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“Conceited?” Yu Yaxuan seemed to hear a joke. “All these years, I’ve washed your entire family’s clothes, cooked your meals, cleaned up your rooms, and had to endure your mother’s constant cruelty. And you call that conceited?”

“Which woman doesn’t go through that? Don’t be so dramatic!”

Lin Jingsheng dismissed it without a care, as though everything Yu Yaxuan had done was only right and proper.

Yu Yaxuan gave a cold laugh and smashed the pendant in her hand straight into Lin Jingsheng’s head. “You give that homewrecker an expensive jade necklace, but for your lawful wife you casually pick up a stone from the roadside. I’ve worked myself to the bone for this family for more than twenty years! Lin Jingsheng, has your conscience been eaten by dogs?”

“Ah! You’re trying to murder your husband?”

Lin Jingsheng clutched his face in pain, baring his teeth with a sharp hiss.

The mistress hurried forward at once, all false concern. “Sister, how could you treat Ah Sheng like this? At the very least, he is the head of the household, your husband.”

“What husband? I don’t have a husband who cheats like it’s a habit. Let’s divorce, Lin Jingsheng.”

Yu Yaxuan looked coldly at the man before her.

“What nonsense are you talking? At your age, if you divorce me, who would want you?”

“Whether anyone wants me has nothing to do with you. I’m taking our daughter with me. Don’t you dare ruin my precious girl!”

She could give up anything, except her daughter.

She had nearly died from massive bleeding when she gave birth to her; if she had not feared that Lin Jingsheng would find a mistress and mistreat the child, she might never have found the resolve to survive.

Over the years, her daughter had grown into a graceful, sensible, and filial young woman. If she stayed with a father like this, she would surely be led astray.

Not to mention how this whole family, with its preference for sons over daughters, would treat her once they brought their grandson home.

That was her only daughter. She would never allow such a thing to happen.

“Mom, what are you arguing about?”

Her daughter’s voice came, full of confusion.

The moment she saw her daughter, a wave of grievance surged through her, and the last taut string in her heart snapped. Tears poured forth.

She rushed up and held her precious daughter tightly in her arms.

“Your father cheated on me. He doesn’t want us anymore!”

Lin Baozhu frowned. The smell of oil and smoke rushed straight into her nose, and she pushed Yu Yaxuan away with visible distaste.

“Mom, isn’t it normal for Dad to cheat? Look at yourself these years, so unkempt, dressed worse than the vegetable vendors by the roadside. You always smell bad, your skin is rough, and your hair is like a patch of weeds.”

“Look at you, then look at Aunt Huang. If you were Dad, you’d cheat too, wouldn’t you?”

Yu Yaxuan’s heart lurched. Though her face showed the shock of a thunderbolt, she still asked uncertainly, “Aunt Huang? You already knew her?”

As she spoke, she unconsciously tightened her grip on the hem of her clothes.

She was afraid. She was afraid of hearing the answer confirmed.

Even her daughter, whom she had poured all her love and effort into, had betrayed her.

“Of course I know her. Dad introduced her to me long ago. This is my little brother, Lin Xuancheng,” Lin Baozhu said indifferently. “Mom, you couldn’t give Dad a son of your own, so why won’t you let another woman bear him one? That’s far too selfish of you.”

A buzzing filled her ears. Her chest felt as though a great hand had seized it. Looking at the face before her, she found it strangely unfamiliar.

This was her daughter. The daughter she had nearly died to give birth to. The daughter she had nurtured with all her love.

Shouldn’t she be comforting her at a time like this?

How had she become the villain instead, accusing the victim?

“Baozhu, you’re not on Mom’s side either?”

Yu Yaxuan’s voice shook violently. Sharp, fine pain spread through her chest, and a suffocating pressure threatened to tear her apart.

“Mom, I’m not trying to upset you. Isn’t the way things are now actually pretty good? You don’t have to go through another round of suffering, and you get a son for free. Your position as Mrs. Lin is still yours. What’s so bad about that?”

“Besides, Dad is already the deputy manager of a subsidiary under the Cheng Group. His future is limitless! A middle-aged woman with no virtue and no talent should be grateful just to find a man like Dad. Why make such a scene and put us in a difficult position?”

“Yes, Sister, isn’t this arrangement fine as it is? I don’t want a title; I just want to stay beside Ah Sheng. You can go on being Mrs. Lin and take back Chenchen. After all, Chenchen is blood of the Lin family. You can’t bear to let Ah Sheng’s child remain out there, can you?”

Yu Yaxuan ignored the woman before her and only looked, devastated, at the daughter she had raised for twenty-three years.

So be it. A daughter like this, she might as well not have.

She wiped away the tears at the corners of her eyes, and reason slowly returned.

“I said it already: divorce. No one can change that!”

“What kind of nonsense is this? You’re old enough already, and you still want to be the family’s laughingstock in front of the child?”

Lin Jingsheng was still about to say something, but Yu Yaxuan had already turned away. “Tomorrow morning at eight, at the Civil Affairs Bureau!”

Watching Yu Yaxuan leave without once looking back, Lin Jingsheng grew furious, then broke into a fit of violent coughing.

After twenty-five years of marriage, this was the first time Yu Yaxuan had ever defied him.

Who knew that as people grew older, their tempers would grow with them?

Didn’t she realize what age she was? If she left him, who else would want her?

“Dad, don’t worry. Mom is just confused for the moment. She’s still angry right now. By tomorrow, she’ll definitely come back obediently and apologize to you.”

Only after Lin Baozhu offered her comfort did Lin Jingsheng finally manage to calm down.

That was true enough. If she left him, who would want an old woman?

Yu Yaxuan did not go home. She walked alone through the bustling streets.

Since marrying Lin Jingsheng, she had never strolled so leisurely again.

Every day had been endless housework, or else her mother-in-law’s relentless torment.

Now that she had finally a moment to breathe, she did not even have a place to stand.

A bitter ache rose in her chest, and the tears she had held back for so long slowly spilled over.

She had wanted to cry just now, but the pride in her bones had held her up.

As the lawful wife, why should she cry before the mistress?

Clearly, she was not the one who had cheated. Clearly, she was not the one at fault.

She was only the victim.

“Yaxuan? Is that you?”

A familiar yet unfamiliar voice sounded. Yu Yaxuan turned around and froze, staring unblinkingly at the face before her. Her nose stung, and her eyes instantly turned wet.

Her best friend of forty years stood alive and well right before her.

“Didn’t you go abroad? Why are you back?”

She wore a petite Western-style dress, impeccably kept, with an exquisite little hat on her head; even her hair seemed refined.

After divorcing her former husband, she had remarried a man who had returned from overseas, and her life had changed beyond recognition.

If they had not known each other for forty years, Yu Yaxuan would never have dared to recognize her.

Bai Canxia smiled brightly, but when she saw the tears on Yu Yaxuan’s face, she panicked at once. “What happened? Who bullied you? I’ll stand up for you!”

Half an hour later, in a cafe.

Bai Canxia gritted her teeth in fury. “You’re saying your husband cheated? Your son is already in his twenties? You’ve been wearing the green hat for more than twenty years?”