Chapter 549: Buried Hatred

Old Madam Han was furious when she thought of how these two women had embarrassed her and her family in front of the county magistrate. She raised the broom in her hands and hurled it at Meng Yunhan’s back at once. "You are really good! Why don’t you go to the sky and pluck the stars for me if you are this good? You can even cause a scene in front of the county magistrate! I sure did not know that you had such courage."

Meng Yunhan cowered behind the wooden stool, clutching her arms and rubbing her back every now and then. "Mother! Listen to me..."

"Listen to you?! You almost offended the county magistrate himself!" Old Madam Han’s face was red with anger. "Ruochen, clear-cutting the devil’s teeth channel is such a difficult task that even a fifty-year-old fisherman would not be able to do it and yet she was able to do such a thing. She brought such a proud moment to our family, and what did you do? You actually stood in the middle of the courtyard and tried to steal her limelight and wanted to hand it over to this shameless girl?"

As she spoke, Old Madam Han turned to glare sharply at Han Ziyan, who shrank back in sheer panic, dropping the bowl that she was holding onto the table.

"You are such a foolish woman!" Old Madam Chen spat at Meng Yunhan. "If the county magistrate had taken offence at your actions and had revoked the reward, it would have been ten times more embarrassing. You are lucky that such a thing did not happen, or else I would have skinned you alive. You nearly ruined Ruochen’s hard work, and if that is not all, you wanted to embarrass the entire family by angering the county magistrate?"

"We are lucky that nothing like that happened, or else who knows what the county magistrate would have done. Do you think he is the next-door neighbour of our family whom you can treat as you like?" Old Madam Han was embarrassed to death when she recalled how one of the neighbours had mocked her for choosing two foolish daughters-in-law.

Though that woman did not say anything, it was clear that she was mocking her for being blind in the past.

Everyone looked at Old Madam Han, who was teaching Meng Yunhan a lesson, and no one seemed to be willing to come forward to help Meng Yunhan. Even Han Ziyan, who often promised her mother that she would treat her well and would be filial to her in the future, did not speak up. She sat at the table, frozen with fear, not daring to make a sound. In fact, if she could, Han Ziyan would have hidden in her room until Old Madam Han left. She knew that her grandmother was quite a stern woman, and she would lose her temper at the smallest drop of her hat.

Now that her mother had done such a big thing, it was impossible for her grandmother to leave her alone. Who was it, though? Who told her grandmother that such a thing had happened and that too so soon? They did not even get a chance to come up with a method to deal with this old hag yet! What were they supposed to do now?

Han Xuehan wanted to stop her grandmother from hitting her mother because, no matter what, in her eyes, Meng Yunhan was still her mother, who had given birth to her. But before she could get up, Han Yichen coldly glanced at her and said, "Your grandma is standing up for your sister and teaching your mother a lesson on behalf of all of you. You better sit down and let them deal with this matter."

Upon hearing this, Han Xuehan flushed red. She wanted to say something, but she could not bring herself to say another thing. Though her father did not say anything, it was clear as day that he was upset with her. Han Xuehan’s eyes turned red with grievance. She was only trying to keep the peace at home; was she in the wrong to do it?

Han Ruochen glanced at her sister, whose eyes were red and sighed inwardly. Her sister was truly a mess; she didn’t know what was going on with Han Xuehan, even though she was treated so harshly by their mother and was sold off to a far of land and was still standing up for Meng Yunhan. She did not say anything and instead turned to look at her grandmother and felt her heart soften. At least her grandmother was willing to stand up for her.

Even Han Beijiang was feeling very good. See? His elder sister often used to tell him that sooner or later their mother would get her comeuppance for treating him so harshly, and she was right. Look at this: his mother was getting beaten up just like how she had beaten him in the past. On the other hand, Han Xuehan was scared silly when she saw how angry Old Madam Han was. She was quite arrogant before because she had Meng Yunhan as her backing, but now that her backing was crumbling down, how was she supposed to stand up right now?

At the breakfast table, the atmosphere became extremely tense.

Meng Yunhan sobbed, wiping her tears and dirt from her cheeks as she cowered against the wall. "Mother, please...I was just thinking about the household...we don’t even have enough money to eat. Look at what we are eating. I am the only one taking care of the expense. How can we survive like this?"

"Thinking about the household?" Old Madam Han scoffed, dropping the end of the broom onto the floorboards with a heavy thud. "My son has been taking care of this house for years! He even worked himself to the bones to save every extra penny that he had earned and managed to save ten thousand yuan for an emergency. Who was the one who wasted those ten thousand yuan? Who was the one who stole that money, causing our family to go into debt? How dare you even think about the fifty thousand yuan that Ruochen was rewarded with?"

"Keeping that money with a beggar is a much better option than leaving it with you. At least with the beggar, we will still be able to have some hope that we can find the money but with you? It is impossible! There will be none left!"