Chapter 670: Showing No Mercy

Gentry Chapman cowered in fear. He was most afraid of his younger sister getting angry, and he quickly tried to placate her. "I... I won’t think about it anymore."

Amanda Chapman snorted and shot him a look. "If you say it, you mean it. Don’t just say you won’t think about it while you’re still doing it in your head. If I find out, I’ll beat you to death!"

As she spoke, she raised her fist. Gentry Chapman quickly shook his head, but he felt a pang of fear. ’My sister is like a mind reader; she knows everything I’m thinking.’ He had, in fact, been planning to think about it in secret.

Tang Xiaonan found this a bit funny. Only Amanda Chapman could keep Gentry Chapman in line. But Gentry really was too honest and soft-hearted. He needed Amanda to keep him in check; otherwise, he’d be easily taken advantage of.

Brian Chapman was still kowtowing and begging for forgiveness, his forehead already swollen. Phoebe Thorne watched him coldly, feeling not a ripple of emotion. "Go home. Don’t come back here again. Gentry will stay with me. I don’t need your child support either."

"Gentry is my son! He belongs in the Chapman family! Phoebe Thorne, don’t take it too far!" Brian Chapman’s expression changed in an instant. She wasn’t leaving him a single one of their three children. He was truly going to be all alone.

"So Gentry can starve and freeze with you? Brian Chapman, you useless piece of trash, you can’t even support yourself, and you think you can raise a son? Let me tell you, looking like the beggar you are right now, I could go to court and win custody of Gentry. You just try me!"

Phoebe Thorne was full of confidence now. Preston Thorne had told her that as soon as the application for the clothing factory was approved, his second son—her second cousin—would return to the village after his military service to lead the village-run factory.

She would be one of the factory’s first workers. Although a village enterprise didn’t have the prestige of a state-owned one, Phoebe Thorne had faith in herself. The money she earned would definitely be no less than a state-owned enterprise worker’s, maybe even several times more!

Take her second brother, Frederick Thorne, for example. His salary wasn’t considered low, but it was only forty-two yuan a month. Right now, she could easily earn at least five or six yuan a day with casual work. Even at five yuan a day, she could make her brother’s monthly salary in just eight days. Plus, she could look after her children at the same time. Big factories didn’t allow you to bring kids to work, but a village enterprise was all relatives. It was easier to talk things out, and people would even help look after the kids. There was much more of a human touch.

Money gave Phoebe Thorne limitless confidence. Even without Brian Chapman’s wages, she could support her three children with her own two hands, and they would live even better than before.

Brian Chapman’s face turned ugly. He knew Phoebe Thorne was right. If it really went to a court ruling, he wasn’t earning a single penny right now; there was no way the court would award him custody of his eldest son. But he couldn’t accept it!

He had come today to bring Phoebe Thorne home, not to give away his eldest son.

"Phoebe, I know I haven’t done right by you, and I’m sorry for how I treated you before. Please give me a chance to turn over a new leaf. For the children’s sake... Gentry and Amanda must want our family to be together. Amanda, your dad’s right, isn’t he?"

Brian Chapman looked at his daughter expectantly. ’She must have missed me this past month.’ He was still confident about that much.

But—

"I don’t. Things are fine now."

Amanda Chapman answered without a moment’s hesitation, her tone firm and final. She only glanced at Brian Chapman, her expression placid, but her tightly clenched fists showed that she was anything but calm inside.

But she was speaking from the heart. To her, the Chapman family wasn’t a warm harbor but an ice cellar where she was exploited. She had lived every day walking on eggshells, not daring to eat too much or slack off. The slightest displeasure would earn her a beating and a scolding from her grandmother, and her father never stood up for her. In fact, he would join her grandmother in scolding her.