Chen Wanyue was so agitated she was trembling uncontrollably.

Why?

Why was even fate itself toying with her!

Wasn’t Zhao Jing supposed to be unlucky? Why did it turn out someone was just scheming against him in the shadows!

Why couldn’t Zhao Jing escape it in her past life, yet in this one he easily sidestepped everything and even placed first in the county examination!

Why was he able to completely overshadow Li Cun, making her decision to ’forsake the darkness for the light’ a total joke!

Why was it so hard for her to just have a good life? Now, even the Li family was rejecting her!

What had she done wrong?

What on earth had she done wrong in this life!

If she had been reborn just so fate could make her atone for her past life, then she’d rather not have been reborn at all.

Chen Wanyue clenched her fists. Like a maddened calf, she hunched over and charged straight for the wall of the main hall.

Chen Dachang’s and the old madam’s pupils shrank to pinpricks. They were scared stiff.

They opened their mouths wide, wanting to scream "Don’t!" but they were so utterly terrified that no sound came out.

It was Chen Song who rushed over in the nick of time. At the very last moment, he yanked Chen Wanyue back with all his might.

He had run so fast that he nearly threw out his back. After saving Chen Wanyue, he was still gasping for breath from the heart-stopping scene, his legs feeling weak.

No matter how much he and the third branch of the family were at odds, a child was still a child.

He certainly didn’t dote on his nieces and nephews the way he did his own children, but to stand by and watch his niece kill herself before his very eyes... that would haunt him for the rest of his life.

A vein throbbed on Chen Song’s forehead.

He gripped Chen Wanyue’s collar and demanded, "Over a man? You’d forsake the parents and elders who raised you? What’s so great about Li Cun? He’s a feeble scholar who can’t provide for a family and can’t even keep his own parents in line. If you marry into that family, do you really think you’ll have a good life?"

"I don’t care! I just want to marry Li Cun—"

"SLAP!"

"SLAP! SLAP!"

A series of slaps landed hard across Chen Wanyue’s face. The blows were so forceful that her cheeks swelled up before their very eyes.

In just a few moments, her face had puffed up like rising dough. Upon closer inspection, the taut, shiny skin bore the clear imprints of several fingers. It was a horrifying sight.

The one slapping her wasn’t Chen Song, of course. It was Xu Suying, who had rushed over behind him.

Xu Suying’s chest felt like it was about to explode with rage.

A few slaps weren’t enough to satisfy her; she landed several more to vent her fury.

"’You say you’re just an ordinary girl, so why should you bear the consequences of your elders’ sins?’ A fine question! So let me ask you, Chen Wanyue: in what way are you ordinary? In what way are you innocent? I didn’t want to expose you, but you insist on playing the victim. Don’t think for a second I don’t know! The old madam coming to my household to persuade me to swap your engagement with Qing’er’s—that was all your idea! You were the one scheming behind everyone’s back, ditching your engagement to Zhao Jing and stubbornly choosing Li Cun. In the end, you have no one to blame but yourself! Now your karma has come calling, so you’d better just take it. You think you can become innocent just by pushing the blame onto everyone else? Bullshit! This is what you deserve. If you want to die, find somewhere else to do it!"

’What Xu Suying hated wasn’t that Chen Wanyue’s scheming had caused her own daughter’s engagement to be broken off yet again.’

’If she hadn’t been stirring up trouble behind the scenes, they might have missed out on a son-in-law as excellent as Zhao Jing. So, in a way, she actually had Wanyue to thank.’

’But why had she hit her so brutally, beating her face to a pulp, and still not feel her anger subside?’

’It was because the girl had dared to try and kill herself right in front of them.’

’Just think about it. If they hadn’t managed to stop her, what would the disastrous consequences have been?’

’The old madam would surely claim that their branch of the family had hounded their own niece to death just to protect their reputation.’

’At that point, not only would Chen Song lose his position as county magistrate assistant, but the futures of her sons, De’an and Hui’an, would also be utterly ruined by this.’

’This little shit-stirrer... Didn’t she want to die? She could have snuck back to her room, gotten a rope, and hanged herself. Or she could have thrown herself down a well in the dead of night. There were plenty of ways to die, so why did she have to do it right in front of them?’

’She was, without a doubt, just trying to pressure them again. Deluding herself into thinking they would clean up her mess so she could go on her merry way and marry into that family, all pure and innocent.’

’Fat chance!’

’Pah!’

’A toad lusting after a swan’s flesh. She wasn’t much to look at, but her dreams were certainly pretty.’

At this thought, Xu Suying couldn’t stop herself from landing two more vicious slaps across her face.

"Don’t you sit there like some sacred turtle in a wishing well, expecting good things to just happen! A person’s destiny is set by the heavens, and you are not fated to be an official’s wife in this lifetime. So you’d better give up on that notion, and fast. If you dare pull any more of your scheming nonsense, you just watch—I’ll beat your face into a bloody mess."