Chapter 445 - 386: The Reason for the Suicide
Chapter 445: Chapter 386: The Reason for the Suicide
Xiao Man froze for a moment, then pulled a Coke bottle from her shoulder bag and handed it to him. Of course, it wasn’t actually Coke, but water from her Space Spirit Spring.
Watching her brother chug a huge gulp, she asked softly, "Why do you look like a refugee? Your constitution used to be a little weak, but after starting with Energy Introduction, your cultivation has reached the Fourth Layer. Even if you pulled an all-nighter for a research project, you should’ve been able to restore your Essence, Qi, and Spirit just by calming down and circulating your Cultivation Technique for a few cycles. How did you end up looking like this?"
Getting another taste of his sister’s special "drink" that could quickly restore his stamina, Tang Haocheng greedily gulped down half the bottle in one go. He then offered the bottle back to Xiao Man, but she shook her head, indicating she wasn’t thirsty. So, Tang Haocheng tilted his head back and drained the rest. The small Coke bottle didn’t hold much anyway—only about 500 milliliters.
Then, the brother and sister walked over to a roadside bench and sat down, planning to talk for a while before heading home together.
After drinking the spiritual spring water, Tang Haocheng’s complexion improved noticeably. He leaned back against the bench, stretching his long arms and legs before answering Xiao Man’s question and explaining why he was in such a state. "I was at the hospital all night. They had someone watching me the whole time because they were afraid I’d leave, so I couldn’t calm down to practice my Cultivation. Sis, you might not believe this, but my mother tried to kill herself by slitting her wrists!"
Xiao Man was surprised. She paused, then gave a soft chuckle. "I honestly find that hard to believe. She has the courage for that? To actually give up her own life? Is she dead?"
"She’s not dead." Tang Haocheng had already guessed Xiao Man wouldn’t be worried about Wu Xiaowen. Truthfully, he wasn’t that upset either, but it was still disheartening to think that the relationship between a mother and son had come to this. He sighed and said, "You were right. My mother is a coward and cherishes her life far too much. She would never hurt herself. It was her younger sister, Wu Xiaorui, who did it."
"Oh? So the sisters turned on each other? What did Wu Xiaorui do?"
"Wu Xiaorui blackmailed fifty thousand yuan out of Wu Xiaowen and then had the Bai family pull some strings to help her go abroad. In the meantime, she kept threatening to get married. The Wu elders refused to let her marry some unemployed guy who was supposedly in a gang, so Wu Xiaorui threw a fit every day, saying she wouldn’t get married if they gave her a pile of cash. But the Wu Family is tight-fisted, so that tactic failed. In the end, she just pried open the elders’ trunks and stole several thousand yuan. She also stole Grandpa Wu’s prized jade collection, which he’d spent years amassing, and sold it. The shock made Grandpa Wu’s old illness relapse. The moment Wu Xiaorui got her visa, she tricked Wu Xiaowen into returning to the Wu Mansion for a two-day stay. While there, she snuck out, went to their work-unit apartment, and sold off every single valuable, including Wu Xiaowen’s most cherished clothes and jewelry. When Wu Xiaowen realized what was happening and rushed back, the sisters had a massive fight. Wu Xiaorui tied Wu Xiaowen up with cloth strips, slit her wrist to stage a suicide, and then called the Wu elders. With that done, she went straight to the airport, got on her flight, and left the country."
"Well, that Wu Xiaorui is really something else. Vicious and cruel. If Grandpa and Grandma Wu had been any later, Wu Xiaowen would actually be dead."
"Exactly. The Wu elders arrived a little late. Wu Xiaowen lost so much blood they almost couldn’t save her."
Tang Haocheng’s expression darkened. No matter what, Wu Xiaowen was still his mother. Wu Xiaorui should count herself lucky that she survived, he thought. Otherwise, it was hard to say what the consequences would have been.
"Doesn’t your mother have her ’good little daughter’? Where did that Xuanxuan go?"
"She’s in high school now, living in the dorms."
"So you’re saying Wu Xiaowen’s ’suicide’ was actually an attempted murder. Did you call the police? Then again, since Wu Xiaorui already flew out of the country, it’s probably useless, right?"
Tang Haocheng snorted. "Unless she can fly to the Nine Heavens and never come down, catching her won’t be hard. But the Wu elders stopped me from pursuing it. They told me the whole story of the grudge between the sisters. I waited for Mom to wake up and asked what she wanted. She wanted to call the police and have her arrested, but after Grandpa and Grandma Wu talked her out of it, she decided to drop the matter."
Xiao Man asked curiously, "Just how deep does the hatred run? Wu Xiaorui didn’t just clean Wu Xiaowen out, she also tried to kill her?"
Tang Haocheng fell silent. He remembered how Grandma Wu had cried while begging him not to report Wu Xiaorui, insisting that a family shouldn’t air its dirty laundry in public. She had called it retribution. Apparently, Wu Xiaowen had suspected Wu Xiaorui of trying to seduce Tang Qingyun and, in a fit of cruelty, had sent her sister away to a poor mountain village to be married off to an ignorant, brutish farmer. Wu Xiaorui had been tormented and abused there, nursing a deep-seated hatred that had finally led to today’s bitter consequences.
He lowered his gaze to hide the look in his eyes, not wanting his sister to hear such an unpleasant story. He changed the subject. "I’m not too clear on the details myself. In any case, their business has nothing to do with us! Sis, you should prepare yourself. The Wu Family wanted to come looking for you last night, but I stopped them. I’m afraid they haven’t given up and will probably try again in the next day or two."