The carefree life of Yang Shuisheng, the village miracle doctor

"It's true that I earn money to support my family, but that's money I earn to feed my family, pay for my children's education, and take care of my elderly parents."

"I'm not telling you to use it to show off or to get into arguments and waste your time."

Zhang Fugui was so angry that the veins on his forehead throbbed. He pointed at the pile of things on the ground that he saw as an eyesore, like burning sticks, and his voice trembled.

"Li Guihua, let me tell you, this isn't over."

"You, right now, immediately, take all these things back to the store and return them intact."

"I'll take whatever refund I can get, I'll accept the loss, but this pile of junk absolutely cannot be kept."

"Return? Are you crazy?" Li Guihua immediately shouted upon hearing that she wanted to return the goods. "I've already bought the items, and the packaging is open. How can I return them?"

"Would the shop owner agree to that?"

"Besides, I caused such a scene in the store today, and now I'm taking the items back to return them. Where do you expect me to put my face?"

"How can I face people in this town after this?"

"Zhang Fugui, are you trying to force me to my death?!"

"Your face? When you spend money, do you never think about how hard I work to earn it, how difficult it is to support this family? Now you know you're shameful?" Zhang Fugui wouldn't budge an inch, his attitude unusually tough. "I don't care! This stuff has to be returned today. If you don't return it, then we can't live together anymore! Divorce!"

The word "divorce" rang in Li Guihua's ears like a thunderclap.

She was stunned at first, her eyes wide open, staring at Zhang Fugui in disbelief, as if she never expected that this man, whom she usually had completely under her control, would dare to say such heartless words.

After a brief moment of stunned silence, she was instantly overwhelmed by immense grievance and anger.

She burst into tears, sat down on the ground with a thud, pounded the ground with her hands, and began to throw a tantrum, wailing loudly.

"Oh my God! I can't live anymore!"

"Zhang Fugui, you heartless coward! I, Li Guihua, was truly blind to have agreed to marry such a good-for-nothing!"

"He has no money, no skills, and when he gets humiliated outside, he doesn't dare to utter a word. All he knows is to come home and bully his wife and kids."

"You're actually going to divorce me over this paltry sum of money?"

"Are you even human? Why is my life so miserable?! Waaaaah..."

She was wailing and pounding her chest with her fists, her hair disheveled, looking exactly like a shrew yelling in the street.

Looking at her like this, Zhang Fugui felt his temples throbbing and his head throbbing.

He was truly shocked by the huge sum of over a hundred yuan, and at the same time, he was furious with his wife's foolish and competitive nature.

"Your howling won't help!"

He suppressed his frustration, his tone still icy: "If you don't want a divorce, then hurry up and return the goods. I'll accept a discounted price if you can't get a full refund."

"But we must get some of the money back. This is our family's hard-earned money; we can't just let it go to waste."

At this moment, Erpang, who had been hiding to the side and too scared to make a sound, panicked when he heard that his father really wanted to return the goods.

He finally got so many new toys, stationery, and schoolbags, and he hasn't even had a chance to enjoy them yet, how can he return them?

He rushed over, grabbed his backpack with the Transformers pattern, and cried out, "No! I won't give it back! It's mine!"

As he spoke, he cleverly lowered his head and used his teeth to bite the plastic tag hanging on his backpack, trying to bite it off so that his father wouldn't be able to return it.

He bit down hard, and the plastic tag quickly broke through the string and fell to the ground.

Then he lunged at the brand-new set of "Water Margin" comic books, frantically tearing off the outer transparent plastic wrap, crying and shouting as he did so, "These are my books! No one is allowed to return them!"

"You little brat! How dare you!" Zhang Fugui was furious when he saw his son starting to destroy things.

He shoved aside the still-crying Li Guihua and rushed over to snatch the book from Erpang's hand.

But Erpang clung to him tightly, rolling around on the ground trying to dodge.

Enraged, Zhang Fugui raised his hand and slapped Erpang hard across the buttocks.

"Wow--"

Erpang screamed in pain, and the new book slipped from his grasp and fell to the ground.

"I'll let you tear it! I'll let you bite it!"

Zhang Fugui was still not satisfied, so he kicked and punched her, cursing, "You good-for-nothing, you're just like your mother."

Erpang was beaten so badly that he cried and wailed, rolling on the ground with an astonishingly loud commotion.

"Zhang Fugui, stop! You want to kill him?!"

Seeing this, Li Guihua forgot about her tantrum and rushed over to protect her son.

For a moment, the house was filled with a cacophony of crying, shouting, cursing, and the sound of things being smashed, making it even more noisy than a vegetable market.

"Knock knock knock—"

Such a commotion finally alerted the neighbors.

"Wealth and prosperity? Osmanthus? What happened to your family?"

Soon, there was a rapid knocking at the door, and a middle-aged woman's concerned yet gossipy voice asked, "What's all the noise about? Why are you hitting the child?"

"Open the door! Let's talk this out, you can't just hit the child!"

It was Aunt Chen, the neighbor next door. She was known in town for her warm-heartedness, but she also loved to meddle in other people's business and spread rumors.

Hearing the knock on the door, Zhang Fugui's heart tightened. He quickly stopped what he was doing, took a few deep breaths, and tried to calm himself down.

He felt that family scandals should not be aired in public, especially since today's incident involved spending money to spite someone, which would be even more shameful if it got out.

"It's alright, Aunt Chen."

He walked to the door and, trying to speak calmly through it, said, "It's just that Erpang was disobedient and made a mistake, so I'm disciplining him."

"You go about your business, don't worry about it."

He intended to brush it off.

But when Li Guihua heard that it was Aunt Chen, her eyes lit up.

She was seething with resentment and anger, feeling that Zhang Fugui was not considerate of her and even beat the child, which was utterly heinous.

Hearing that her neighbor had come to uphold justice, she was not about to let this opportunity pass.

"Aunt Chen! Aunt Chen, you have to stand up for me!"

As if grasping at a straw, Li Guihua suddenly got up from the ground, pulled aside Zhang Fugui who was blocking the door, and opened the door with a bang. She then started crying to Aunt Chen, who was looking in astonishment and craning her neck to look inside.

"Look at this heartless Zhang Fugui. He suffers outside and comes home to take it out on us, mother and daughter. He even wants to divorce me."

"You were beating the kid so hard just now! Look what you did to Erpang, boohoo... I can't live like this anymore."

As she cried, she showed Aunt Chen her disheveled hair, her face streaked with tears and dust, and Erpang, who was sobbing on the ground with his clothes in disarray, looking pitiful as if he had been abused.

"Fugui, this is where you're wrong!"

Aunt Chen was startled by the commotion and quickly came in. She looked at Li Guihua and her son, who were crying pitifully, then at Zhang Fugui, who stood to the side with a livid face. Her expression turned disapproving, and she began to berate Zhang Fugui: "Why can't you talk things out? Why do you have to resort to violence?"

"Look how badly you've beaten Guihua and the kids! A man who can't earn a lot of money outside should treat his wife and kids well when he gets home. What kind of skill is it to resort to violence?"

Zhang Fugui was so angry at Aunt Chen's indiscriminate scolding that he almost fainted.

"Aunt Chen, you have no idea."

He pointed angrily at the pile of new items scattered on the ground, their packaging torn apart by Erpang, and said, "Look at what she's done today!"

"Just to spite someone, she spent a whole 135 yuan in town buying this bunch of useless stuff. I told her to return it, and she threw a tantrum! Do you think we can live like this anymore?"

"One hundred and thirty-five?"

Aunt Chen was also startled, gasped, and her gaze towards the things on the ground changed.

After all, this is no small amount!

But then her eyes lit up, and she immediately changed her tune, patting Li Guihua on the shoulder and advising her in a tone of someone who had been through it all: "Oh dear, Guihua, you're being a bit too extravagant with your money."

"But money spent is money spent, you can always earn more."

"It's not worth getting a divorce and abusing the children over such a small amount of money!"

She paused, a knowing look on her face, then leaned closer, lowered her voice, and asked mysteriously, "But Fugui just said you were arguing with someone?"

"With whom? What happened?"

"Tell me about it, maybe I can give you some advice?"

Li Guihua was worried that no one understood her plight. When Aunt Chen asked her about it, she immediately felt like she had found a kindred spirit. She wiped away her tears and embellished her story, recounting how Yang Shuisheng had humiliated her with money at the toy store and stationery store that day, and how she had been forced to spend money to save face for her husband and son.

Aunt Chen listened with great interest, her eyes growing brighter and brighter.

"Hey! I thought it was something serious!"

"That's it?"

After Li Guihua finished speaking, she slapped her thigh and revealed a smile that said, "This is easy."

"You spent the money but didn't save face, so you're feeling frustrated, right?"

"You want to disgust Xu Xiuxia and her gigolo, don't you?"

"Easy! So easy!"

She looked around, lowered her voice even further, and said with a hint of imparting a secret: "You guys are just too honest. You have to haggle over money. Isn't that foolish?"

"That pretty boy can spend tens or hundreds of dollars so easily, who knows where the money comes from? Let's not compare ourselves to him in that respect, let's compare ourselves in other ways."

"What are we comparing?" Li Guihua and Zhang Fugui looked at her in confusion.

Aunt Chen gave a malicious smile and said slowly, "Let's compare words! Didn't Xu Xiuxia find a capable gigolo? Wasn't he going to be her son's godfather?"

"Just tell this to outsiders, without embellishing it, just tell the truth."

"They say Xu Xiuxia couldn't stay a widow and seduced a young man, who was even eager to be the father of her son, spending money extravagantly and of dubious origin..."

"Once this gets around in town, you'll see if anyone still goes to Xu Xiuxia's restaurant."

"Let's see how those two will face people in town after this. That's much more satisfying and effective than spending over a hundred dollars on these things!"

"At that time, everyone will only laugh at Xu Xiuxia for being immoral; who will remember how much money you spent today?"

The more she talked about it, the more brilliant the idea seemed, and her smile widened: "Maybe he'll even think you're spending money genuinely for the child, while he has ulterior motives. Wouldn't that save face for him then?"