Chapter 32
Chapter 32
“Divorce! Divorce him and go live with him!” Pei Yuming grabbed Bai Xue and shoved her toward Lu Dong, nearly causing her to fall before his younger brother caught her.
“Big Brother, calm down!” Pei Yucheng urged. “Sister-in-law just got possessed by a ghost for a moment; those were angry words. How can you take them seriously?”
Bai Xue didn’t refute this. In fact, she had already regretted it the moment she said it. Not the part about cursing Pei Yuming, but the bit about divorce.
In truth, even if she hadn’t discovered the secrets in Lu Dong’s phone today, she had never expected to divorce Pei Yuming and marry Lu Dong.
For one, Lu Dong could never divorce and marry her. More importantly, if Lu Dong divorced, he would lose everything from the Su Family.
Although Bai Xue resented Lu Dong for deceiving her feelings, compared to a middle-aged man’s sincerity, the money she could get from him was far more tangible. Even if Lu Dong wanted to take risks, she wouldn’t agree.
Their fleeting affair could end at any moment. No matter how good Lu Dong was to her, he couldn’t match the stability of the home she had built with Pei Yuming.
If she were eighteen or twenty-eight, she could simply toss her hands and walk away gracefully. But a woman over forty, with no stable job or income after a divorce, even if still beautiful, would find it nearly impossible to find another man like Pei Yuming-someone with a respectable job and a high income.
Bai Xue might be hot-tempered, but she wasn’t stupid. She could clearly weigh the pros and cons.
As things settled down on their side, Lu Dong also recovered. He stood up, adjusted his clothes, and quietly edged closer to Su Jin.
Su Jin still seemed dazed from the successive blows, her gaze wandering among the people in the room, looking at whoever spoke, her wooden expression almost pitiable.
“Honey,” Lu Dong said gently, “let’s go home. I’ll explain everything slowly when we get back. Whatever you want to know, I’ll tell you. Whether you want a divorce or a separation, I’ll go along with it. Okay?”
Su Jin glanced at him, unmoving, but didn’t refuse either.
But Pei Yuming on the other side was not having it. Why should he leave? Who gave him permission to leave? Until all of today’s matters were clarified, no one was leaving this room!
Under the curious gazes of the others, he walked to the kitchen, skillfully pulled out a knife, then blocked the doorway, warning darkly, “Tonight, without my permission, anyone who dares step out this door, don’t blame me for being rude.”
Lu Dong, who stood closest, gaped in shock, looking at him as if he were an alien.
He even secretly pinched his own thigh to make sure that everything happening wasn’t a dream, then finally took a deep breath and said, “Pei Yuming, I admit both things I did were truly despicable. I apologize to you. You can ask for any compensation or emotional damages, or you can hit me a few more times-I’ll take it, I swear I won’t hit back. But taking out a knife, isn’t that going too far?”
“Yeah, Big Brother, let’s talk this out calmly. That knife is too scary,” Pei Yucheng also came over to persuade. “I think Dean Lu’s attitude is quite sincere. How about you two sit down and have a proper talk? After all, you’ve known each other for so many years. Do you really want to end up with a broken family and friends going their separate ways?”
“You shut up!”
Pei Yuming was furious beyond reason. At a time like this, his closest younger brother was actually still speaking up for Lu Dong-didn’t he see how much he was hurting?
Seeing his older brother truly enraged, Pei Yucheng immediately sealed his lips tight, but his eyeballs couldn’t help darting around. Even when locking eyes with Lu Dong, the corner of his mouth curled with a hint of helplessness.
Lu Dong of course knew exactly why he was putting on that face, feeling nothing but contempt. At the same time, he harbored a grudge over being held back earlier. Watching the two brothers stand off against each other, he thought to himself, if he didn’t add fuel to the fire now, then when? Was he really going to obediently follow Pei Yuming’s orders and clear everything up here before going back? If that happened, then his marriage with Su Jin truly would be beyond saving.
So Lu Dong spoke, but not to Pei Yuming, but to his brother.
“Ah Cheng, since things have turned out like this, I won’t be transferring the 20,000 yuan you asked for yesterday. Don’t come asking me for money again. My relationship with Bai Xue ends here. I promise you today, I will never have any contact with your family again.”
The first half of that was for Pei Yuming’s ears, and the second half was for Su Jin.
Sure enough, as soon as he finished, Pei Yuming exploded. He strode forward, grabbed his brother by the collar, and shouted, his face red: “Do you have no shame at all? How dare you ask for money from the man who slept with your sister-in-law? Do you have no self-respect? Aren’t you afraid of being mocked?”
Just then, Bai Xue also rushed over. She had never imagined that she would one day be used as a tool by a good-for-nothing. Although her affair with Lu Dong was consensual, with Pei Yucheng pulling this behind their backs, Lu Dong giving him money was no different from paying for her body. She instantly felt utterly humiliated.
She pointed at Pei Yucheng and cursed: “Oh, so you’re scheming against me now! You dare spend this money earned from such a heartless act? Aren’t you afraid it’ll shorten your life?”
Under the combined onslaught from his brother and sister-in-law, Pei Yucheng was momentarily stunned. His older brother had him by the collar, and though his face was red from the choking grip, he used all his strength to pull away. He was truly afraid that his brother might, in a careless moment, plunge the sharp blade in his hand into him.
Just then, a knock came abruptly at the door, followed by an elderly voice from outside. It was Pei Yuming’s father, Pei Xianyu. He called out, “Bai Xue, open the door for me!”
Hearing his father’s voice, Pei Yuming’s grip loosened, and his brother broke free. But after breaking free, instead of going to open the door-perhaps because Pei Yuming was still blocking the way-and without running into the living room, he somehow found the nerve to directly reach out and try to snatch the sharp knife from his brother’s hand.
Of course, Pei Yuming wasn’t going to let him have it, but he was afraid of hurting his brother in the struggle, so he bent his wrist, trying to point the blade away from him. What he didn’t notice was that by turning it away from his brother, the blade was now aimed at himself. Meanwhile, Pei Yucheng, seeing he couldn’t overpower his older brother, immediately chickened out. He abandoned the attempt, letting go of the knife without any warning.
As a result, due to inertia, the blade stabbed into Pei Yuming’s neck. Blood instantly gushed out. Pei Yuming stared in shock at his brother, watching him move to support him, but he only felt the warmth rapidly draining from his body. At first he felt a tearing pain in his neck, but then it went numb, and he felt nothing.
So this is what it feels like to be near death. He stretched out his blood-soaked hand, using all his remaining strength to clutch his brother’s arm, and weakly repeated: “Why? Why…”
It took Pei Yucheng a while to make out what his older brother was saying. He didn’t know if he was asking about this act of hurting him, or about him asking Lu Dong for money. The first question had no answer, but the second did. After hesitating for a moment, he leaned close to his brother’s ear and sobbed: “Big brother, I didn’t do it on purpose. I didn’t want to be looked down upon for asking them for money, but I lost nearly a million yuan in stocks. I didn’t dare tell you, so I had to find a way myself… I really wasn’t trying to deceive you…”