Flip the table and divide the family property! Take his wife and daughter into the mountains and eat

Xiulan felt a sudden darkness before her eyes, and was so heartbroken that she almost fainted on the spot.

That was a precious item she lent to Li Cuihua to save face; it sold for over a hundred yuan at the supply and marketing cooperative, and you'd need industrial coupons for it! Now, not only is it shattered into pieces, but it's also covered in mud and blood!

"Li Cuihua! You wretched, childless woman!"

Xiulan trembled with rage. She rushed forward, grabbed Li Cuihua who was struggling with Zhao Shanlin, and screamed angrily:

"You damned bastard, pretending to be poor and pitiful, you smashed my precious things like this! If you don't pay me back this hundred-odd yuan today, I'll tear your face to shreds!"

Li Cuihua was fighting fiercely with her own son when Xiulan suddenly grabbed her hair, leaving her with a belly full of anger that she had nowhere to vent.

She shoved Xiulan away abruptly and sat down in the muddy water like a shrew, screaming and throwing a tantrum.

"Get out of my way! Stop nagging me! Can't you see I'm fighting this ingrate to the death? It's just a broken radio, I'm asking that old bastard for it! He's the one who smashed it in a fit of rage!"

While howling, Li Cuihua pointed at Wei Baoguo, who was being used as a human cushion by the two of them and was being pressed at the bottom, barely breathing.

Xiulan followed the finger and saw an old man from the city lying in the mud, his face covered in blood and half-dead.

She gasped in fright and instinctively took two steps back, afraid that if something really happened to the old man, he would try to extort money from her.

But the thought of that hundred-odd yuan made her spit out a curse:

"I don't care who smashed it! The thing was broken in your yard, Li Cuihua. Whether it's you or this old hag, if you don't hand over that hundred-odd yuan, I'll bring people to block your dilapidated door every day and make sure your whole family has no peace!"

Just then, Wei Baoguo finally managed to struggle free from under the two men.

He clutched his crotch, blood streaming down his lips from his nose. His once neat and tidy cadre uniform was now torn into tattered strips, and every part of his body ached.

Just now, Wei Baoguo was pinned down by this crazy mother and son and used as a human cushion, unable to even breathe. He had never suffered such a humiliation in most of his life.

With trembling hands, he leaned on the dilapidated door frame and struggled to his feet. His cloudy old eyes were bloodshot as he stared venomously at Li Cuihua and Zhao Shanlin on the ground.

"Liars...you bunch of damned country bumpkin liars..."

Wei Baoguo opened his mouth and spat out another mouthful of bloody water mixed with mud.

He turned around, trembling, and looked at the villagers who had gathered at the gate to watch the commotion: "Fellow villagers... you be the judge... she tricked me into marriage! Not only did she empty my pockets, but she also wants to keep me in the countryside to be her slave..."

He had hoped that his miserable state would win him some sympathy from the villagers.

But when the villagers who were watching saw his ridiculous appearance—covering his crotch and with his clothes leaking—not only did no one feel sorry for him, but the crowd burst into a burst of mocking laughter.

A man who loved watching the drama spit out a mouthful of sunflower seed shells and started commotion:

"Old man, come on! Everyone in the village knows what kind of person Li Cuihua is. She even schemes against her own son. You, a city guy, come all the way to our Kaoshantun to get a marriage certificate with this kind of scum. What kind of good person can you be? I bet you two are a bunch of scoundrels with ill intentions. It's like two peas in a pod falling for each other. Now you're complaining, but who can you blame?"

"you do not say!"

An old woman, munching on sunflower seeds, rolled her eyes and spat out a disgusted remark: "These city old men look all dressed up, but who knows how filthy they are inside! He dares to take on someone like this? Either he's after her for not asking for a dowry, or he's trying to get something for nothing, coming to our village to freeload off us and find a free maid!"

"Hey, I bet he's an old, widowed man who couldn't make it in the city and was kicked out by his own children!"

A shirtless young man nearby chimed in, his face full of mocking amusement: "He came to our village hoping to be a kept man, but little did he know, he'd broken his old teeth trying to live off her!"

"That's right, hurry up and pay Xiulan back for her radio, stop pretending to be innocent!"

The constant sarcasm and laughter made the dilapidated courtyard vibrate.

No one sympathized with Wei Baoguo. In the villagers' eyes, this scheming old rogue from the city, paired with a vicious shrew like Li Cuihua, was a match made in heaven, and they deserved to be ruined.

These words struck Wei Baoguo like a heavy hammer blow, hitting him squarely where it hurt.

Hearing that his prized pension was about to be withheld, and hearing the scathing mockery around him, Wei Baoguo finally broke down, his cloudy old eyes brimming with tears, muddy water, and nosebleeds streaming down his face.

Decades of maintaining a respectable official image and a lifetime of shrewd calculations were utterly shattered at this moment.

He didn't care how many eyes were watching, nor how ridiculous he looked clutching his crotch. Like a cornered dog, he screamed at Li Cuihua in despair:

"Divorce! I want a divorce! I can't live like this anymore!"

Wei Baoguo wailed and sobbed, pointing a trembling finger at Li Cuihua, roaring through his tears, "Tomorrow...tomorrow morning I'll go to the commune to file a report! I'll give you all the money I have, I'll leave with nothing! We're getting a divorce, and I'll never set foot in your Kaoshantun again!"

"divorce?"

When Li Cuihua heard those two words, it was as if she had heard the funniest joke in the world.

Far from being afraid, she took a step closer, her yellowed teeth grinding together, her eyes filled with a murderous malice.

"Wei Baoguo, do you think this is the old society where you can just divorce your wife whenever you want? This is the 1980s! Unless I agree, you're not getting a divorce!"

Li Cuihua, hands on her hips, loudly pronounced his death sentence in the courtyard with her hoarse voice:

"You want a unilateral divorce, is that it? Fine! You go to the commune to file for divorce, and I'll go to the city, to your old workplace, hang up a big sign, and bang drums and gongs all over the street! I'll make your boss and the neighborhood committee director come and judge, and let the mediation committee hear how you, you old scoundrel, went to the countryside to cheat women into marriage, and then just walked away after using them!"

Li Cuihua grew increasingly excited as she cursed, her triangular eyes gleaming with a manic light:

"Then I'll see if the unit leaders will protect you, you old scoundrel who's always messing around with women, or side with me, a poor peasant who's suffered so much! Do you still want that cadre status you're so proud of? Will the government still pay your monthly pension? You old bastard, if you're not afraid of being disgraced and ruining your reputation in your old age, go ahead and try getting a divorce!"

Wei Baoguo's crying stopped abruptly.

Li Cuihua's words were like a mouthful of ice water poured directly into his lungs, freezing him completely from head to toe.

In the 1980s, issues of conduct could be fatal.

If Li Cuihua really goes to her former workplace's women's federation and trade union and throws a tantrum, he will not only lose all face, but his pension might even be suspended to pay off debts. His children already dislike him, and in that case, he won't even be able to go back to his house in the city; he'll be left homeless!

"You...you..."

Wei Baoguo pointed at Li Cuihua, his fingers trembling violently, his lips pale, and he couldn't catch his breath for a long time.

"What do you mean, 'you'?!"

Li Cuihua spat out a curse, pointing at the broken radio fragments on the ground like a domineering landlady, and issued her final, death order: "You'd better stay in Kaoshantun and pay off your debts! Tomorrow morning, take your retirement certificate to the town's credit union to get a mortgage loan and pay back Xiulan's hundred-odd yuan! Otherwise, we'll see you at the gate of your workplace tomorrow!"