People who eat melon are in 70 - Chapter 29

Good grief, really! Jiang Yutao never imagined that after learning about Zhao Chunhua and the team leader, she would also find out about Zhao Chunhua and Secretary Su.

Secretary Su’s younger son is about the same age as his eldest grandson, and he is now 20 years old. Secretary Su must be at least in his early sixties now.

Moreover, according to seniority, Zhao Chunhua should be calling Secretary Su “uncle.”

It’s thrilling, so thrilling, the sense of guilt is intoxicating. Jiang Yutao was so excited that her hands were shaking.

The thrill and sense of involvement were things she never felt in her previous life through a computer or phone screen.

It’s amazing!

Not only did Jiang Yutao find it stimulating, but even the villagers were also excited.

They had always known about Zhao Chunhua’s affair with the team leader, but the village secretary’s affair with Zhao Chunhua was never hinted at.

Secretary Su was stunned when Zhu Yuemei said such things. After reacting, he was infuriated: “Zhu Yuemei, what nonsense are you spouting?! Are you out of your mind? Or did you just wake up? If you’re not fully awake, get out of here and stop making a fuss.”

Secretary Su looked around in a panic, only to find that everyone’s eyes were fixed on him, and his back was drenched with sweat.

The words Zhu Yuemei had just spoken were said out of sheer anger, but since they were already out, she decided to go all the way. Some things she had kept hidden in her heart for decades.

“Am I talking nonsense? Su Changshan, don’t you know it yourself? Su Changshan, are you feeling guilty? Are you afraid I’ll drag your reputation through the mud after so many years?”

“I’m going to do just that. I’ll drag you into the dirt, making sure you can’t recover for the rest of your life!”

“On the night of the Mid-Autumn Festival thirty-two years ago, when you and Zhao Chunhua went one after the other to that secluded mountain hollow in front of Liu’s widow’s house, what did you do there? Are you brave enough to say? And in the years since then, you often went out late at night and only came back after the rooster crowed. What were you doing? Are you brave enough to say?”

“Afraid to speak, aren’t you? Then I’ll help you with that today.”

Zhu Yuemei was engaged to Secretary Su when she was sixteen, married Su Changshan at eighteen, and had their first child at nineteen. Over the next eight years, she had three children with him.

While she was pregnant with their fourth child, Zhu Yuemei discovered Su Changshan’s affair with Zhao Chunhua.

That night, when the village was showing a movie, she went to join the crowd after putting the children to sleep and leaving them with her mother-in-law. Before she arrived at the square, she saw Su Changshan sneaking towards the village entrance. Her heart skipped a beat, and she quickly followed him.

She saw Su Changshan go to that small mountain hollow, and then she heard a man and a woman talking inside. The man’s voice was one she heard daily, extremely familiar, while the woman’s voice, though not unfamiliar, belonged to Zhao Chunhua.

At that time, Zhao Chunhua had been married for less than half a year. Normally, it was hard to tell that Zhao Chunhua was a promiscuous person. She was constantly humiliated by her mother-in-law and her husband, keeping her head down when she went out and sometimes not speaking a word all day.

Zhu Yuemei was young back then. Seeing the mother-in-law beating and scolding Zhao Chunhua, she had spoken up for Zhao Chunhua several times.

As Zhu Yuemei followed Su Changshan, she kept wondering who the woman was that he was having an affair with. She had considered most of the women in the village but never thought of Zhao Chunhua.

Is this how Zhao Chunhua repays her? By stealing her man?

She wanted to jump out and expose them, but when she was not far from them, Zhu Yuemei stopped. She sat down on the other side of the mountain hollow and listened as Su Changshan and Zhao Chunhua went at it time and time again.

That night, they did it three times, each time longer than the last, and it was only when Zhu Yuemei could no longer bear the pain in her abdomen that she left first.

She returned home and waited for over half an hour before Su Changshan came back. Zhu Yuemei stayed up, waiting for him.

Even during the most passionate times in their marriage, Su Changshan had never did that so many times in one night.

Humiliation, anger, and resentment surged in Zhu Yuemei’s heart. She even thought about rushing out to make a scene and let the villagers see this pair of adulterers.

But thinking about her three children at home and the baby in her womb who would soon make noise, Zhu Yuemei stopped in her tracks.

She didn’t want her children to be the subject of gossip, nor did she want them to question her in the future about why she exposed their father’s disgraceful behavior.

“Why did you always ask me why I miscarried Old Fourth even though he was three months along? I’ll tell you now: it’s because I sat on the ground for too long that night while listening to you and Zhao Chunhua. The cold air got to me, and he couldn’t withstand it.” Old Fourth was almost fully formed and was a boy. After losing Old Fourth, Zhu Yuemei never conceived again.

Zhu Yuemei originally thought she would take this secret to her grave, but now that she has spoken out, she feels a lot of her internal turmoil has dissipated. Yet, thinking about the child who would never see the world, Zhu Yuemei couldn’t even cry.

She had cried so much and was so heartbroken that she could barely move anymore!

“So you want to divorce me, huh? Let me tell you, Su Changshan, don’t even dream about it. I will die on the land of the Su family, and Zhao Chunhua has no chance of entering the Su family’s door.”

Secretary Su had always kept his affair with Zhao Chunhua well hidden. They only met in the middle of the night and never spoke a word to each other during the day. Su Changshan thought the affair was foolproof and didn’t realize Zhu Yuemei knew about it, let alone that she would expose it in public.

Su Changshan had maintained his pride throughout his life, always standing tall in the village. But at this moment, his posture bent. He couldn’t bear to look at the villagers’ gazes or the team leader’s expression beside him.

As Zhu Yuemei began to escalate the situation, Jiang Yutao had already pulled Gu Nianwei into the crowd. She handed a handful of sunflower seeds to Gu Nianwei and also shared some with Li Yunying. The three of them stood in a row, cracking seeds and watching intently.

“I really didn’t expect this. Zhao Chunhua sure knows how to play the field. Tell me, besides the secretary and the team leader, does she have any other lovers in the village?” Jiang Yutao thought Zhao Chunhua must be a master of time management. Just look at her life: an old man at home, a young team leader outside, and an uncle-nephew taboo relationship.

Exciting, so exciting.

“Who knows? Maybe others are hiding in the shadows we haven’t discovered yet?” Gu Nianwei was witnessing such thrilling events for the first time and was cracking seeds excitedly. She was relieved she had no ties to Lin Jianzhong; otherwise, she would be utterly embarrassed now.

Li Yunying was amazed: “She hid it so well. I’ve been in Liushu Gou for eight years, and this never leaked at all.”

Xu Dazui pushed Li Yunying aside: “What do you know about these eight years? I’ve been in Liushu Gou for thirty or forty years, and I didn’t know about it either.”

Xu Dazui was a key member of the village gossip team. Her lack of knowledge about the affair showed how well Zhao Chunhua and Secretary Su had kept it hidden. If it hadn’t been for Zhao Yonglan’s incident today, Zhu Yuemei might have taken this secret to her grave.

“Give me some sunflower seeds,” Xu Dazui said, reaching out to Jiang Yutao.

Jiang Yutao gave her some, and Xu Dazui cracked them loudly.

Zhao Yonglan and Zhang Huihui stood together, both looking bewildered.

Zhang Huihui hadn’t been involved in the earlier fight. She and Liu Yingjun had gone to the team office just before reaching the Su family’s home, and the team leader and his group were people they had found.

She clearly hadn’t anticipated things developing to this extent, and Zhao Yonglan was in the same boat.

In today’s events, she was supposed to be the center of attention, but now she had become just another spectator. Zhao Yonglan’s feelings were complex and hard to pin down.

Seeing Secretary Su’s state, Zhu Yuemei had calmed down. She turned to her daughter-in-law, Sun Xiaoyuan, and said, “Why isn’t Zhao Chunhua here? Xiaoyuan, go and get Zhao Chunhua for me. Today, I’m going to clear things up face-to-face.”

Sun Xiaoyuan had clashed with Zhu Yuemei many times before, but faced with Zhu Yuemei’s current demands, she remained silent for a moment and then decisively went to the Lin family to find Zhao Chunhua.

She listened to Zhu Yuemei not only because Zhu Yuemei was her mother-in-law but also because she was a woman.

She still clearly remembered what Zhu Yuemei had said to her just a couple of months after she had entered the household. At that time, Zhu Yuemei mentioned that she had a miscarriage when she was young and hadn’t been able to get pregnant again since then. After twenty years, when she became pregnant again, she wanted to have the baby. She promised that even if she had a younger son or daughter, it wouldn’t affect her child’s position. She would still love her child equally.

Later, when her child and her younger brother-in-law’s child were born one after the other, Zhu Yuemei indeed kept her promise. She treated both children equally, never favoring the younger brother-in-law’s child, and never forced her own child to give way to him.

When things got busy, Zhu Yuemei took care of the children alone. She would carry one on her back and hold one in her arms, with the one on her back often being her own son, Su Yang.

Sun Xiaoyuan disliked Zhu Yuemei, but that was natural given the mother-in-law and daughter-in-law dynamic; such relationships are often contentious, and those who get along as well as mother and daughter are rare.

Yet Sun Xiaoyuan still remembered Zhu Yuemei’s kindness. She and Zhu Yuemei had once had a good relationship.

Zhao Chunhua was at home putting Lin Jianhua’s son to sleep. When she saw Sun Xiaoyuan barge in so abruptly, she was taken aback. “Sun Xiaoyuan, what’s the meaning of this? Did you forget how to use your mouth properly? Didn’t you know to announce yourself when entering someone’s house?”

Sun Xiaoyuan looked at the fair-skinned, prosperous woman and sneered, “Stop the chitchat. My mother-in-law is looking for you and has some questions.”

Sun Xiaoyuan’s unfriendly demeanor and the fact that it was Zhu Yuemei looking for her made Zhao Chunhua’s heart skip a beat. But since she was having an affair with someone else’s man, she had no right to be concerned about moral high ground.

She immediately replied, “Can’t you see I’m busy right now? If your mother-in-law needs something, she’ll have to wait until I’m free.”

“That can’t wait.” Sun Xiaoyuan stepped forward, yanked Zhao Chunhua off the bed, and dragged her by the arm toward the door.

Since Lin Jianzhong started sending money, Zhao Chunhua had rarely worked in the fields except during the autumn harvest. Over the years, the money from Lin Jianzhong had increased, and Lin Jianhua’s wife was obedient, so Zhao Chunhua had even stopped tending to the family vegetable garden.

Plus, she was overweight and lacked strength compared to Sun Xiaoyuan, who was in her prime and worked hard year-round.

When she was dragged away, she could only manage to put on her shoes.

As Zhao Chunhua was dragged over, she encountered many people on the way. Their fearful looks made her anxious.

When she saw Secretary Su squatting on the ground, Zhao Chunhua’s last bit of hope vanished. Her affair with Secretary Su had been exposed after many years.

Zhu Yuemei had harbored hatred for Zhao Chunhua for over thirty years, suppressing her anger all this time. Now, seeing Zhao Chunhua, all that repressed hatred erupted. She strode forward and slapped Zhao Chunhua’s face.

Zhao Chunhua’s skin was fair, so the slap made her face flush instantly, leaving a red mark. Zhu Yuemei slapped her again with full force, causing Zhao Chunhua’s mouth to bleed.

Zhu Yuemei laughed so hard she was in tears: “Zhao Chunhua, do you know? I’ve wanted to hit you for over thirty years.”

“When you were trying to break up my marriage with Su Changshan over thirty years ago, I wanted to hit you then. In these thirty years, whenever I saw you in the village, I wished I could just scrape you off,” Zhu Yuemei’s eyes were red with hatred.

Through gritted teeth, she said, “How can you be so shameless? How can you be so cheap? Do you need men so badly? Do you itch if you don’t have a man for a day? If you’re so desperate, go sell yourself on the street. There are plenty of men who want to sleep with you—there are many bachelors, tramps, and drifters. They don’t have families, so you could easily find one. Why do you specifically target married men? Huh?”

“You asked Su Changshan to divorce me, and when he didn’t listen to you, were you particularly disappointed? Well, if you weren’t disappointed in him, why would you have gone after the team leader, right?”

Zhu Yuemei had been imagining this scene for many years, sometimes to the point of obsession.

Now, Zhu Yuemei didn’t care about anything else; she just wanted to vent all the frustration she had been holding in for years.

Since being dragged here, whether being slapped or insulted by Zhu Yuemei, Zhao Chunhua had remained silent until Zhu Yuemei said this.

She suddenly looked up and stared straight at Zhu Yuemei: “You’re wrong. He agreed. If it weren’t for your miscarriage, you would have divorced long ago.”