Chapter 73

Chapter 73

Pei Yuming threw the document at her. “Read it yourself!”

Bai Xue fumbled to catch it, then opened it with trembling hands. Guiltily, she glanced at Pei Yuming again before lowering her head to read.

Only then did Pei Yucheng realize what was going on. So his older brother hadn’t really been angry at him. He edged along the wall until he was near Bai Xue, then craned his neck to peek at the document.

“This…” Bai Xue’s hands shook when she saw the final test result. “This isn’t real.”

“It’s right there in black and white, and you’re still going to deny it?” Pei Yuming found it unbelievable. “I don’t want to argue with you about whether it’s real. I just want you to tell me whose child Xiaobei really is. Is she Lu Dong’s?”

“No!” Bai Xue denied it without even thinking. “What are you talking about? How could Xiaobei possibly be Lu Dong’s daughter?”

“Is that so?” Pei Yuming didn’t believe her at all. He shot back, “Then I’ll call Lu Dong right now and have him come over. We can all go to the hospital and do another test.”

Bai Xue said nothing, only watched Pei Yuming warily.

Pei Yuming took his phone straight out of his pocket. From the look of it, he really was about to call Lu Dong.

“Don’t!”

Bai Xue suddenly rushed over to snatch his phone, but Pei Yuming lifted it high out of her reach. Then his left hand clamped around her thin neck, and he roared through gritted teeth, “Tell me! Is it Lu Dong or not?”

In his rage, Pei Yuming didn’t hold back at all. Bai Xue’s entire face quickly turned red. Seeing things were getting out of hand, Pei Yucheng rushed over to stop him.

“Big Brother!” Pei Yucheng pried at his hand with all his strength. “Let go! If you keep choking her, you’ll kill her!”

Pei Yuming shoved his brother away with his other hand. “Get out of my way. No one gets to interfere in this! I have to know the truth today. Worst case, I die with her!”

Bai Xue was clearly reaching her limit. She clawed desperately at Pei Yuming’s arm with her nails, leaving bloody red scratches across his skin, but Pei Yuming didn’t seem to feel a thing.

Su Jin, who had been standing to the side, could no longer watch. She walked over and lightly pushed Pei Yuming, saying softly, “Yuming, if you strangle her to death now, you’ll never hear the truth.”

It was such a light sentence, yet somehow Pei Yuming, furious beyond reason, actually heard it. He slowly loosened his grip, and Bai Xue collapsed to the floor like a puppet with its strings cut.

A rush of air flooded back into her lungs. Bai Xue lay on the floor coughing so hard it was as if she would cough up a lung.

She coughed for nearly two minutes before a bit of color returned to her face.

“Heh.”

Once Bai Xue stopped coughing, she suddenly laughed without warning. Her head was lowered, her shoulders shaking. Then her laughter grew louder and louder, more and more chilling.

Pei Yucheng was closest to her. Frightened, he quickly backed up two steps, staring at her with wide eyes as he called tentatively, “Sister-in-law? Are… are you okay?”

Perhaps she had realized there was no point in denying it anymore. Bai Xue lifted her head and looked at Pei Yuming with a reckless, all-or-nothing stare. Flatly, she said, “So what if she is Lu Dong’s?”

Perhaps he hadn’t expected her to admit it so quickly. Pei Yuming had finally heard the answer he wanted, yet strangely, he fell silent.

He stood frozen for a long time. Under his brother’s shocked gaze, he murmured, “You admitted it. You actually admitted it…”

Bai Xue used the TV cabinet to push herself up from the floor. Fearless now, she said, “Yes, I admit it. Xiaobei is the child Lu Dong and I had together. What are you going to do about it? Are you going to kill me?”

“You!” Pei Yuming lunged at Bai Xue again, but Pei Yucheng, who had been watching him closely the entire time, blocked him head-on. At the same time, he kept signaling to Bai Xue with his eyes. “Sister-in-law, stop talking! Hurry up and go! Do you actually want to get beaten?”
“Fight, then. You think I’m scared of him?” Bai Xue’s temper flared too. She rolled up the sleeves of her pajamas, looking as if she really meant to square off with Pei Yuming.

But Pei Yuming wasn’t nearly as fired up as expected. After that one furious roar, he seemed to deflate at the speed of light.

He shoved his younger brother aside and staggered backward onto the sofa. As luck would have it, he sat right in the puddle of watermelon juice. But at that moment, his heart was so full of grief that he had no attention to spare for whether the seat beneath him was wet. Even if there had been a row of steel nails sticking up there, he probably could have sat down on them without changing expression.

“Why?” Pei Yuming lowered his head and covered his face. It was hard to tell whether he was crying, and his voice came out weak and hollow. “Why would you do this to me? What did I ever do to you that you had to trample all over me like this?”

“I trampled all over you?” Bai Xue looked as if she had just heard the funniest thing in the world. “Pei Yuming, how do you even have the nerve to say that? Have you forgotten? Who was the one who insisted on having this child? Who brought the whole family over, one after another, to lecture me into it? Who forced me to quit my permanent job? It was you. You were the one who insisted I give birth to Xiaobei. Fine, I gave birth to her. And now you’re turning around and blaming me?”

Pei Yuming had no idea whose comprehension skills were failing here. He actually felt as if he couldn’t understand a word Bai Xue was saying.

He stared at Bai Xue in shock, trying to recover his own brain. “Is this about whether or not you gave birth? You cheated with Lu Dong not long after we got married, got pregnant with his child, gave birth to her, and then raised her in our family for eighteen years. She calls me Dad, but she isn’t my daughter. Don’t you owe me an explanation? At the very least, shouldn’t you apologize? How can you do something so absurd and still turn around and question me like you’re in the right? Bai Xue, how did you become like this? Do you not have a heart?”

“What is a ‘heart,’ exactly?” Bai Xue looked contemptuously at the husband she had lived with for twenty years. “What, after all these years together, you only now want to understand me? Don’t you think it’s a little late?”

“Stop changing the subject!” Her indifferent tone lit Pei Yuming’s anger all over again, and his voice rose before he realized it.

“I’m really not.” Bai Xue spread her hands, her expression even carrying a hint of innocence. “Lao Pei, what explanation do you want to hear? Have you forgotten why we got together in the first place? You liked my beauty, and I liked your bright future. That was why we hit it off. From the start, we were each taking what we needed. Otherwise, why would you dump Su Jin and come to me? Don’t tell me it was true love. You wouldn’t even believe that yourself if you said it out loud.”

“You, you, you!” Pei Yuming was so furious he could hardly get the words out. Mortified and enraged, he snapped, “Nonsense!”

“What, are you trying to say you actually truly loved me?” Bai Xue said with a sneer. “Then why haven’t I felt it at all after all these years? And you know, I’ve realized men like you are very interesting. Whenever I try to talk to you about feelings, you tell me to be rational. But when I discuss the facts as they are, your face changes, and suddenly you want to talk about feelings. How ridiculous.”

“But none of that is a reason for you to cheat and deceive him for so many years.” Su Jin glanced at Pei Yuming, who was already on the verge of collapse, with heartache in her eyes. At last, she couldn’t help cutting in.

Bai Xue looked Su Jin up and down, then said disdainfully, “What right do you have to stand here and condemn me on his behalf?”