The Blessed (Book 1)

198. The Dispute (1)

A full face of jealousy and resentment, Ling Xiaoying supported her mother to elbow through the crowd and moved toward Ling Jingxuan and others at the gate. Song Gengniu meant to go to stop her, but Ling Jingxuan waved him to stand down. Then he turned to run in to seek help. And those villagers who were only watching far away also quietly moved close before the mother and daughter’s arrival. Everyone was holding the attitude of schadenfreude, wanting to see how Ling Jingxuan got humiliated.

“What did you do?”

Leaning his head close to his ear, Yan asked in whispers in an affirmative tone. Glancing at him, Ling Jingxuan said, “You are so canny.”

Two people smiled at one another. Last time when Ling Chenghu and his wife came to make a scene, he drugged his wife using some kind of slow poison he specially made taking advantage when he got close to her. It wouldn’t show effect immediately. And she took a bath in a few hours, it’d be washed off. But after a few hours, the poison would infiltrate into the skin. The incubation period was three to seven days, and the poison would show effect bit by bit. At first, one would neglect it. But when it became serious, it was already late. Except him, he believed that no one could cure it.

“Ling Jingxuan, what did you to my mother?”

Coming in front of them, Ling Xiaoling who was holding her mother questioned her. That day, after her mother went home, she just hid in the quilts shivering. She just couldn’t take in any comforting from any of them. Plus, his father had just been sent to jail by them. The whole family fell in a mess. Her mother didn’t want to show up, so as their kids, they could only stand out to be busy with everything, meanwhile, they still had to understand the old lady and the big son’s wife’s sarcasm, so they basically had no time for her, it was already good enough that they could cover the three meals of her, but who knows…

A few days ago, her grandpa finally announced that her father would come home soon, and comparatively, her mother should be fine. So they couldn’t wait running to tell their mother the good news. But, what they saw was that their mother got a full face of sesame seed size swollen blisters, someone even bigger than a soybean, and also a lot of her body, so scary! They nearly passed out on spot. Then, her big brother asked Doctor Zhou over. He said it might be chicken pox and told her mother not to touch water. But two days later, those sesame seed size blisters all became soybean size, red and itchy, which made her mother even hard to fall asleep. Those places her mother scratched broken all got infected, and grew denser blisters. She thought back and forth and suddenly remembered that Ling Jingxuan knew how to use poison, connecting it with the time her mother got poisoned, she subconsciously put everything on Ling Jingxuan. But after she told her big brother and others about her thought, they all warned her not to provoke Ling Jingxuan anymore. And then, even though she held resentment in the heart, she dare not do anything.

This morning, she suddenly heard that Ling Jingxuan would hold a banquet to entertain the guests. Thinking about him in the past and now, and their switched position, she just got even madder. And it happened that her big brother and others went to the town with her grandpa to pick up her father from the prison, she quietly brought her mother. She would expose him in front of everyone and make him lose all reputation and become a rat crossing the street.

“Hehe… What Miss Ling said is so funny. I am so busy these days that I can hardly get out of my house. What could I do to your mother? And, Miss Ling, as an unmarried woman, it was already not appropriate to come to a place where they are so many men. Your mother used to be my third aunt-in-law, but after all, we have no blood relation. And your old Ling family could even do things like aunt-nephew incest. So, please! Even you don’t about your own reputation, I got to care about mine, OK?”

“Ha ha…”

As his words fell, the surrounding onlookers burst into laughter, Ling Xiaoying trembling with great anger. And her mother hiding behind her quietly pulled her clothes, suggesting that she go back home, but occupied by shame and anger, she had already lost her mind. How could she still care that much?

“Ling Jingxuan, don’t try to be sarcastic. Over ten days ago, my parents missed their younger brother too much and meant to come to talk about the old days with my second uncle taking advantage that they were not busy. But without asking for the reason, you tied up my dad and sent him to the yamen and threatened my mom saying you’d also send her in. My mom was so scared that she hid home for quite a couple of days, and then she found she got blisters all over, and you happen to know how to use poison. You must have done something to her! Today you have to give me an explanation. Or, I’’ ask second grandpa and the old patriarch to hold the justice for me. I’ll let you also have a taste of being in jail!”

Shaking off her mother, Ling Xiaoying moved forward and angrily accused of him while pointing at his nose, and that kind of delicate little face had already been distorted due to hatred and jealousy.

“Oh? Your parents missed my parents? Why didn’t I know they are so close? All those years, what kind of life my parents lived in that family, I guess whole village should know it! Anyone who has the brain would never think it that way. Maybe, seeing that our days are getting better and better, they planned to seek gratuitous financial help from us! Don’t forget that’s what you have ever done before. That time, I earned some money through selling fish, I bought some clothes for my sons and some meat for my man, you came to my place to make a scene, and you even snatched away my well-fried meat! I guess everyone here should have heart of that. And now you let your mom wear a mask and come again slandering me of having poisoned her on the day that I invited so many guests. Ling Xiaoling, do you really take me as a pushover, Huh? All right. I don’t care whether you go to the village head or the old patriarch, or even the yamen, I’ll just wait here. I’d like to see what proof you have that I poisoned your mother!”