Chapter 8 — The Illusion of Spring Peaches

Wan Tinh felt as though she were shattering completely, her broken sobs tearing through the living room. Half a year ago, she had suffered a miscarriage, followed swiftly by a crushing depression. Taking advantage of the excuse of being busy with work, he had vanished from the house, leaving her entirely alone in this hollow, empty room. She had lost her career, lost her child. Faced with suffocating loneliness day after day, she could only find a sliver of solace in food. Bite by bite, she had only wanted to fill the yawning chasm within her heart. Yet whenever he did rarely return home, he would pierce her with barbed, sarcastic remarks. She had nothing left, absolutely nothing left. It was her own foolishness, she was the fool. She collapsed onto her knees, her sobs reducing the livestream studio to an absolute, pin-drop silence. After a long moment, comments finally began to trickle across the screen.

Oh god, I had no idea this poor woman was suffering so deeply.
I never would have imagined that the picture-perfect husband could drive his own wife to such a desperate edge.
Sisters, let this be a lesson to us all. Never, under any circumstances, gamble everything you are on a single man.
Damn it, this kind of man is far more terrifying than anyone could possibly imagine.
He slowly broke her spirit piece by piece, doing it so stealthily that no one else would ever notice.

I looked over at Han Jiang, catching the faint, chilling curl at the corners of his lips. I alone could perceive the truth. This man felt neither panic nor a shred of guilt. On the contrary, a dangerously dark gleam flashed deep within his eyes. I knew that his grandest, most deeply buried secret was only just beginning to surface. I gently switched on my microphone, lowering the audio levels as I adopted a soft, soothing tone, striving to pull Wan Tinh back from the brink of total collapse. You have not lost everything, you still have Tang Yuan.

These words caused Wan Tinh to freeze. She raised her head, her eyes swollen and red, her gaze filled with deep, trembling suspicion. I still have what?

A gentle smile touched my lips, my voice growing even warmer and more placid than before. While we were at the clinic, Tang Yuan asked me to pass along a message to you. It said that it will forever remember the day you brought it home. I paused for a beat, looking straight into the camera lens, dropping my voice until it was so tender the entire livestream room held its collective breath. That day was bitterly cold, with white snow swirling everywhere, and it was shivering under the chassis of a car, on the absolute verge of freezing to death. So many beautiful young women walked past, yet not a single one spared it a glance. Only you—never minding that it was filthy, grimy, and unsightly—scooped it up into your arms, carried it home, and gave it a warm sanctuary. Mother is an angel, those were its exact words.

Wan Tinh buried her face in her hands and burst into tears once more, her frame trembling with ragged, choked sobs that stole her speech. After a long while, she wiped away her tears and spoke in a raw, hoarse whisper. I found it in the parking lot outside the dance troupe. It was so tiny back then, shaking like a leaf, looking as though it was at death's door. When I looked at it, I felt this strange, unexplainable pull. I knew somehow that the two of us shared a destiny, so I scooped it up and brought it home.

I nodded, continuing in a slightly firmer tone, as though carefully untying the tight knots bound around her heart. A moment ago, perhaps Young Master Li failed to explain the situation clearly. Tang Yuan bit your brother-in-law not because he struck the animal, but because it saw him make you weep far too many times. It said it was just a little puppy, incapable of understanding the complex troubles of the adult world, but it knew one fundamental truth. If you truly love someone, you will never cause them to shed tears. To love someone means finding every possible way to bring them joy, just like it always tried its hardest to make its mother happy.

Trembling violently, Wan Tinh stared straight at me, utterly incredulous. It actually said those things?

I nodded slowly, offering a reassuring smile as my voice softened. It told me that it loves its mother most of all.

The livestream chat, which had been boiling over with fierce outrage, instantly plunged into an absolute hush. Only a few sparse comments drifted slowly across the screen, smeared behind the illusion of tears.

So heartbreaking, Tang Yuan is such a good boy.
I am crying for real now, and it is only a little puppy after all.
The one who made her cry was never Tang Yuan, it was her own husband.
Oh god, hearing those words, mother is an angel, has left a huge lump in my throat.

I studied Wan Tinh's expression on the monitor. Within those red-rimmed eyes lingered lingering grief and pain, but for the very first time, I caught the distinct flicker of resolute determination. Perhaps starting from today, she would no longer be a woman driven to the edge of madness. Tang Yuan's message had served as the final, decisive blow, shocking Wan Tinh into complete clarity. She wiped her tears away, lifting her chin with a gaze that burned red yet possessed an unprecedented, unshakeable firmness. For the sake of Tang Yuan, and for my own sake, I am going to kick this man out of my life for good.

With those words, she reached for her phone and dialed her lawyer directly in front of Han Jiang, leaving him zero opportunity to manipulate or salvage the situation. The livestream remained deadly silent for several seconds before the chat exploded into a violent frenzy.

You are absolute perfection.
Please get a divorce immediately, do not ever let a man manipulate your mind like this again.
From this day forward, Tang Yuan is the number one hero in my heart.

After I disconnected the feed, the digital room still hummed with the lingering shock of what had just transpired. Several viewers began to pose curious questions. But why would Han Jiang act this way? He has money, status, and holds a senior executive position. Why torment his own wife's psyche like that? What possible benefit could he gain from it?

I gave a slight shake of my head and sighed softly, keeping my tone composed. Who can say? The human heart is as deep as an abyss, entirely impossible to fathom.

Several days later, a blazing headline erupted across the news portals. Daughter of the Li Corporation files for divorce, while Han Jiang steps down from his executive post. Shortly after departing from the Li Corporation, leveraging the network of contacts he had spent years accumulating, Han Jiang established his own firm. In its infancy, the business soared like a kite caught in a fierce gale, creating quite a sensational ripple throughout the financial sector. Yet less than two years later, an unexpected financial tsunami struck without warning, crashing the company into bankruptcy overnight. Massive, compounding debts piled high until Han Jiang was drowning in liabilities, culminating in his tragic end—he leaped from a rooftop to take his own life. That piece of news left the entire public sphere stunned for a considerable time.

As for Wan Tinh, news of her did not surface until fully half a year later. One day while browsing online, I stumbled across an entertainment feature. In the accompanying photograph, she stood clad in a pristine white dress beneath the dazzling stage lights, her posture as fluid and graceful as a proud swan. The audience rose to their feet, offering a thunderous, unbroken ovation during her grand comeback performance. Most striking of all was the final tableau where Wan Tinh lifted Tang Yuan up onto the stage with her. In that captured moment, both woman and dog beamed radiantly, their eyes holding no trace of ever having endured a single dark day.

I gazed at the photograph, the corners of my lips curving upward. At last, you have found your way out.

That, however, was a story belonging to many months later. For the present moment, once the livestream officially concluded, I opened two cans of pate and placed them before A Le. The feline paused mid-meal to glance sideways at me, its tone dripping with cool disdain. It is nothing. I simply had no desire to watch that foolish dog come to harm.

Indeed. For everything that unfolded today, the lion's share of the credit belonged solely to A Le. It had deployed its own spiritual energy to alert Young Master Li, granting him the sudden spiritual premonition that brought him rushing back to the living room in the nick of time, rescuing Tang Yuan right out of Han Jiang's clutches. Had any ordinary third party been present in the household at that exact juncture, they surely would have fainted dead away upon discovering a cat speaking the human tongue.

Ever since the day I first brought A Le home, I knew it was far from an ordinary feline. It possessed the gift of speech, the ability to communicate with beasts, and even wielded several peculiar, extraordinary capabilities. I had never pried into its past, nor had it ever volunteered to share its origins. The two of us—one human, one cat—had simply lived together quietly in this manner ever since.

I stooped slightly to stroke its head. A Le paused its eating to look up, its amber eyes narrowing as it let out a dissatisfied hiss. Do not disturb me while I am eating.

Having received a sharp glare from the cat, I could only awkwardly retract my hand, flashing an appeasing smile to soften the atmosphere. Fine, fine. Today's broadcast brought in a handsome profit, so I will hop online right now and order an entire case of pate for your majesty.

A Le lifted its chin with haughty pride, its amber irises flashing a sharp, brilliant light as it drawled with affected elegance. Hmph, at least you still possess a shred of common sense.

Yet on that very same night, after the livestream had gone dark and the city lights dimmed one by one into stillness, a bloody tragedy quietly unfolded within a gloomy alleyway on the city's outskirts. The midnight wind blew bitterly cold across the rusted corrugated iron sheets, carrying with it the heavy stench of dampness and oxidized metal. Deep within the shadows, a middle-aged man stumbled forward, reeking powerfully of alcohol. He had just emerged from a small eatery along the front avenue, his face flushed red from heavy drinking, his steps unsteady and lurching as he wandered into the secluded back alley to relieve himself. Just as he reached down to unbutton his trousers, a young figure stepped out to block his path, standing frozen like a statue in the gloom.

Hand over the money. The youth's voice was hoarse and icy, ringing sharply through the pitch-black space.

The middle-aged man blinked heavily several times, struggling to focus his gaze on the face before him. Upon recognizing who it was, he let out a harsh, contemptuous sneer, expelling a hot gust of alcohol-laden breath. Hand over the money? What money are you talking about?

The young man's eyes hardened like sheets of winter ice, every single syllable clipped and frigid. My wages. The four thousand yuan allowance you still owe me. When you first led me into that factory, you made it explicitly clear: aside from the base salary paid by the plant, your employment agency would supplement it with an additional subsidy bonus.