Chapter 787
Helping Mother Escape Her Suffering
As Sun Dafu listened to his son talk, he felt the matter became more and more terrifying. They had even brought up people from the underworld. If he offended those people, how many lives would he have?
Even Sun Jialin's mother, who was usually very protective of her son, couldn't help but scold him when she heard that her son had done something so terrible: "Jialin, how could you get involved in gambling and associate with people in the underworld? How am I supposed to live with this? You really are..."
After Sun Jialin's mother, Zhao Shuping, finished speaking, tears streamed down her face as she began to hit Sun Jialin with her fists.
Enraged, Sun Dafu pulled his wife Zhao Shuping away and grabbed a stick, starting to beat Sun Jialin.
Terrified, Sun Jialin ran in all directions while shouting to his father, "Father... Father, you've already done something wrong. Hitting me now won't do any good. You should think about how to solve the problem first!"
Sun Dafu angrily hit Sun Jialin with a stick while saying, "You little bastard, you've caused me such a big mess, how am I supposed to resolve this? After I've beaten you enough, I'll send you to the yamen and that'll be the end of it!"
While dodging the blows from his father, Sun Jialin said, "Father, although I have caused a great disaster, it is not entirely beyond redemption. As long as Weiwei and Li Qingshi are willing to forgive me, that will be enough!"
When Sun Jialin's mother heard that her son's method was the most effective one, she quickly stepped forward and pulled Sun Dafu aside, saying, "Dafu, Jialin is right. Hitting him won't help. The most important thing right now is to solve the problem. Stop hitting him. If Weiwei and Li Qingshi don't hold this against us, then it'll be over."
Sun Dafu glanced coldly at his wife Zhao Shuping and said, "You make it sound so easy. Do you think this bastard is just someone who has offended Li Qingshi and Sun Weiwei?"
He owes five hundred taels of silver in gambling debts, and he's also in cahoots with gangsters. He hired them to rob Li Qingshi, and he hasn't paid them yet. Do you think those gangsters are pushovers? Sooner or later, they'll settle this score with him. These two debts combined are far more than five hundred taels of silver can settle. Even if I risked several of my old lives, it wouldn't be enough for him to pay. This matter is unsolvable.”
Sun Jialin quickly said, "Father, Sun Weiwei is rich, and she just received so many betrothal gifts. If we ask her to pay for it, wouldn't that solve the problem?"
Upon hearing Sun Jialin's words, Sun Dafu suddenly stopped hitting Sun Jialin, his eyes darting around as he realized that what Sun Jialin said made a lot of sense.
Then he looked at Sun Weiwei and said, "Weiwei, your older brother is right. With so much dowry and betrothal gifts, you will definitely be able to pay off this debt for your older brother, right?"
Hearing her father's words, Sun Weiwei felt a sudden pang of pain in her heart, even though it was something she had expected.
He looked at Sun Dafu and sneered, "Why should I pay the debts your son incurred?"
Sun Dafu said loudly, "Just because we're family, shouldn't you step in and help when the family is in trouble?"
Sun Weiwei looked at Sun Dafu and sneered, "Heh, family? What do you mean by family? You enjoy the good times, but I have to bear the burden when things are tough. Is that what family is? How ridiculous!"
Sun Dafu glared angrily at Sun Weiwei and said, "Sun Weiwei, no matter how powerful you are, you are still my daughter, Sun Dafu's daughter. You have to pay this debt today, whether you like it or not. You'd better deal with it yourself!"
Sun Weiwei looked at Sun Dafu and said, "What if I don't want to? What can you do to me then?"
Sun Dafu angrily said, "You...you keep saying I don't love you. If I didn't love you, would you have grown up like this?"
At this moment, Sun Jialin's mother chimed in, "That's right, Weiwei, your father provides you with food and clothing, how come you've grown up to be such an ungrateful wretch?"
Sun Weiwei was so angry at their words that she laughed. She said, "Provide me with food and clothing? What parents don't provide food and clothing for their children? Besides, can you even call that providing me with food and clothing? You make my mother and me do all the chores around the house all day long. Can you call that providing me with food and clothing? It's no exaggeration to say that you treat my mother and me like free farmhands!"
Hearing Sun Weiwei's words, which he considered outrageous, Sun Dafu angrily retorted, "I, Sun Dafu, have supported you and your mother for so many years, and you actually say I've treated you like farmhands? How can you say that? Every time you go out, I always make sure you're dressed up beautifully. Look at ordinary families, even filling their stomachs is a problem. Who can live like you? If it weren't for me, Sun Dafu, supporting you, your mother would probably be begging on the streets. You really don't know how to repay kindness!"
Sun Weiwei laughed when she heard Sun Dafu's words and said, "Hehe, new clothes? Those clothes are just clothes that Sun Jiaqi doesn't want anymore. How dare you bring them up!"
Sun Jiaqi and Sun Jialin were born to Sun Dafu's legal wife, Zhao Shuping. They were siblings from the same mother. They often acted arrogantly and domineeringly in front of Sun Weiwei because they were born of the legitimate wife.
Sun Dafu said, "What's wrong with wearing Jiaqi's clothes? Jiaqi only let you wear them because you're her sister, right? Why doesn't she let others wear them?"
Standing to the side, the legal wife, Zhao Shuping, said, "That's right, my Jiaqi kindly gave you clothes to wear and you're complaining about them. Have you lost your conscience?"
Sun Weiwei looked at Zhao Shuping and said, "Auntie, look at you! In front of so many people, how come your true nature is revealed so quickly again?"
Zhao Shuping blushed slightly after Sun Weiwei's comment and looked at everyone with some embarrassment.
When Sun Jiaqi saw Sun Weiwei talking about her mother like that, she couldn't help but want to go up and teach Sun Weiwei a lesson, but Sun Jialin stopped her.
Sun Jialin shouted, "Enough! Stop talking! We need Sun Weiwei to solve my problems, not to gossip!"
Even though Sun Jialin had made a serious mistake, everyone knew that the most urgent and important thing was, as Sun Jialin said, to get Sun Weiwei to help pay off the debt. Everything else had to be put aside. After realizing this, the group wisely kept quiet.
Seeing their perfect understanding, Sun Weiwei smiled contemptuously and said to Sun Jialin, "Sun Jialin, Sun Jialin, you seem to have a very clear head at a time like this!"
Sun Jialin knew that Sun Weiwei was the only one who could save him now, so he said to her very kindly, "Weiwei, I know you have money. You can't just watch your older brother die, can you? If you don't pay this money, not only will your older brother be finished, but the entire Sun family will suffer as well. Please pay this money for me first, for the sake of our family! I will pay you back when I make money in the future."
Sun Weiwei said, "Oh, how did you know I have money? Did you secretly see it?"
After Sun Weiwei finished speaking, she tossed a button to Sun Jialin. Sun Jialin caught the button and said, "How did a button from my clothes end up with you?" Sun Weiwei said, "You're asking me the same thing! I knew I was right. You were the one who went into my room last night to steal something, weren't you!"
Sun Jialin said, "I...I didn't!"
Sun Weiwei said, "If you still want me to help you pay off your debts, you'd better tell the truth, otherwise you won't have a chance at all!"
Sun Jialin quickly admitted, "Yes, I broke into your room last night to take some money to pay off my debt. When you found out, I jumped out of the window in a hurry and accidentally got caught on a button on my clothes. Because I didn't get anything from your room last night, I had no choice but to rob Li Qingshi this morning. Now that I've confessed everything, you can pay off my debt, right?"
When Sun Weiwei first entered the hall, she heard Li Qingshi say that Sun Jialin had robbed her. The reason why Sun Weiwei immediately believed what Li Qingshi said was true was because she had also encountered a thief the night before, and later found out that the person was Sun Jialin.
Therefore, she was very confident that she would report the matter to the authorities.
Sun Weiwei looked at Sun Jialin and said, "Actually, I wasn't planning to tell you about your plan to steal from my room last night. I figured you didn't steal anything from me anyway, and yesterday was my last day at the Sun family's house. I didn't want to hold it against you. But I never expected you to actually team up with robbers to rob Li Qingshi. Who are those robbers? They're ruthless killers. If things had gone too far, Li Qingshi would definitely have been injured or even killed. You went too far, so I reported it to the authorities!"
Upon hearing Sun Weiwei's words, Sun Dafu's legal wife said, "It's all your fault! It's all because of you that my son was affected by such things!"
Sun Dafu chimed in, "Weiwei, if you had given the money to your brother last night, he wouldn't have gone so far as to collude with bandits to rob Li Qingshi!"
Hearing these people's words, Sun Weiwei's mother couldn't stand it anymore and said to Sun Dafu and Zhao Shuping, "You've gone too far! You actually dared to set your sights on my daughter's betrothal gifts! You're inhuman!"
Seeing her mother angry, Sun Weiwei put her arm around her and comforted her, "Mom, don't be angry. Be careful not to hurt yourself. I know what I'm doing!"
After saying that, he shielded his mother behind him and then said to Sun Dafu and Zhao Shuping, "I have to say, your logic is really bizarre. Instead of blaming me for your son's incompetence, you two are shameless. You still defend him even after all this. You won't even know if he sells you two out in the future!"
Upon hearing Sun Weiwei's words, Zhao Shuping angrily pointed at Sun Weiwei and said to Sun Dafu, "Dafu, look at her, she's getting more and more outrageous. What kind of disrespectful things is she saying?"
Sun Dafu had no time to consider Zhao Shuping's feelings at this moment, and said directly to Sun Weiwei, "Weiwei, just give me a straight answer, are you going to return the money or not?"
Sun Weiwei smiled and said to Sun Dafu, "What? Are you in a hurry now? I can indeed pay back the money for you, but I have one condition that you must agree to!"
Sun Dafu said, "What are your conditions? Just tell me, and as long as they're not too unreasonable, I'll agree to them!"
Sun Weiwei said, "That means agreeing to a divorce from my mother."
Sun Weiwei's mother was shocked when she heard this and quickly tugged at Sun Weiwei's sleeve, saying, "Weiwei, what are you doing? I've gotten used to living in this house!"
Sun Weiwei said, "Mom, haven't you had enough of this family after all these years? I'll take you away!"
Sun Weiwei's mother said to her daughter, "I'm not going with you. I don't want to cause you any trouble!"
Sun Weiwei said, "Mother, it's only natural for you to be with your own daughter. How can it be considered a burden? Don't worry about it, I'll take care of it for you."
Sun Weiwei's mother also longed to leave this home where she was treated like a slave, but the traditional patriarchal mindset ingrained in her would not allow her to do so.
Most importantly, in a bonsai-like living environment, if a woman is divorced by her husband's family, it is the greatest disgrace of her life. She will be gossiped about and will never be able to hold her head up again. Not only that, her family members will also be pointed at and talked about along with her.
That's why she has endured so much humiliation and hardship all these years.
Sun Dafu thought Sun Weiwei would make some unreasonable demands, but he didn't expect it to be such a simple matter.
Sun Weiwei's mother is now old and faded, and Sun Dafu has long since stopped caring about her. Divorce is a very simple matter for him.
Sun Dafu readily agreed, saying, "That's easy, a divorce letter will solve it. Someone, bring me paper and pen!"
Sun Weiwei said to Sun Dafu, "You're overthinking it. I'm not asking you to divorce my mother, I'm asking my mother to divorce you!"
Everyone was surprised when they heard this.
In our modern society where men and women are equal, it would be perfectly normal for either the man or the woman to file for divorce first.
However, in a relatively backward living environment like the Bonsai World, a man being divorced is even more shocking than a woman being divorced, which would indirectly prove that the man is very weak and incompetent.
This is tantamount to letting someone trample on the dignity they value most on the ground—it's suffocating and unacceptable!
In the world of bonsai, Sun Weiwei is probably the first person to get her mother to divorce her husband through her own abilities.
Sun Dafu became particularly agitated upon hearing Sun Weiwei's words, saying to her, "You audacious and rebellious daughter, how dare you make such an outrageous request! I disagree!" (End of Chapter)