Rebirth Counterattack with Space
Chapter 281 - 273: Coercion

Chapter 281: Chapter 273: Coercion

At the door, Grey Mouse, fastening his belt, came out of the outhouse and saw from a distance that Lu Tianci and Yu Xiu had already left, so he asked his old mother, "His wife came to make trouble again?"

"Isn’t that so, but today she didn’t create any major commotion," Grey Mouse’s old mother scoffed.

"Oh, no big commotion, that’s good," Grey Mouse said without giving it much thought and went straight into the house.

...

"Lu Tianci, have you lost all sense of humanity? Let go of me, how could you hit me just because of some indecent woman? And you even gave that indecent woman money..."

Walking outside and being hit by the cold wind, Yu Xiu finally came to her senses from her confusion and began to struggle and cry.

"Watch your mouth, can you stop talking about ’indecent’ all the time? There’s nothing between her and me--"

Lu Tianci scratched his head, holding back his annoyance, far from the momentum he had when hitting someone in front of others, convincing himself in his mind that he still needed this damned wife...

Really regretting not doing as he said with that dark and fat one back then, wouldn’t it have saved so much trouble if he had just subdued this woman from the start? She probably would have been too scared to disobey by now.

"There’s ’nothing’ but you gave her money?" Yu Xiu’s voice rose three or four octaves, sounding particularly shrill, "No, I must get it back."

"Calm down, where do you think you’re going? It’s not like that, not like that, I lost some money before and borrowed from her... Besides, we should be thankful for the idea she gave us, right?" Lu Tianci quickly pulled her back.

"Really?" Yu Xiu was half-doubtful, "What idea did she come up with?"

"The richer and higher-ranking people are, the more face they want. When my parents took in Shitou’s dad and even found him a wife, in the end, we raised their grandson for them. Now that Shitou has made something of himself, isn’t it thanks to us?"

The more Lu Tianci thought about Ajuan’s words, the greater he felt his contribution was, brimming with confidence, "Our family helped raise their son and grandson; now, if we ask them for some support money, that wouldn’t be too much, would it? If they dare not pay, we’ll make a big fuss and see who’s afraid then."

"That woman came up with this idea?"

Yu Xiu looked at Lu Tianci with a look that said ’are you an idiot?’, knowing her family’s situation well. What kind of life did Shitou’s dad have under her in-laws? Even if others didn’t know, wouldn’t this man in front of her know?

They might have powerful connections. If they could just forgive and forget, it would already be a blessing. Was she going to walk into danger herself?

Doesn’t he think that crushing our family might be as easy for them as crushing a fly? I’m not that naive to think that causing a scene would make money appear. You might not even live to spend the money if you get it too easily. Not just for my sake, but I have to consider my daughter, who is studying away from home...

"What a great idea, would your stupid brain have thought of it?" Lu Tianci snorted and then gave Yu Xiu an order, "I have thought about it, and you’ll have to do it. Go home, change into some old clothes and go over there. It wouldn’t be proper for a grown man like me to start wailing and making scenes."

"Pah, you want me to cause a scene, and then throw all the blame on me? When I get played behind my back, you’ll just spend the money I die for on that indecent woman?"

Yu Xiu recalled how Lu Tianci had publicly flirted with Ajuan and given her money, while he had slapped and spoken coldly to her. Her heart had already grown cold.

The lack of compassion and loyalty in some people is inherited, that kind of selfishness is innate to their bones. She admitted she was also at fault in the way she treated Shitou before, but then she struggled for years with infertility, and when she finally conceived, it was a girl.

She wanted a son, so she secretly consulted the blind master in the village about whether she was destined to have a son in this life. The master told her that even having this daughter was thanks to the good deeds accrued in her past life, and some people are just fated not to have sons—it can’t be forced due to karma.

If she wanted her daughter to be good and wanted to enjoy her daughter’s blessings in the second half of her life, she had to start accumulating good deeds slowly.

In earlier years, she was half in doubt, but in recent years, she had begun to slowly believe in these things,

So, she actually felt remorse now, regretting that she had agreed to treat Shitou the way they did. How could she possibly listen to the man in front of her now, who had heeded that woman’s words and wanted to cause a disturbance?

"Why do you have to speak so unpleasantly? Am I not doing this for the good of our family? Think about it, with money, our daughter wouldn’t have to work so hard outside, and wouldn’t have to clean the school to earn her living expenses, right?"

Impatience flickered quickly in Lu Tianci’s eyes, but he coaxed her with kind and gentle words.

"Anyway, I won’t go. If you want to go, go by yourself. I’ve thought it through. Our daughter is attending university in N City, and we can’t even help her with living expenses; she has to earn it all by herself, which is too hard."

Yu Xiu flatly refused and then revealed her plans, "Actually, we’re not that old, and we only have one daughter. Why don’t we also move to N City? We can find some work to do and help support our daughter..."

"If you want to go, go by yourself. I won’t go. A girl will belong to another family sooner or later, so why should she attend university? She’s become so entitled because you spoil her. I think we should have her come back early to get married and collect the betrothal gifts—that’s the sensible thing to do."

Lu Tianci interrupted her with an angry shout, frustrated at the thought of going out to work for others to earn money for a girl who couldn’t carry on his family lineage. Wasn’t she afraid of squandering their luck?

"If you don’t go, I will go by myself. It’s impossible to ask our daughter to quit school and come back," Yu Xiu declared firmly. The money for her daughter’s university tuition and travel expenses had come from borrowing from her own family.

All the money at home had long been squandered by Lu Tianci’s gambling. She realized today that this man, with money in his hands, would rather spend it on that improper woman and even considered trading his daughter for a dowry. How could this be?

"If you really leave, don’t come back. Do you think I care? You didn’t give birth to a son and that makes you the criminal of our Lu Family. And you dare stand up to me? What kind of audacity do you think you have?"

Lu Tianci roared in anger, "You go find Shitou, even if it means hanging yourself in front of their door to get the money back. Otherwise, do you believe I’ll divorce you?"

Yu Xiu refused to go to Shitou’s biological grandparents to make a scene. Was she supposed to go herself? Without creating a disturbance, where was she to get money? Thinking that she had already given all the money she had to Ajuan, and now her pockets were empty, how could she climb onto the bed tomorrow if she didn’t have money when she went to ask for it?

The more Lu Tianci thought about it, the more he felt it was intolerable. He decided he had to force Yu Xiu to make a trip there that day.

"You might as well give up on that idea. The way we treated them before, I’m already dying of shame. How can we have the face to make demands? Anyway, I absolutely must visit my daughter; we still owe my parents and brother’s family from the famine. Without going out to earn money, and with you taking all the income from the fields, what do you expect me to repay them with?"