Chapter 59 Beyond Redemption

Back at school, Xu Qi remained preoccupied with the matter. She suddenly recalled that a few days earlier, a girl in her class had mentioned seeing her husband walking with a woman after a trip to the supermarket. That woman was likely Bao Furong, though it was not yet certain.

After class, Xu Qi pulled the girl aside to discuss the matter further. The girl said, "Yesterday afternoon, after the third period, I was walking home and passed a braised food shop in town. I saw that woman again. She was selling braised dishes."

"Are you sure you didn't mistake her for someone else?" Xu Qi asked doubtfully.

The girl blinked, frowned slightly, and replied, "I'm not mistaken. That woman has a tapered face, large eyes, and fair skin. She looks like a celebrity and is very pretty. I secretly took a good look at her the first time I saw her, so the impression is deep."

Hearing this, Xu Qi fell silent for a moment, thinking: My husband is a lecherous man; he must have been seduced by that pretty woman.

Having no classes at the moment, she went to the school office and asked the girl's head teacher for permission to let the student accompany her out for a while.

Thus, guided by the girl, Xu Qi headed into town and arrived at West Gate Street. The girl suddenly stopped, pointed to a stylishly dressed, tapered-faced woman inside a braised food shop on the left, and said to Xu Qi, "Teacher Xu, that's her."

Xu Qi stepped closer to take a look. The woman indeed had a fine figure and a naturally striking appearance, which made Xu Qi feel somewhat inferior.

To confirm whether Bao Furong—the woman who had been texting and calling her husband—was the one selling braised food right before her, Xu Qi dialed the mobile number she had memorized using her own phone. Sure enough, the phone resting on the counter began to ring, playing a melancholy pop tune.

Just as the woman picked up the phone to answer, the call was abruptly disconnected. Glancing at the unfamiliar number, she assumed it was a wrong dial and paid it no further mind.

Xu Qi was now certain that this braised food vendor was indeed Bao Furong. Slipping her phone back into her handbag and taking care not to alert Bao Furong, she gently tapped her student companion and left the area to return to school.

By evening, as business slowed down, Bao Furong felt a deep sense of loneliness. Thinking about how Wu Zhenri had not returned to keep her company for several days, ignoring her texts and calls, resentment welled up inside her. She decided that tomorrow she would close the shop, leave the town, and head to Cottonwood Village in Cottonwood Township to find Wu Zhenri. If he wasn't home, she would park herself at his house and make his parents track him down until she laid eyes on him.

With these thoughts, she clenched her teeth and began to mutter curses under her breath at Wu Zhenri.

As night fell completely and the shop shutters had just been pulled down, someone knocked on the door. Bao Furong called out through the door, "Are you here for braised dishes? Why couldn't you have come a bit earlier?"

"I'm not buying braised dishes. Open up, it's me." It was Wu Zhenri's voice. Though very familiar, it sounded strangely alien to her ears.

She paused for a second before the wooden panels were rattled noisily again. She unlocked the door and let Wu Zhenri in. At first, she ignored him, but after he closed the shop door behind him, she pointed angrily at him and snapped, "You know how to show up? I thought you'd forgotten all about me."

Before Bao Furong could finish venting, the phone in Wu Zhenri's pocket rang. He pulled it out, took one look, and immediately hung up. Bao Furong stared at him and demanded, "Whose call was that?"

"It's the one at my home," Wu Zhenri replied as he slid the phone back into his pocket.

"Oh, you and your little tricks!" Bao Furong pointed her finger at him. "What a spineless coward of a man! You're afraid to take her calls when you're with me, and you're afraid to take my calls when you're with her. You make things awkward on both ends—how pathetic can you be?"

Wu Zhenri was in a wretched state of mind and could think of no good words to persuade her.

At that moment, the phone rang again. He took it out, and it was still Xu Qi's number. Holding the phone to his ear, he muttered, "I'm busy outside!" and hung up instantly.

"Hand it over, let me talk to her." Bao Furong reached out to snatch the phone from his hand. How could Wu Zhenri allow that? He hurriedly shoved it back into his pocket, pressed his hand firmly against it, and said to her, "What would you even say to her?"

"I'll tell her to hurry up and divorce Wu Zhenri to make room for me! I'm already pregnant with Wu Zhenri's child..." Having said this, and seeing Wu Zhenri's utter astonishment, Bao Furong threw caution to the wind and continued even more brazenly, "It's an absolute, ironclad fact. How can you possibly deny it?"

Wu Zhenri was speechless, gripped by intense panic and inner turmoil. The truth was about to come to light, and he had no way out when faced with these two women.

That same evening, after leaving the school office and returning to her dormitory, Xu Qi found her husband missing. Figuring he might have gone into town to the braised food shop to keep that wild woman company, she took out her phone and dialed his number.

Unexpectedly, though the call went through, her husband either refused to answer or spoke evasively before immediately shutting down his phone, not taking her calls until the next day—and even then, his tone was somewhat nervous.

What caused her anxiety and anger was that her husband hung up on her before she could finish what she had to say. What did this indicate? It showed that he was concerned about the person clinging to him and found it inconvenient to talk freely.

Determined to verify her suspicions, Xu Qi skipped dinner, hurried out, hailed a taxi at the school gate, and headed straight into town to the braised food shop she now knew all too well.

Sitting in the front passenger seat of the taxi, Xu Qi saw from a distance that the shop's doors were closed. Still, she instructed the driver to pull up directly in front of it. After she paid the fare and the taxi drove away, leaving behind the roar of passing traffic, the area in front of the braised food shop grew relatively quiet.

Faintly hearing voices coming from inside the closed shop, she stepped closer to the door and listened more clearly. The wild woman's shrill voice poured out—"Divorce her right now! Divorce her..."

"My parents won't agree." This was Wu Zhenri's voice, which Xu Qi knew by heart.

Then she heard the wild woman angrily shout back, "Do your parents control your life? What utter nonsense! If you don't agree to a divorce, I'll go make a scene at your house, and I'll go make a scene at the school where your wife teaches..."

The rest of Wu Zhenri's reply was drowned out by a roaring vehicle speeding past the storefront, masking all other sounds.

Xu Qi was provoked to fury. She initially wanted to bang on the door and burst in like an uninvited guest to humiliate both the wild woman and her own husband. But on second thought, she realized it was inappropriate. If she stirred up the local neighbors to come watch the spectacle and laugh at them, the others might not care, but she would find herself dragged into an inescapable quagmire of ugly gossip, losing the dignity befitting a teacher.

Weighing the pros and cons, Xu Qi turned away heavily depressed and headed back to school.

That same night inside the braised food shop, Wu Zhenri and Bao Furong argued endlessly over a few central issues:

First, Bao Furong demanded that Wu Zhenri divorce Xu Qi, accusing him of playing both sides. Wu Zhenri claimed he was ready to cut ties with that "boat" altogether, but Bao Furong refused to let the matter rest. She threatened that she would use her pregnancy and the medical examination certificate to make a scene at his wife's school. This was a difficult mess to clean up, and Wu Zhenri genuinely feared she would resort to this tactic.

Second, Wu Zhenri kept urging Bao Furong to abort the child in her womb, promising that if only she got rid of it, he would do whatever she asked.

Bao Furong turned the tables on him: "You divorce your wife first, and then I'll have the abortion. Otherwise, no way."

Wu Zhenri countered, "You get rid of the baby in your belly first, and then I'll get a divorce."

In truth, both of them were harboring their own selfish calculations. Eventually, exhausted from the bickering, Wu Zhenri insincerely agreed to get the divorce first. Bao Furong declared, "You get the divorce in the morning, and I'll have the abortion in the afternoon. After all, this child isn't mine alone."

This argument did not reach a true conclusion; it was merely temporarily placated.

Filled with unease and vexation, Wu Zhenri slept poorly through the night and struggled to wake up in the morning.

Someone outside was knocking on the shop door, calling out to buy braised dishes. Bao Furong answered, telling the customer to wait a moment. Then she shoved the sleeping Wu Zhenri on the bed, roaring in a low voice, "Are you still not getting up and out of here? Remember to keep your word from yesterday! Don't you dare come back to see me without that divorce certificate..."