Chapter 49: Settling the Score

Seeing her attitude, Li Xiangqin walked straight up to Zhang Jianguo and delivered two stinging slaps.

"You damn piece of filth, look at your wife! Does she think she can just devour me?"

Stunned by the sudden assault, Zhang Jianguo clutched his face and looked at her in disbelief.

"Mom, I didn't do anything! Why are you hitting me?"

"Your wife is disrespectful to her elders, so she deserves a beating. But since she wasn't born by me, it's her parents' failure to discipline her. Since you are her man, it is only natural that you take the punishment on her behalf."

Zhang Jianguo: "..."

"What right do you have to talk about my parents? What did they ever do to you?" Zhang Yanli's eyes were filled with rage; this old woman was too hateful.

"You were raised by your parents. If there's a problem, and you don't blame them, who else are you going to use as a scapegoat?" Li Xiangqin looked at her with a mocking gaze.

"A child's lack of discipline is the fault of the father. The old man and I failed to raise our son well, and we raised a pack of blood-sucking ingrates. I'll swallow that bitterness myself. But I must admire your parents—they raised a fine daughter who is entirely devoted to her natal family. Since your natal family is so wonderful, why did you come looking for me?"

Zhang Yanli: "..."

The old hag had been waiting for this.

"Zhang Jianguo, let's go! Your mother doesn't welcome us. If you keep staying here with that thick skin, you're just asking for humiliation."

Zhang Jianguo had just adjusted his glasses on the bridge of his nose, but the shout from his wife made his hands tremble.

"Mom, what are you doing? I heard the third child and his wife had upset you again, so I came to check on you. You're scolding us without even knowing the facts. You're ruining this family."

"You damn piece of filth, *I'm* ruining it? Are those two holes on your face just for show? Or did you swallow all those years of schooling? Can you not see the truth, or can you just not tell right from wrong? One by one, you all crawl onto my back to suck my blood. You've worked me to death, and you're still not satisfied? The comfortable life you enjoy now was obtained by exploiting me. What, am I not allowed to quit? If I were to finish you all off, my only regret would be that I didn't realize it sooner and take the old man down with me."

Zhang Jianguo fell silent, a flash of guilt crossing his eyes. He struggled to maintain his smile.

"Mom~ look what you're doing. If you want to rest for a while, just let us know..."

Before he could finish, Zhang Yanli snapped, questioning him sharply, "As an elder, it is your natural duty to sacrifice for your children and look after your grandchildren. That's what elders in other families do. Why shouldn't you?"

"You should go roll away and ask your own parents that! You weren't born from a crack in a stone... It's a good thing you weren't born by me, otherwise, I would have slapped you across the face long ago."

Li Xiangqin rolled her wrists. Terrified, Zhang Jianguo immediately took a step back, watching her warily.

"You are Zhang Jianguo's mother. Since I married into the Zhang family, you must help me watch the children. That is your obligation."

Having dropped the facade, Zhang Yanli stepped forward, glaring at Li Xiangqin with a fierce tone.

Li Xiangqin narrowed her eyes and, with lightning speed, raised her hand and delivered two resounding slaps to her face.

"To hell with your 'musts'! You're ungrateful. I didn't want to hit you, but you just had to force my hand."

Zhang Yanli's face tilted to the side. It took her a moment to realize she had been hit, and then she let out a wail of fury.

"Ahhh! You old hag! You dare hit me? I'll kill you!"

*Waaaah... she's breaking her word! She said she wouldn't hit me!*

Zhang Yanli lunged forward like a wild animal, trying to tear at Li Xiangqin's hair, but Li Xiangqin anticipated the move, dodged, grabbed her hair, and slammed her toward the ground.

Unable to bear the pain in her scalp, Zhang Yanli let out a cry and bowed her head, losing all sense of direction.

Seizing the opportunity, Li Xiangqin sat on her, gripped her hair, and delivered two more slaps. Zhang Yanli screamed in pain, completely abandoning any sense of dignity.

"You filthy old corpse! I curse you to have no one to bury you when you die! May you rot in the mud..."

Zhang Jianguo watched the two women scuffling on the ground in a daze. It wasn't until the two children rushed over to strike at Li Xiangqin that he snapped out of it and rushed to break them up.

"Mom, stop hitting her! Let go! The children are watching!"

"Let go of my mother! I'll beat this old woman to death!"

"Ahhh... my hair! Zhang Jianguo, you're not a man! You're just standing there watching this old hag bully me!" Zhang Yanli shrieked, her hands clawing wildly.

"Mom, wife, both of you, let go! What kind of family fights like this?"

In his frantic attempt to mediate, Zhang Jianguo was accidentally scratched and clawed by both women, leaving several bloody marks on his arms.

"Mom, why are you fighting? Sister-in-law, how could you lay a hand on Mom?" The fourth son pushed the door open to see the chaos and rushed in to help.

By the time they finally separated the two, both sides were a mess. Zhang Yanli's hair was disheveled, her face was swollen and red, and her eyes were bloodshot. Even while being held by Zhang Jianguo, she struggled, trying to rush forward for revenge.

The two children stood guard on either side, glaring at her with hatred, ready to lunge and bite at any moment.

Li Xiangqin, with her ear-length short hair, was relatively composed, though her arms were covered in scratch marks and her forearms were bitten, with blood seeping from the teeth marks.

These were the "gifts" left to her by the grandchildren she had once cherished like the apple of her eye.

"Mom, your arms are bleeding. Just bear with it, I'll go get some disinfectant." The fourth son's eyes reddened with heartache as he looked at the gashes on her arms.

Li Xiangqin looked coldly at Zhang Jianguo, a sneer curling her lips. The look made Zhang Jianguo's skin crawl.

"Mom..."

"Don't call me Mom. Have you ever seen a mother who gets scratched and bitten by her son's family?"

As Li Xiangqin calmed down, her anger seemed to subside into something else. She even waved off the fourth son when he tried to apply antiseptic to her wounds.

"From now on, I no longer have a son like you. Naturally, I have no grandchildren, and I certainly have no obligation to watch your children. For these six years of acting as your maid, you must pay me a nanny's wage.

Currently, a nanny costs twenty-five yuan a month. That's three hundred a year, totaling one thousand eight hundred for six years.

Your son and daughter each had one egg a day. At five cents an egg, that's three yuan a month, totaling two hundred sixteen yuan for six years.

One canister of malted milk per month at five yuan a canister is sixty yuan a year. Over four years, that's two hundred forty yuan.

As for the new clothes I made for them every year, I won't charge for those; consider them the 'modesty cloths' I provided for their journey into this world. All these amounts together come to two thousand two hundred fifty-six yuan.

I'll round it down. Just give me two thousand two hundred sixty yuan."

With every calculation Li Xiangqin made, the skin on the two of them twitched. By the end, their faces were numb.

"Are you crazy? How could it be that much?" Zhang Yanli clenched her fists, her face full of defiance.

"Since you asked, I just remembered another item. Ever since you two got married, you haven't contributed a single cent to the household expenses, yet you've been eating our food this whole time."