen laugh, and she put the thought of Wu Hongying and her daughter behind her, heading into the kitchen to help prepare the vegetables.
At that moment, Wu Hongying was still feeling smug about easily obtaining twenty yuan.
Little did she know that the next day, she would pay a heavy price for those twenty yuan.
Dong Shuyao would not have a falling out with Jiang Xiaochun, but that family would never get another scrap of benefit from the Dong household.
She could almost imagine how, in her previous life after she was sold off by Shen Zhinian, these two had coaxed her parents and used their grief over losing a daughter to gain advantages.
When Dong Shuyao woke up at the Lu house, the room was pitch black.
She almost thought she hadn't been reborn at all, and that it had all just been a beautiful, fleeting dream.