Chapter 167
Chapter 167
The day Zeng Xiao married into Tu Family Village was bright and sunny.
Though to call it a marriage would be generous. It was more like a sale.
She had no bridal gown, no wedding sedan to come fetch her, and no dowry of any kind.
Her father had two strings of cash hanging from his waist and a smug look on his face. Without another word, he grabbed her by the braid and dragged her out the door.
Her younger sister, Zeng Qiao, tried to help her, but their mother shoved her back into the house and locked the door.
The neighbors pointed and whispered.
But this was a family matter. Even those who knew the truth only dared to rage in silence.
And so, under all those strange stares, Zeng Xiao was dragged by her father for four or five li, stumbling the whole way.
She watched Yunxia Town grow farther and farther behind her. Clouds like burning fire hung at the edge of the sky, yet her heart was strangely calm.
When they arrived at Tu Family Village, there was likewise a crowd of villagers waiting to watch the spectacle.
In their eyes was gloating, and contempt as well.
“Who would’ve thought the tofu seller’s daughter would be this pretty?”
“That fool from Laoliu’s family really got a bargain.”
“I heard their family has another daughter, her twin at that. Why don’t you spend two strings of cash too and buy one back?”
Mocking laughter rose from the crowd. Set against the smugness on Father Zeng’s face, it only felt all the more ironic.
Just like that, Zeng Xiao was dragged all the way to Tu Laoliu’s home.
At the time, the Tu Family was also beating and cursing their son, Tu Wancai.
A twenty-five-year-old man, unwilling to take a wife, was being chased by his father with a stick from the back of the house to the front.
In the end, he even crashed into Zeng Xiao, who was standing at the doorway, knocking her to the ground.
Roars of laughter rang out from every direction once more.
In that instant, Zeng Xiao had no time to care about the pain. All she saw was the revulsion written across Tu Wancai’s face.
And so she entered the Tu Family’s door and became a person Tu Laoliu had bought with “two strings of cash.”
Everyone in Tu Family Village knew it.
So, they believed they had every right to keep her from eating at the table.
Every day before dawn, she had to get up to face a mountain of chores: washing clothes, cooking, cleaning the house, and tending to all the chickens, ducks, and livestock in the backyard.
When she finished all that, she still could not rest for even a moment, because there was farm work waiting in the fields.
But none of that truly counted as suffering. Back at home, life had been the same. The only difference was that back then, her younger sister Zeng Qiao had been by her side.
Of course, her sister would still come to Tu Family Village at dusk to look for her.
Zeng Qiao said, “Mother is sick, and there’s no one to mind the tofu shop at home. Father probably won’t marry me off for now.”
Then she blinked those big eyes of hers and looked at Zeng Xiao worriedly. “Sister, are you doing all right here? Have they bullied you?”
Zeng Xiao answered almost without thinking, “Everything is fine here. Don’t worry.”
Only then did Zeng Qiao relax. She added, “So… getting married isn’t necessarily a bad thing after all.”
It was as if she had found a new way out. Even her eyes brightened.
Looking at her sister’s profile, Zeng Xiao could not bear to shatter her dream. She only smiled gently.
“That’s right. It isn’t too bad. In the future, Ah Qiao will definitely find a good man who loves and protects you.”
Ever since they were little, the two sisters’ wish had been to escape that tofu shop.
Now, the elder sister had “escaped” in this way, and the younger sister had found something to hope for too.
And perhaps it was good to have that bit of hope.
Zeng Xiao’s own hope was these brief reunions.
Once she returned to the Tu Family, life turned gray again.
Tu Wancai loathed women and refused to touch her. Even when they were forced to share the same room, he would not allow Zeng Xiao to sleep on the bed at night.
When she first arrived, it was September. With no bedding, the late nights were still barely bearable.
But after another month or two, frost began to form, and it was so cold she could not sleep at all.
Even so, Tu Wancai showed her no pity. Her mother-in-law, meanwhile, blamed her all the more for her belly showing no signs of movement.
She had too little to eat, too little to wear, and could not sleep, yet there was still a pile of farm work waiting for her.
As the Tu Family treated her more and more harshly, the onlookers outside never settled down either.
Whenever she passed by, the men would fix their malicious eyes on her body.
They would trade lewd remarks among themselves. “Tsk. That little wife has skin as tender as tofu. I hear she’s only Fourteen.”
The women, too, would gather while washing clothes and gossip loudly.
“Do you think she can’t bear children? It’s been more than half a year, and her belly still hasn’t shown a thing.”
“Look at that unlucky face of hers. She definitely can’t give birth to a son…”
Zeng Xiao could pretend she did not hear those ugly words.
She had thought that as long as she endured it, everything would pass.
But she had forgotten a truth she had understood long ago: endurance would not make those who bullied her stop.
On the contrary, it would only make her suffer even greater humiliation.
Not long after, her parents-in-law used the excuse that the Tu Family had to have descendants. They pinned her down on the bed, stripped off her clothes, and forced their son, Tu Wancai, to consummate the marriage with her.
Zeng Xiao screamed in terror, but her mother-in-law clamped a hand over her mouth.
Once. Twice. Three times.
Zeng Xiao had no choice but to fight back.
Her temperament changed drastically. She began to make scenes, curse, and even go mad and hit people.
This only made the onlookers even happier.
Because she was defying her husband’s family, they now had even more reason to point fingers at her without restraint, even to condemn and humiliate her.
Not long after, Zeng Xiao felt movement in her belly.
When the Tu Family became violent again, she fought back with all her strength. She cursed Tu Wancai and declared that even if she died, she would never give birth to a child for them.
Tu Wancai already loathed her. When he heard that, the fury in his heart could no longer be suppressed, and he punched and kicked her savagely.
Seeing this, the two elders of the Tu Family not only failed to stop him, they turned their backs instead, tacitly allowing it to happen.
Even as Zeng Xiao was beaten, she refused to take back her words. That made Tu Wancai lose his reason completely. He showed no mercy at all, and in the end, he beat her to death while she was still alive.
Only when the two elders of the Tu Family realized their son had struck too hard did they understand that something was wrong.
But by the time they reacted, Zeng Xiao was already on her last breath.
In a panic, they called the village physician over to save her. He failed to save her, but he discovered a shocking truth.
Zeng Xiao had been pregnant, and she was dead.
Just as she herself had said, even if she died, she would not give birth to a child for them.
To cover up the truth, the two elders of the Tu Family simply decided to see it through to the end. They gave the physician a sum of money to keep his mouth shut.
After that, they staged Zeng Xiao’s death to look like she had hanged herself.
They were thinking that, by doing this, they might even be able to get back half of the “bride price” they had given the Zeng family that day. It would not count as a loss.
And in the end, things did indeed go as they wished.
Zeng Xiao died.
Only then did she learn that after death, people still had souls.
Because the resentment she carried before death was too deep, she became a wrongful ghost, and even the Underworld Runner would not ferry her away.
Her soul drifted around her corpse, watching coldly as the Tu Family members came and went. Later, the authorities arrived, and so did her parents.
They were still arguing fiercely over those two strings of cash. No one cared how she had actually died.
Zeng Xiao sneered. From beginning to end, it was still about those two strings of cash.
She did not want to listen. Her soul drifted away, only for her to spot her younger sister, Zeng Qiao, in the crowd at a glance.
She could also sense that her death had struck A-Qiao terribly hard.
Watching her sister suddenly stumble away, Zeng Xiao wanted to follow her, only to discover that her soul was trapped inside Tu Family Village and could not leave at all.
And just then, a Daoist brushed past Zeng Qiao and entered Tu Family Village.