Chapter 107: Chapter 107: Escalating Domestic Violence

He wore a dark, sullen expression and said nothing.

Xia Shuhua thought he was still angry about yesterday and didn’t dwell on it. She quickly helped Chen Zhaodi set the table.

After dinner, Gu Yunchuan pulled Xia Shuhua into the bedroom.

“I’m asking you—how much money do we have left?”

Xia Shuhua shivered at his menacing tone but gritted her teeth and insisted, “Didn’t I give you everything yesterday?”

Seeing she was still stubborn, Gu Yunchuan paused for a moment, then said, “I went to Mao’er Alley today.”

At those words, Xia Shuhua couldn’t help but start trembling all over, her composure vanishing from her face.

The Chen family lived in a communal building on Mao’er Alley. She knew Gu Yunchuan wouldn’t mention it for no reason.

“Oh? What were you doing in Mao’er Alley?” She clung to a last shred of hope, praying he didn’t know anything. After all, she’d hidden it well, and Mao’er Alley was far from their place.

Gu Yunchuan, seeing she still wouldn’t come clean, lost his temper and kicked her, sending her sprawling to the floor.

There’s no such thing as just one instance of domestic violence—once it starts, it never ends. After trying violence yesterday to solve his problems, Gu Yunchuan had grown fond of venting his anger this way.

Xia Shuhua was stunned by the kick. In her heart, she thought, It’s over. He knows!

“Still not telling the truth, huh?” Gu Yunchuan raised his hand, ready to hit her again.

Xia Shuhua hurriedly crawled over and clung to his leg. “Yunchuan, please don’t do this. I’m scared.” She tried to act coquettish, hoping to resolve things as she had in the past.

But Gu Yunchuan was no longer buying it. He shook her off viciously.

“Xia Shuhua, so you know how to be afraid? Sneaking around to support your ex-husband, using my money to keep another man, even buying him a job—well done! Very good!

Do you know what people are saying about me? They say I’m a cuckold, wearing a green hat and not even knowing it. All thanks to you! And you still have the nerve to cry!”

Gu Yunchuan’s veins bulged on his forehead, his face flushed red. Worried about the neighbors overhearing, he lowered his voice, making him sound more like a vengeful ghost come to claim a debt.

Xia Shuhua hadn’t expected Gu Yunchuan to find out this way. How had her support of the Chen family been discovered?

But she had no time to think about that now—her priority was to calm Gu Yunchuan down.

After a quick calculation of pros and cons, she decisively clung to his leg again, tears streaming down her face before she could even speak.

“Yunchuan, let me explain. It’s not what you think. People outside are just making things up. You have to believe me.

I hid it from you, yes, but it was for our own good. Back then, the Chen family wouldn’t let me go—they wanted to wear me down.

I only agreed to give them twenty yuan a month and buy a job for him so I could be with you. I was forced into it, not willing.”

This was actually true. Back then, when the Chen family found out she’d cheated, they threatened to expose her and refused to divorce. In the end, they agreed only because of the twenty yuan a month.

After the divorce, the Chen family’s scoundrel would still come to her, threatening her. In the end, she had to agree to buy him a job.

Once he had a job, he came around less, and she finally had some peace.

At the time, she and Gu Yunchuan had just gotten together and were madly in love. She didn’t dare tell him the truth, afraid it would cause more trouble.

But after telling so many lies, even the truth sounded false. Gu Yunchuan clearly didn’t believe her.

“So you finally admit it? Using my money to support another man, and you say it’s for my own good! Xia Shuhua, you’re heartless!

I treated you so well! Whatever you wanted, I gave you. Even when you mistreated my two kids, I turned a blind eye. You said you loved money and felt insecure, so I let you manage all the household finances.

I gave you my heart, and this is how you repay me!”

Gu Yunchuan, though selfish and self-centered, still longed to be loved.

Now, realizing Xia Shuhua had been deceiving and using him all along, he couldn’t hold it in anymore. For the first time, he actually felt a pang of pain in his heart.

He’d given his heart to the wrong person.

Xia Shuhua, perhaps triggered by something he said, stopped pretending and laid it all out: “Gu Yunchuan, don’t act like some great victim. Search your conscience—weren’t you the one who wronged me first?

We were already engaged. Everyone in the alley knew we were together. But for your own future, you abandoned me.

You climbed the social ladder, but what about me? Do you know what I went through those six months?

Everywhere I went, people pointed and whispered that I was damaged goods. My parents, to save face, hurriedly married me off to that Chen family scoundrel—didn’t even bother to get me a new dress!

That scoundrel and his mother bullied me. My life was nothing but misery.

You ruined my life. So what if I support another man? So what if I make you a cuckold? You deserve it!”

Xia Shuhua was so angry she lost control of her words, deliberately provoking him. In reality, she hadn’t actually cheated.

But Gu Yunchuan, already sensitive about this, immediately assumed the worst—that he’d really been cuckolded, that his youngest son wasn’t his. He was instantly devastated and fell apart.

“So you admit it? You finally admit it? You bitch! I’ll beat you to death!”

Gu Yunchuan slapped Xia Shuhua hard across the face, knocking her to the ground.

What followed was a violent beating.

Chen Zhaodi, outside, heard everything and banged on the door. “Dad, you can’t hit my mom! She’s not young anymore and still gave you a son. Even if she hasn’t achieved much, she’s suffered for you!”

She even had Xia Chun bring the child over, hoping the sight of his son would soften Gu Yunchuan’s heart. After all, ever since the child was born, just mentioning him would make Gu Yunchuan happy.

But this time, it backfired. Mentioning the child only made him angrier.

The commotion inside was loud enough for the neighbors to hear. They all knew what was going on—rumors had been flying around the courtyard for days. No one intervened; they just listened in.

It was Xia Shuhua’s own fault—she’d always been too showy and had offended everyone. Nobody liked her arrogant attitude.

She was just a fallen woman pretending to be a peacock.

And now, supporting her ex-husband and cuckolding her man—none of the other women in the courtyard could compare. She was something else. Why didn’t she just fly to the heavens?

Some even felt it was satisfying—this kind of unfaithful woman deserved a beating.

Chen Zhaodi kept banging and shouting, but nothing could stop Gu Yunchuan.

“Gu Yunchuan, you’re not human! I’m going to report you to the union for domestic violence! I want a divorce!” Xia Shuhua, despite being beaten black and blue, kept provoking him.

Maybe she’d been pretending for so long that now, suddenly, she couldn’t hold it in anymore.

Anyway, Gu Yunchuan had already been sidelined in the family. Her daughter was about to marry into a wealthy family. This was the perfect opportunity—she didn’t want to live by pleasing him anymore.

Gu Yunchuan hadn’t expected her to bring up divorce before he did. Clearly, he’d spoiled her too much over the years, making her so brazen.

“Keep dreaming! Don’t think I don’t know what you’re up to. You want to get rid of me? In your next life!”

Chen Zhaodi was stomping her feet in anxiety outside. She wasn’t worried about anything except that if Gu Yunchuan beat Xia Shuhua too badly, her mother wouldn’t be able to attend her wedding.

A wedding only happens once—how unlucky would it be if her mother couldn’t be there? She didn’t want to be the subject of gossip.

Xia Chun huddled in the corner with the child, all too familiar with this scene. Her own father used to lock her mother up and beat her while she and her sisters hid in the corner, not daring to make a sound.

She hadn’t expected to face the same thing at her aunt’s house. She wanted to help, but just couldn’t find the courage.

Hearing Xia Shuhua’s cries of pain inside, Chen Zhaodi gritted her teeth and threatened, “Dad, don’t forget, I’m about to get married. If Mom can’t attend, how will we explain it to the Yun family?

And do you want Nianzhou and the Yun family to find out about this?”

Gu Yunchuan could tell his stepdaughter was threatening him.

Wretches, all of them. Raising them was a waste.

At this point, he no longer expected his stepdaughter’s good marriage to benefit him. He’d be lucky if she didn’t make trouble for him.

He’d hunted geese all his life, only to have his eyes pecked out by one.

These mother and daughter were both trouble. He must have been blind to ever think they were gentle and kind.

Gu Yunchuan, exhausted from the beating, sat on the floor panting.

He needed to think about what to do next.

He didn’t know that, at that very moment, his apprentice Liu Xiaoliu had already raised concerns with the factory director, who authorized him to privately investigate the accounts.

If Gu Yunchuan really had embezzled public funds, he’d either end up in jail or with a bullet in his head.

Chen Zhaodi, hearing the quiet inside, thought she’d scared Gu Yunchuan into submission and finally relaxed.

Xia Shuhua, seeing he’d stopped, thought he was really afraid of Chen Zhaodi’s threats.

Enduring the pain, she gloated, “Gu Yunchuan, so you can be scared too? From now on, you’d better listen to me, or I’ll have the Yun family deal with you.

Qingyue’s good marriage is all thanks to you and your wonderful daughter. From now on, my daughter will be above others, while yours will always be a peasant girl. You’ll never surpass me in this life.”

Though she talked about divorce, she never really intended to go through with it—she just wanted to scare Gu Yunchuan and put him in his place.

She still needed a man to support her. After years of living comfortably, she had no desire to go back to the Chen family’s miserable life.

Gu Yunchuan took out a cigarette, his eyes unfocused as he smoked. Then he got up and started rummaging through the room.

Xia Shuhua realized what he was doing and quickly crawled over to grab his leg. “Don’t touch my things! They’re mine!”

Gu Yunchuan kicked her hard in the chest, showing no mercy.

“Everything in this house, down to the last needle, was earned by me, Gu Yunchuan. You, Xia Shuhua, have no claim to any of it. You’d better behave, or I don’t know what I might do.” He gritted his teeth as he spoke.

Xia Shuhua’s chest ached terribly, and his murderous glare terrified her. She could only watch helplessly as he tore through the room.

Gu Yunchuan knew exactly where Xia Shuhua hid her money, but after searching, he found only a few dozen yuan.

That couldn’t be right—she couldn’t possibly have so little.

Then he remembered another spot.

Xia Shuhua watched in horror as he ripped open the back of the old quilt. How did he know she’d hidden the money in unused bedding?

“Gu Yunchuan, don’t touch my things! If you don’t stop, I’ll tell the factory that you—” that you embezzled public funds.

Gu Yunchuan clamped a hand over her mouth and whispered fiercely in her ear, “Go ahead, report me if you want. We’re husband and wife—if I embezzled money, you spent it too. We’ll both get shot. Sounds good to me.”

This was nothing like his situation with Zhong Zijun.

With the Zhong family, it was a political issue. He just had to declare his stance and cut ties to get out unscathed.

But embezzling public funds wasn’t something you could fix by drawing a line.

Xia Shuhua’s eyes widened in terror. Life had been so smooth that she’d forgotten she’d be held responsible too.

If anyone found out, she’d be doomed as well.

Thinking of this, she could only swallow her anger and watch as Gu Yunchuan pulled out the thousand yuan she’d hidden in the quilt, her heart bleeding.

Over the years, Gu Yunchuan had brought home several thousand yuan, but expenses were high—mostly because of her and Chen Zhaodi. There were two thousand left.

Gu Qinghuan had taken nearly five hundred, and she’d given another five hundred as dowry for Chen Zhaodi. The rest was here.

She couldn’t help but feel relieved that she’d already given her daughter the dowry money.

“That’s it? You’re not hiding more somewhere else, are you?” Gu Yunchuan sneered, stuffing the money into his pocket.

“You think I have a money-printing machine? Money doesn’t grow on trees!” Xia Shuhua shot back angrily.

Her bruised and swollen face disgusted Gu Yunchuan. How had he ever thought this woman was beautiful?

A thousand yuan was better than nothing.

He rolled down his sleeves, buttoned his shirt, and smoothed his hair in the mirror, restoring his suave appearance before opening the door.

Chen Zhaodi shrank back in fear at his cold, fake smile.

“Chen Zhaodi, if you still want to be called Gu Qingyue, you’d better keep your mouth shut. If I hear you say a single word, I’ll send you back to your brother!

No matter how easygoing Yun Nianzhou is, I doubt he’d marry the daughter of a fallen family.

I heard your brother got a woman pregnant in the countryside—the baby’s already three months along. If the Yun family finds out what kind of family you come from, what do you think they’ll do?”"