Chapter 466 - 406: Tears
Chapter 466: Chapter 406: Tears
In the car on the way home, Xiao Man gazed out the window at the streetlights, blurred and indistinct behind the swirling snow. Musing over Yang Liu’er’s words, she thought about how the sisters, Bai Qingyue and Bai Yifen, had barely bothered her recently. ’I thought they’d given up, but it looks like they’re still after the same thing.’
’They still want to go down the same old path as in my last life: a marriage alliance between the Bai and Tang families to consolidate power, suppress the Gu family, and climb even higher. A lofty ideal, but a pity for them. When it comes to this marriage alliance, they’re doomed to be disappointed.’
’Grandpa Tang had once given Old Master Bai a Life-saving Pill to save his life, repaying a favor from many years ago.’ Xiao Man had only learned of this later. ’Back then, Old Master Bai was on death’s door,’ she mused, ’he must have swallowed the pill in one gulp. No one should have been able to detect that it contained ingredients from the Space Spirit Spring and special herbs. But a pill with such a miraculous effect would startle anyone and spark a desire to pry into its secrets and possess it. This is why I stay far away from the Bai family. Their motives are too transparent. Who would want to get too close to them?’
’Even if the Tang family isn’t afraid of the Bai family, a wise saying comes to mind: One can be a thief for a thousand days, but one cannot guard against a thief for a thousand days.’
’In this life, there’s no way the Bai Family will marry a Tang Family Girl. But Old Master Bai is still alive, so the family won’t decline. Bai Lihua is steadily climbing the ranks, and Bai Junfan is maturing quickly. It will take a few years at most for the Bai Family to recover its strength.’
Xiao Man had heard a little about Old Master Bai’s capabilities. Grandpa Gu had once told her things about Old Master Bai in his prime and warned her never to reveal her rare herbs in front of the Bai family. He said this was because Old Master Bai had the nose of a hound. With the medicinal broths and pills Xiao Man prepared for the grandpas, grandmas, and Gu Shaoqin, even Grandpa Gu could only tell the herbs were extraordinary after tasting them. Old Master Bai, on the other hand, could seemingly absorb the very essence of the herbs just by taking a single sniff!
Xiao Man had been stunned to hear this. ’Isn’t that what a Cultivator can do? And a high-ranking one, at that! But Old Master Bai is obviously not a practitioner of Cultivation!’
Grandpa Gu had said, "You’d better believe it. That Old Bai was truly formidable before his health gave out. I’m not just singing his praises for no reason; I have to be objective."
After the "Life-saving Pill" incident, Grandma Tang and Grandpa Gu grumbled at Grandpa Tang, who from then on raised his guard against the Bai Family and refused to ever give them anything again. Later, after it was discovered that Wu Xiaowen was involved with Bai Lihua, the Tang family all but ceased private dealings with the Bai Family. Bai Qingyue and her niece shamelessly continued to visit, only to be turned away at the door several times. ’So how does the Bai Family know enough to even have a nanny try to get her hands on the herbs I prepare? Could they have gotten ahold of them before?’
Recalling Yang Liu’er’s words—"your mom and that Mr. Bai"—Xiao Man felt a discomfort rising within her, but she had to accept the reality and make a serious deduction. She finally landed on one possibility: ’If the Bai Family truly got their hands on my prepared herbs, then Wu Xiaowen must have been the one to give them away!’
Xiao Man’s anger flared. ’How can Wu Xiaowen be so utterly shameless? She has the nerve to call me unfilial, yet look at what a "dutiful daughter" she is—taking the medicine meant to treat her own parents and prolong their lives just to please her lover!’
’I have to tell Hao Hao about this. It’d serve her right if he gets so mad at his mother that he cries. Thankfully, I made Hao Hao swear an oath: from this day forward, we will not meddle in the lives, aging, sickness, or death of Wu Xiaowen and the Wu Family. They can forget about ever getting so much as a single leaf from me again!’
Heavy snow filled the streets, and a biting chill was in the air. At that moment, Wu Xiaowen and Tang Yaxuan were also on their way home. Their luck was terrible; they had waited for ages but couldn’t hail an empty taxi. There weren’t many taxis in Beijing to begin with back then. The roads were slippery and treacherous from the snow, and it was also the time when colleges were letting out for winter break. People who normally wouldn’t splurge on a taxi were probably gritting their teeth and indulging today. The mother and daughter waited until the sky had turned completely dark. Finally, unable to bear the cold any longer, they had no choice but to reluctantly squeeze onto a public bus.
They had just come from the Wu Family residence. They had arrived at noon bearing pastries and fruit, but by the time they left, they hadn’t been offered so much as a warm drink or a hot bite to eat. Instead, they departed with stomachs full of resentment.
Wu Xiaowen was now utterly disappointed in her brother, Wu Xiaoyang. The materialism of her sister-in-law, Yang Qianrong, and her nieces had pushed her beyond fury. She swore that if she ever rose in status again, she would act as if she didn’t even know them. Her parents, Wu Yu Xuan and Lin Aizhen, had broken her heart as well. They were attending a banquet at a prestigious family’s home and had promised to take Wu Xiaowen and her daughter along, but they ended up leaving before they even arrived. And to top it all off, they had reportedly taken her other brother, Wu Xiaofeng, his wife, and their children instead!
Standing amidst a crowd in the stuffy, smelly bus cabin, Wu Xiaowen looked around disdainfully. She held Tang Yaxuan close, trying to avoid being touched by others. But a public bus was not her private car; it stopped at every station, and waves of people shoved their way aboard without any courtesy. The mother and daughter were separated by the crush of bodies. Not only was Wu Xiaowen squeezed into a corner, watching her fine wool coat get hopelessly wrinkled, but her feet were stepped on several times. She winced in pain, but her yelps went ignored. Wu Xiaowen felt a surge of anger and self-pity.
’I was pampered my whole life! Even though I was sent down to another province for over a decade of ’re-education,’ Tang Qingyun always protected me. He would never have let me suffer such an indignity. Even when I was teaching in a small town, if I wanted to go to the city, Qingyun would arrange a ride for me. After we returned to the county and the prefecture, I never had to worry about getting around. One phone call, and a private car would be at my door. What the hell are shuttle buses and public buses? Why is someone as refined as me even on one?’
When she thought about all the preparations she’d made for the banquet, how she had even walked over two hundred meters to the newly reopened, time-honored Fuxiang Restaurant to buy her mother’s favorite chestnut cakes, only to be callously stood up by her own parents... and then when she thought about their attitude toward her ever since the divorce, tears nearly fell from Wu Xiaowen’s eyes.
After swaying on the bus for over forty minutes, they were still two stops from their residential compound. By now, the bus was slightly less crowded. Tang Yaxuan called out, "Mom!" and squeezed her way over. Wu Xiaowen couldn’t bear another moment in that foul-smelling cabin. She grabbed Tang Yaxuan and got off the bus immediately, preferring to walk a little just to breathe some fresh air.
But she was being naive. The snow was coming down even harder now, mixed with ice pellets that stung their faces. The ground was piled high with snow, and walking required a difficult choice: either follow the path others had trodden into a filthy, muddy slush and sacrifice a good pair of boots, or try to blaze a new trail and be prepared to slip. Several people had already fallen flat in the snow, crying out in pain.
Wu Xiaowen and Tang Yaxuan supported each other as they picked their way through the slush. Despite being exceedingly careful, they still slipped. The mother and daughter clung to one another, tumbling down together in a sprawling heap. Their clothes were completely ruined. This time, tears truly streamed down Wu Xiaowen’s face. ’My tailbone is killing me,’ she thought, ’and the snow got in my eyes, I can’t see.’
Tang Yaxuan, however, was quite resilient. She let out a few whimpers, then scrambled back to her feet. Helping Wu Xiaowen up, she asked with concern, "Mom, are you okay? You’re not hurt, are you?"