The house was cold and quiet, the stove untouched, and the fridge was empty.
The once somewhat crowded home suddenly felt unusually spacious.
Zhu Zhihua covered her mouth and coughed lightly, her throat itching unbearably. But now, there was no one to silently place a glass of water within her reach.
She got up, opened the lid of the hot water bottle, and poured herself a cup of water, but the water had long since lost its warmth.
The incessant ringing of the phone irritated her to no end.
After hesitating for a moment, she finally answered the call.
Wan Shimin felt like things were slipping beyond his control. He had intentionally given Zhu Zhihua the cold shoulder, and according to his understanding of her, she must be feeling extremely anxious by now.
This would only cause her to put pressure on her daughter, following the path he had laid out for her.
When they were younger and dating, this tactic had been very effective on her.
If not for Zhu Zhihua’s less prestigious family background, in his view, she was more suitable for him than his current wife.
She was neither too smart nor too foolish—just right for him to tightly hold in the palm of his hand.
His current Mrs. Wan might come from a good family, but she was as foolish as a pig.
In contrast, her two younger brothers were as cunning as foxes, leaving him no chance to take advantage of them. It was too much.
But now, the person he thought he knew so well responded to his call with a cold indifference that lacked any of the previous warmth.
"Do you need something?"
Zhu Zhihua didn’t want to talk to Wan Shimin at the moment.
Thinking carefully about Su Peng’s words and reflecting on her previous thoughts, even if she believed she had nothing to hide, a sense of wordless shame swept over her.
She had never noticed it before, but she had always found faults with her ex-husband Su Peng. Yet, after only a day or two apart, she began to feel uncomfortable.
The shining qualities of Su Peng that she had been oblivious to before came flooding into her mind one after another.
Now, facing a call from Wan Jia Bing, she felt more unwelcoming.
Although Wan Jia Bing found it strange, he didn’t beat around the bush and directly voiced his concerns, "What’s the matter with your daughter, anyway?"
"After meeting just once, she was overly critical of my son, and now it’s even worse—she went as far as to swell his face with a beating today."
"How the hell do you teach your daughter... If she ever becomes part of my family, she’ll turn the whole place upside down..."
Zhu Zhihua, already feeling distressed, experienced a surge of resentment toward Wan Jia Bing despite him being her ’first love’ and the ’cinnabar mole’ she cherished.
"Old friend, what are you talking about... The kids aren’t even remotely close to that stage, and you’re already talking about her entering your household—that’s a bit premature, don’t you think?"
"I know my child. She wouldn’t dare squash an ant on a normal day, and you tell me she hit your son. Is that even possible?"
"Oh, and without speaking, even if there was a possibility, it must be because your son did something outrageous that made her particularly angry."
"Looking at it now, I was hasty. It’s not necessarily true that your son is as good as you say, and my daughter is both beautiful and smart, with a high IQ... I need to be more selective, to avoid mistaking fish eyes for pearls."
Once she shed her filter for past acquaintances, Zhu Zhihua spoke so directly that Wan Jia Bing couldn’t get a word in edgewise during the twenty-minute phone call.
Wan Jia Bing finally understood the treatment that Su Peng endured daily, clutching his chest, gasping for breath.
Flapping his hands, he hurriedly asked his wife to fetch the emergency Medicine Pills from the medicine box and quickly swallowed several, giving him some relief.
Only now, all that came through the phone was the busy tone of ’beep beep beep’.
People are always ; only when they’ve lost do they realize the preciousness of those around them.
Not to mention the annoyance and regret in Zhu Zhua’s heart right now, the Su Peng she was preoccupied with felt an unprecedented sense of relief.
Three years passed in the blink of an eye.
Su Li had graduated from her master’s studies and was preparing for her PhD.
Over these years, the divorced Zhu Zhua became even more obsessive, and had made several scenes about marriage issues with Su Li, which were all blocked by Su Peng.
Strangely, Zhu Zhua felt inexplicably short of breath when it came to her ex-husband she once despised immensely.
With Su Peng there, though she made a fuss, she couldn’t make major trouble, which saved Su Li a lot of effort.
Unlike the previous "small world", where she could sever all troublesome roots by directly giving back her physical body to her parents,
in this world, Zhu Zhua was tied to her by legal and emotional bonds, which she couldn’t easily shake off.
Though Su Li was not someone who cared much about these things, Zhu Zhua, aside from being a pitfall for her daughter, hadn’t done anything too egregious, so Su Li couldn’t simply destroy her humanely.
Fortunately, there was the cheap father who came back to life, strong enough to take care of things.
The lifelong gentle Su Peng had now become firm.
Apart from the forever loving fatherly attitude towards Su Li, he was cold as winter towards everyone else.
A sharp tongue that was even fiercer than Zhu Zhua’s, unmatched among friends and relatives, and invincible in the neighborhood.
He was a protective maniac when it came to his daughter, daring to retort anyone who badmouthed her until they couldn’t recognize their own mother.
Su Li’s longstanding unmarried status also became a persisting topic of discussion among friends and relatives.
At every get-together, it was brought up.
Some meddlers even pulled Su Peng aside and asked directly, "Xiao Li, you’re getting on in age, do you have a boyfriend yet?"
"If you don’t look now, when you’re a little older, I fear you won’t find anyone."
"Look, I have a few good candidates here, why not let them meet?"
Su Peng couldn’t help but remember how in his previous life, when he simply showed a disinterest in marriage, these busybodies could come up with all sorts of nasty comments.
Not to mention in this life, Su Li was older than in the last, without a single sign of wanting to settle down.
Those people’s mouths were even more broken.
But those with broken mouths, he had scolded them so fiercely that they dared not mention it in front of him anymore.
This aunt today was indeed commendable for her courage.
Seeing that Su Peng remained silent, the aunt, taking advantage of her seniority to him, clung on without letting go, her mouth running incessantly.
"It’s a nephew from my mother’s side, who just got divorced a few months ago, and he’s looking to find someone again. I think he’d be just perfect for your daughter."
"His previous wife, oh, it’s a long story ... Not only was she disrespectful to her in-laws, but she also couldn’t take care of her own child properly."
"She went to work with the child and even let the child bump their head, which kind of mother does that?"
Listening with a steely face to her endless tirade, Su Peng saw her switching the topic back to Su Li, "Your daughter is not that young either, we don’t even know if she can still have kids. My nephew already has two children, so once she goes there, she’d be a mother straight away. If she didn’t want to have kids, it wouldn’t matter..."