Release that Man

Old Man Wang was not the kind of father that pampered the youngest son and was harsh on the oldest son. Even though the youngest son’s biological mother was younger and more beautiful as the so-called mistress, this was not because she was so kind and gentle that she received this so-called true love. Therefore, Old Man Wang really did not anticipate that he would be getting one for free after buying one.

Even though the main wife could not be called pretty, she had many siblings on her maternal side. Everyone in the village knew that she had six brothers, and each of them was good at fighting. Before the villagers struck gold, if anyone dared to steal even a stalk of spring onion from their own, this group of siblings would come to block the family’s door for three days and curse them non-stop. Their power in the village had been off the charts, and they could be called the village’s local tyrants.

If the village leader was the police inspector, his wife could be said to be one of the mafia bosses. Therefore, the leader had utmost respect for his wife—at least, he did not dare to abandon her simply because he had become rich. One was because of the emotional scars that he had received when he was young, and two was because he was afraid that the people might just buy an explosive and drop it in his mine after a falling out.

Furthermore, the eldest son had always been studious. The family sent him to a famous university, and this was something that benefited the village leader’s reputation. The youngest son was to be pampered and played with. Since he had already been born, taking care of one more mouth would not waste that much rice. However, if one compared the two sons’ worth in the village elder’s heart, it was undeniable that it would be the eldest son who was the perfect candidate to inherit his family business.

“Xueyu is back?” As the door was pushed open, a thin, dark-skinned old man who was a big contrast to the large and expensive décor smiled widely.

The little girl from before was sitting on the living room sofa. There was also a boy about six or seven watching the television with a face filled with anger. When he heard the door open, he turned subconsciously to look. Then he turned his head back with a condescending harrumph and added without the decency to lower his voice, “Butt-licker has arrived!”

This was the first time that Ye Shuang had seen a child that was so annoying. Normally, most young kids were soft and cute. No matter how unsociable they were, they would carry a cute glow. With the rounded face and rounded body, as they stood out before the adults, as long as they did not do something very wrong like murder or arson, they would be forgiven by the adults. Which adult would be able to really hate or be angry at a child?

However, this little boy was different. Even though he had inherited the good genetics from his mother, and he looked fair and pinch-able, perhaps he was influenced by the adults in his surroundings or this was a negative effect from the lack of attention from his father, but this twisted the little boy’s personality growth.

It was fine to be selfish, but it was unacceptable that the boy had learned how to be rude at his young age. He was at the age where he would be attending primary school soon, and he already knew how to curse. And obviously, he was very good at it. When he acted like this, even the most kind-hearted adult could not convince themselves that this was just a child acting childish.

Ye Shuang chuckled and pulled on her sleeves as she raised her brow to look at Wang Xueyu. The latter’s face fell. Even though Ye Shuang could not be considered someone extremely important, she was ultimately his guest.

As the saying goes, before you beat a dog, you have to check who its owner is.

No matter how young the boy was, he had to have some sense of decorum.

Old Man Wang roared as if on reflex at his youngest son, “There will be no dinner for you if you continue to spout nonsense like that!”

He spoke like this was a common occurrence at the house. Then he turned around like nothing had happened and greeted Ye Shuang politely. “Young man, are you Xueyu’s classmate? Friends? My youngest son is not that good with people, please forgive him.”

Ye Shuang looked at the little boy who was glaring at him with his cheeks puffed up, and she smiled. “It’s fine.”

This kind of wild child could not be corrected with a roar. There would be plenty of chances for him to be taught. Wang Xueyu greeted his father and then led Ye Shuang upstairs with the reason that he needed to arrange a room for his friend.

Old Man Wang did not think much of it. His son often invited his friends home, and he did not need to get familiar with every single of one. If there was someone that he really needed to get to know, he would know after the person stayed at his place for a few days. With his family background, there were not that many people that Old Man Wang needed to actively get to know already.

After they got on the second floor on their tour of the house, Wang Xueyu said, “Mr. Han should have my information in his server. You should have probably read it already. That boy is the product of my father’s mistress. He was brought to this family when he was five. The mistress initially wanted to use the son to stabilize her position, but my mother is not someone who is easily fooled. The mistress was no match for her, so in the end, she only robbed us of some money and left, leaving her son behind.”

“The split was so clean?” Ye Shuang was surprised when she heard this.

“The problem was at the back.” Wang Xueyu pouted. He led Ye Shuang into one of the rooms, and without making an introduction, he sat down on the bed. He raised his hand to signal for Ye Shuang to take a seat before continuing. “Since he was already five, the boy already knew some things. The woman begged my father to see her son once every half a month. If he refused, she would come to the house to kneel and cry. Whenever she did that, her son would cry with her. My father admitted that this was not the solution. Afraid that she might cause a bigger scene, he approved of her demand, but he only allowed her to talk to her son on the phone.

“My mother believed this was another trick by the mistress like she would use her son to extend her grubby hands to my father or use the son to brush up on her existence. One time when they were talking on the phone, they were using the land line. My mother saw her chance and grabbed hold of another free phone inside the house. She eavesdropped on their conversation and heard something that she should not have.”

Wang Xueyu lit a cigarette and scoffed, “The woman is more educated than we thought because she knew about the law of inheritance. In today’s inheritance law, the mistress’ offspring has the equal right to inheritance as the main wife’s offspring. Unless the family left a will, regardless of whether her status got officialized or not, her son would have a third of our family inheritance in the future. Therefore, the woman gave up on the status and went ahead to find another man to live with. Whenever she was free, she would make this call to subtly remind her son of the inheritance in the future.”

This was the problem. Today’s marriage laws were truly insane—they were promoting extra-marital affairs. The wife not only had to handle the living arrangements of every member of the family, she even had to worry about the mistress coming in to share in the product of her effort. The mistress did not even have to do anything; she could enjoy her life, buying beautiful clothes, as long as she managed to produce a child to fight for a right if inheritance.

Therefore, what was the benefit of getting married? The main wife did all the work, and the outside woman enjoyed all the benefits. If one looked at from this perspective, it was much better to be the mistress than the wife. If the man came across one with a twisted personality, one who was willing to carry child but unwilling to work other than fight for inheritance… then what would happen?

There were other weird clauses in the law, but just one clause was already quite disgusting. After Mrs. Wang found out about this clause, she exploded. She went online to search for this information, and after she confirmed that the mistress was correct, the feeling of disgust in her heart could not be described with words.

Unless Old Man Wang had put down into words the desire of his will before he passed away, the mistress could go to the court to challenge the inheritance. When that happened, as unwilling as she might be then, she would have to surrender part of the inheritance to the shameless woman.

The problem was, it was too much of a taboo to talk about will in Chinese culture. As uneducated as Mrs. Wang was, she understood the taboo surrounding the talk of death. The man was still alive, but the wife and the children were already working out how to split his assets when he was dead. That was truly not a good feeling to have!

If she did not bring it up, she was afraid that her son might lose out in the future. If she did bring it up, perhaps without even waiting for the man’s death, her husband would write her out of the will before then… Facing this conundrum, Mrs. Wang could only bear and endure. There was a fire burning inside her, but she could not breathe a word about it. The only thing that she could do was hope that her son would be a fighter and take over Old Man Wang’s gas mine as soon as possible and urge her husband to retire. This would make the old man surrender the assets for his son to begin his business. This way, the assets would be under her son’s name, and she would not need to fight with that outside mistress anymore.

“In other words, your mother’s intention is to hope that you use the family assets to build your own business and expend as much money as you can so that there will be nothing left for that boy?” Ye Shuang commented as she caught onto Mrs. Wang’s plan. “Indeed, as lucrative as a gas mine is, if it has to be shared, the money won’t amount to much. Therefore, why not use up all the money now to build a life for yourself? After the company is built, the profit will fall under your name and not your father’s.”

Wang Xueyu held the cigarette in his hand and nodded. “That’s not the main reason I brought this up. I’ve already started with the preparation to start a company. I’m so much older than him, so naturally, I have some advantages. The main issue is that my mother wants me to make the company as big as possible, and because of that, she naturally will be concerned about finding me a wife. She will definitely look down on Xiao Yu’s family background. If she knows that I’m marrying a common girl, my mother will definitely say no.”

Mrs. Wang’s plan based its whole premise on her son’s hard work and future. Therefore, she would sacrifice anything to make this happen. If there was a good daughter-in-law, even though people might say that Wang Xueyu was dependent on his wife, with an in-law relationship there, it would be much simpler for her son to do anything in the future.

In contrast, if he married some common girl into the family, in the future, if Wang Xueyu wanted to do anything, he would need to depend on himself. Of course, this did not mean that Wang Xueyu would not make something of himself, but Mrs. Wang would still feel sorry for the man.

Ye Shuang pitied the man. “Now I can understand why your mother would say no. This is indeed something that is hard to explain using logic alone.”

The hatred went too deep, and the concern was equally great. When someone talked about true love, emotions, and human rights with others, they might reward you with a spit to the face.

Wang Xueyu frowned and groused, “With regard to my father, he actually does not have much thought. Xiao Yu and I came from the same university, a famed university, and honestly, my father will probably think we’re a good match for each other. But if my mother says no, my father will not argue with her on this. Therefore, I can only hide this from them. After we get married and move Xiao Yu to the city, once the company gets on track, my mother will not say anything anymore.”

“An extra-marital affair has introduced such damage to the peace and quiet of a family.” Ye Shuang sighed as she understood the current situation at the Wang family.

Just from the situation that she had seen in the living room earlier, she believed that Wang Xueyu and his little sister were not close to the little brother from a different mother. In fact, she believed that they were secretly trying to isolate him. Old Man Wang’s attitude to the boy was ‘since I have money, then I should care for the boy.’ Basically, it was no different from rearing a pet at home.

One could predict Mrs. Wang’s thoughts. The fact that there was no domestic violence was already a miracle. For a country girl, one with six powerful brothers that were the mafia in the village, the fact that the boy could grow up so healthy under her watch was nothing short of miraculous.

The boy might not have understood theories that were clear to the adults, but he was the most sensitive of them all. His own family disliked him; the boy naturally could feel something like that. Furthermore, he would have phone conversations with his biological mother once in a while. One could imagine the type of information that his mother would fill his mind with. It was impossible for the mistress to have something good to say about the Wang family.

Therefore, it was totally normal for the boy to turn out like this. Before he was five, he had already been fed so many twisted views and values. It was going to be difficult to twist him back to normal, but the problem was that no one wanted to do that. The more uneducated the boy acted, the more the family wanted to isolate him; the more the family isolated him, the wilder the boy acted. This was truly a vicious cycle!

Even Ye Shuang wanted to shed a tear for Wang Xueyu, but she maintained the smile on her face and nodded. “I pretty much understand what Mr. Wang is going for. The main target we should focus on is your mother, right? As long as she is satisfied with your girlfriend, then everything will be fine.”

“You got it.” Wang Xueyu put the cigarette out and placed it in the ashtray. “My mother will mainly focus on the family background. It’ll be best if she is the daughter of some powerful government official. The second issue is the wealth—it would be better if the female side of the family is rich. Whether she is pretty, kind, or not, these are added bonuses. Even if she is not, my mother can just ignore it, so that can just be ignored. After all, my mother doesn’t quite understand it and doesn’t care for it. As long as she can confirm Xiao Yu is a socialite, even if she is as clumsy and as dumb as a pig, my mother will have no issue.”

Such a standard Mrs. Wang had for her daughter-in-law… Just how much did she hate that mistress’ son that she would be willing to sacrifice her son like this? Even Ye Shuang was feeling speechless. She laughed. “I understand.”

…

When she had dinner with the Wang family that night, Ye Shuang finally saw Mrs. Wang in person. She was very much a country woman who had suddenly found riches at her doorstep. She had a fashionable curly hair, and the make-up on her face was thick. On her right hand, she wore three golden rings and two on her left hand. Her pointing finger was wearing a diamond ring, and her thumb was wearing a jade ring.

This unique way of dressing impressed even Ye Shuang. She was shocked but quickly pretended not to notice and turned to continue chatting with Wang Xueyu. “Half an hour after dinner, your person and Xiao Yu will be coming. I purposely asked the people my mother was playing mahjong with to lose to her so that she would be in a good mood. We must make use of this opportunity, so your guy had better not screw this up,” Wang Xueyu told her softly.

Ye Shuang nodded with a smile and replied in an equally soft voice. “What kind of presents have you told your girlfriend to prepare? I feel like your mother’s mood will continue to improve when she sees the present. Other than that, everything else should be fine.”

“This overly honest comment made Wang Xueyu glance at Ye Shuang. The latter shrugged innocently like this had nothing to do with him . Wang Xueyu looked at others, and he hissed back, “I bought a real fur coat from France and purposely left the price tag and the original packaging behind just so that my mother will be able to recognize it.”

Wang Xueyu knew that it was bad to reveal stuff like this to others, but some things had to be said… even though he felt that Ye Shuang already knew about this.

After some more conversation, the maid came to announce that they could have dinner. The maid had also been born in the countryside, so she was familiar with country cooking. Even though the taste was not that high class, the ingredients were fresh and locally sourced, so in conclusion, the food was not bad at all.

There were no rules at the dining table. Mrs. Wang gloated happily about the money that she had won at the mahjong table and would occasionally tell Ye Shuang to eat more. Old Man Wang would ask his son about his future plans after his university graduation, and during these times, Mrs. Wang would lower her voice, obviously trying to eavesdrop on the two’s conversation.

Sister Wang chatted with Ye Shuang continuously, introducing the fish and the soup to her. Then after a while, she probably thought that she should leave the impression of a good girl for Ye Shuang, so she stopped talking and started chewing on the food. Not long after that, she could not help herself and started chatting again.

The only anomaly at the dining table was the little boy. He made a mess of the rice in his bowl and would complain that the meat was too salty and then that the vegetable were too tasteless. He was satisfied with the plate of fish, but then he suddenly turned to yell at the maid and slam his chopsticks on the ground… saying he was poked by the fish bone.

Ye Shuang was shocked by what she saw. If she had not been there in person, she really would not have believed that there was such an annoying child in the world. Mrs. Wang ignored the boy’s actions. Sister Wang’s face was red from embarrassment. She glanced at Ye Shuang and then at her brother like she was about to scold him.

Old Man Wang was willing to entertain the boy. He called the auntie over to remind her and then had her remake the few dishes the way the boy liked it. However, even so, the boy was not satisfied. After he lost the chopsticks, he found other tools. He reached into the bowl with his hands, grabbed the white rice, and tossed it at the auntie’s back.

“What are you looking at! Poser!” the boy screamed at Ye Shuang. He also knew that he could not come after any of his family members, so he vented on the outsider. He had probably noticed the expression on Ye Shuang’s face earlier, and it had injured his young and fragile pride.

Ye Shuang glanced at him again before turning her body side way to whisper to Wang Xueyu, “If you let this continue, your 20,000 will go to waste. It’ll be a miracle if your mother is in a good mood when they arrive.”

Of course, the sibling from the different mother was there to make his life difficult.

Before Wang Xueyu could give his little brother a rare lesson in manners, the boy exploded. When he saw Ye Shuang turn around to talk to Wang Xueyu, he was sure that Ye Shuang was talking behind his back.

Even though his mind had not yet fully developed, he saw the man turn to talk to Wang Xueyu after he scolded him. This process was one that he was most familiar with—it was similar to how those other children had acted after he bullied them.

They went back home to complain about him!

This is too dirty. He dares to go to my big brother to complain‽

The anger filled up the boy’s heart. He saw Ye Shuang sit upright and open his lips like he was asking for a rice refill from Wang Xueyu, and he felt like his suspicion had been confirmed. His claw reached back into the bowl and picked up another globe of rice to throw at Ye Shuang. “You f*cker!”

Ye Shuang raised her eyes. Without even moving from the chair, she picked up a napkin from the table, and with a flick of her wrist, the soft paper towel expanded and caught all the rice that was flying at her. Then, with the movement of her wrist, the rice that was flying at her straightly had its trajectory moved by a twirl of the napkin. In the end, the rice that was flying over the table was all collected into the paper napkin, and with gravity acting as a helping force, Ye Shuang placed the rice back safely on the table.

The Wang family was stunned. Even Old Man Wang, who was in the middle of trying to mediate, was shocked. Wang Xueyu doubted the person that he had hired. Sister Wang’s eyes were glowing, and her face turned even redder. If not because she needed to maintain her image and her family was there, she would have been screaming.

Ye Shuang pulled out another napkin to wipe her lips. Then she used it to cover up the napkin that held the rice. With the same smile, she stood up and politely said, “I’m already full. Please do enjoy your dinner.”

Wang Xueyu finished the rest of his food, wiped his lips, and caught up to Ye Shuang. “What just happened earlier? Have you studied kung fu before?”

Young people were always curious, especially boys—their admiration for kung fu masters did not diminish with age.

“I have not. I just have fast reflexes,” Ye Shuang said honestly. “My body condition is better than most.”

Wang Xueyu smiled, but his face did not move.

“No matter how good your body condition, it wouldn’t be so insane, right?”

“My mother’s mood is not bad now, and furthermore, her attention has already moved onto you, so there shouldn’t be any problem.”

Wang Xueyu was not worried at all. Earlier, the little boy had been too annoying, and it was something that no one at the table could ignore.

However, after Brother Shuang made his move, the overly exciting special effect had made everyone forget about the small things. This was not the first day that the boy had acted like this, but it was not every day that they would see a kung fu master in action. Therefore, everyone’s focus was naturally drawn to Ye Shuang. Even after she left, and the boy continued to create chaos, everyone had lost the mood to talk about him.

Go play on your own. Stop coming to disturb us talking about hot topic.

Could a daily event compare with rare spectacle? Of course not.

After Ye Shuang heard the explanation from Wang Xueyu and knew that she had accidentally solved a problem, she was feeling quite pleased. However, to Ye Shuang and Wang Xueyu’s surprise, not only had the boy lost the Wang family’s attention, even after Wang Xueyu’s girlfriend made her appearance, everyone’s focus was unable to be turned back.

“Nice to meet you, Auntie and Uncle, I’m Xiao Yu.” The girlfriend greeted everyone politely and handed them the expensive fur coat and alcohol. “These are for both of you. I hope you’ll like them…”

“Oh, just put them there. Why did you spend so much just coming to play guest?” Mrs. Wang accepted them absent-mindedly and called her son down to entertain the guest before turning to discuss excitedly with her husband, “Eh, that Ye Shuang is not bad. Whose family is he from? Is he a local?”

“…” The girlfriend.

“…” Wang Xueyu.

Where was the war that was promised? Could they not see what was really happening?