Chapter Sixty: Pouring Salt on the Wound

After washing up, Wu Zhenri left his home. He did not dare to go to the school to discuss the divorce with his wife; instead, he packed his luggage, gathered his travel expenses, and prepared to take a bus to the Northwest, where he had once interned, to clear his mind.

On his way to the station, he sent a text message to Xu Qi, claiming he was away on business and would not return for ten to fifteen days.

Not long after Wu Zhenri stepped out of his shop, a female customer walked up to the counter. Instead of buying any braised food, she smiled and looked at Bao Furong, saying, "I am from Yulin Town in the neighboring county. We are from the same place."

Bao Furong was currently free and was using a razor knife to scrape hair off a piece of raw pig's head destined for the braising pot. Hearing this introduction, a sudden sense of warmth welled up inside her. She put down her work and asked, "Is there something you need?"

"Yes." The female customer glanced at the shop entrance to ensure no outsiders were around, then continued, "My surname is Liu, and my full name is Liu Zhilan. Both your mom and dad know me well." Hearing this, Bao Furong gestured for her to enter the shop and sit on a stool against the wall.

Bao Furong went into the back room to pour a cup of tea and handed it to her.

Before Liu Zhilan could take a firm hold of it, the cup slipped, spilling tea all over her trousers. Even more embarrassing was that the ceramic cup hit the hard cement floor and shattered into several pieces.

"It doesn't matter," Bao Furong said. "I'll pour you another cup."

"I'm not thirsty. I'm so sorry." Liu Zhilan looked around for a broom and dustpan to clean it up. Bao Furong said, "You're a guest, how could I let you do that?" She walked over to the corridor beside the inner room, retrieved a broom and dustpan, and began to tidy up.

Liu Zhilan stepped aside and, noticing that Bao Furong seemed somewhat unable to bend her waist properly, stepped forward to help.

In the end, Bao Furong walked out to the shop, bought a bottle of mineral water from the adjacent grocery store, handed it to Liu Zhilan, and said, "Drink this." Liu Zhilan declined, saying she wasn't thirsty, but finding it hard to refuse completely, she took it anyway, placed it aside, and sat back down on her original chair. She said to Bao Furong, "Do you know Wu Haoshuang from Yulin Town?"

"I know him," Bao Furong replied. "He's a young pork vendor. I even bought a pig's head from his stall to make braised food!" As she spoke, she picked up the razor knife and said to Liu Zhilan, "Auntie Liu, please take this knife back to Wu Haoshuang for me and thank him on my behalf. I don't have time to go back to Yulin Town right now."

"A razor knife is worth very little. Since he didn't ask you to return it, you might as well keep it as his gift, especially since you frequently braise pig heads and still need it." With that, Liu Zhilan steered the conversation to the main point. "Xiao Bao, I didn't come here for any other reason than to bring you a message."

"What kind of message?" Bao Furong put the razor knife back on the corner of the counter and stared at her, asking.

Wu Haoshuang has romantic feelings for you, and he specifically entrusted me to act as a matchmaker. Liu Zhilan laid it out plainly. Unexpectedly, Bao Furong touched her slightly protruding abdomen and said, "It's too late! You're telling me too late. I've already found a partner, and I'm already carrying someone else's child in my belly."

Liu Zhilan looked at her closely and, recalling how just moments before she had been unable to squat down to clean up the shattered tea cup fragments, realized she was not lying. With a soft sigh, she stood up and said, "Xiao Bao, I didn't know you were already seeing someone. Since that's the case, I'll be leaving."

After reading the text message sent by Wu Zhenri, Xu Qi felt restless and agitated. She did not believe Wu Zhenri was away on business as the message claimed. She even suspected he might have gone off to play around in another city with that wild woman, or perhaps he hadn't left at all and was trapped at the braised food shop, entangled with that wild woman and unable to break away.

Plagued by various doubts, Xu Qi left the school at five o'clock in the afternoon, headed into the city, and went straight to the braised food shop on that street.

She saw Bao Furong cutting braised meat with a razor knife, but Wu Zhenri was nowhere to be seen. Could he be busy in the back room of the braised food shop?

Xu Qi immediately dialed Wu Zhenri's mobile phone, figuring that if he were here, she would hear that familiar ringtone. As she made the call, she heard no ringtone, but the call went through, and the person on the other end answered: "Qiqi, is something the matter?"

"Zhenri, nothing is the matter. I just wanted to ask where you are." Standing in front of the braised food shop, Xu Qi was on the phone. Wu Zhenri said over the line, "Didn't I send you a text message? I'm out doing business."

Xu Qi uttered a terse "fine" and hung up the phone. Little did she expect that the moment she had spoken the name "Zhenri" just before hanging up, it had caught the attention of Bao Furong inside the shop. Bao Furong put down her work, picked up her phone from the side, tapped the digital keys rapidly, and connected a call. Pressing it to her ear with a furrowed brow, she demanded fiercely, "Wu Zhenri, which wild woman's call did you just answer?"

The phone was hung up instantly, perhaps because Wu Zhenri on the other end realized that Xu Qi's call had accidentally been discovered by Bao Furong, forcing him to maintain silence.

Right then, Bao Furong dialed Wu Zhenri's mobile phone repeatedly, only to find it switched off. Having nowhere to vent her frustration, she stared coldly at Xu Qi, who was still standing at the shop entrance, and demanded, "Who are you to Wu Zhenri?"

"I am his legally wedded wife, Xu Qi. Didn't you know?" Xu Qi regained her composure and said as calmly as she could, "I happen to want to have a word with you."

"Fine! Let's talk, then." With that, Bao Furong picked up the razor knife used for cutting braised meat and slammed it down onto the cutting board with a loud clatter.

"In that case, you'd better close the shop door so that when we get excited and start arguing, the neighbors and passing strangers won't gather around to watch the spectacle." As she spoke, Xu Qi stepped into the braised food shop, where an unappealing, pungent aroma of spicy braised food made her cough.

Bao Furong snorted and slammed the door shut heavily, plunging the interior of the shop into sudden gloom.

Bao Furong switched on the light and continued coldly, "Say whatever you have to say." Initially, Xu Qi had remained standing, but seeing that Bao Furong did not invite her to sit, she unceremoniously took a chair. As it creaked loudly under her weight, it sounded almost like a cry of pain.

Looking at her, Xu Qi said, "I advise you not to act as a third party and disrupt my family. I am Wu Zhenri's legal wife. And you?"

Bao Furong let out a cold laugh, then placed both hands on her slightly rounded abdomen and said, "I advise you to divorce Wu Zhenri quickly, step out of your so-called family, and let Wu Zhenri marry me in grand style. Wouldn't I then become his legal wife?"

"Shut your mouth! Do you think Wu Zhenri would truly want you? Even if he were ensnared by you, would the Wu family ever accept you?" Hitting upon Bao Furong's sore spot, Xu Qi raised her chin and continued, "A woman must have self-respect; otherwise, she will not be respected by others. What do you call that? That's called being cheap!"

"You're the cheap one!" Unable to match the eloquence of Xu Qi, who was a teacher, Bao Furong felt driven to her wits' end. She slapped her slightly rounded belly and shouted, "Do you know? I am already carrying Wu Zhenri's child! This is the crystallization of our love. And you? You usurped my position, yet you come here shamelessly to talk to me and persuade me to leave. Let me tell you, on the strength of this alone, the Wu family will have to accept me whether they want to or not."

This felt like a thunderbolt striking from a clear blue sky. Xu Qi looked at Bao Furong's belly; it was indeed protruding. Faced with the facts, she had no choice but to believe it. Only now did she understand that the reason Bao Furong was so rampant was because Wu Zhenri had sown his sinful seed in her womb.

At that moment, she was trembling with anger and filled with bitter regret, thinking: *Had I known this would happen, I would never have married Wu Zhenri.* Wu Zhenri had deceived her. If Wu Zhenri were present right now, she would rush up and slap him a few times to relieve the burning hatred in her heart from being betrayed.

Seeing that Bao Furong was still triumphantly repeating the words she refused to hear, Xu Qi was provoked to fury. Pointing angrily at Bao Furong's belly, she retorted, "Who knows whose bastard is in your stomach? It might not even be Wu Zhenri's. Looking at your seductive face, you couldn't possibly have entangled just one man."

"Shut your mouth!" Bao Furong roared. These words were like salt sprinkled upon her wounds. Bao Furong was extremely sensitive about her own inglorious past, and Xu Qi's words pierced straight through it. She felt profoundly insulted and decided there was no need to argue whether the child in her belly belonged to Wu Zhenri or not.

Driven to madness, she grabbed the razor knife lying on the braising board, pointed it at Xu Qi, and threatened, "If you dare to utter another word of nonsense, I'll slash you to death."