Chi Yin knitted her brows slightly.
To rashly take the children and leave, with all three adults of the Wei Family currently present, would undoubtedly spark a messy farce.
It wasn't that she was afraid of trouble; she simply didn't want the children to witness such unpleasantness.
After a moment of thought, she decided to stay put for the time being.
She would spend the night at the Wei Family residence and deal with it tomorrow.
Having thought it through, Chi Yin led the two children out of the room, and right then, her brother-in-law, Wei Chengan, stepped in from outside, bringing them face-to-face.
He was very tall, standing at one meter ninety.
The fair skin from four years ago had been baked into a wheatish bronze by years of field training. His posture was upright, and a sharp, soldierly aura radiated from his very bones.
As Chi Yin looked Wei Chengan over, he was appraising her in return.
Having not seen each other in four years, she was no longer that green and naive young girl, having acquired the added charm of a mature woman.Fair-skinned as snow, with willow-leaf eyebrows and autumn-water eyes as clear as a lake, she possessed a faint, latent sternness in her gaze that commanded attention.
Xixi and Wanwan stood by her sides, blinking their little eyes excitedly as they looked at Wei Chengan.
Wei Chengan's gaze fell upon the two little rascals.
He had been gone for four years, and they were three years old.
Calculating the time, the pregnancy must have been detected right around when he first left.
"Mommy, Mommy, this is Uncle Chengan." Both children were bold, one following the other, pulling and pushing each other until they practically shoved Chi Yin right up in front of Wei Chengan.
The children didn't know their own strength, and Chi Yin was pushed right against Wei Chengan. Even when her body was pressed tight against him, they kept on shoving hard.
Chi Yin instinctively reached out to brace herself in the middle, but accidentally touched a bulging, thumping chest.Everything happened too quickly. Chi Yin was already so mortified that her sisters-in-law and brothers-in-law had made such scandalous remarks within Wei Chengan's earshot that she wished she could crawl into a hole and disappear.
At this moment, her face turned bright red, right down to her ears.
Almost simultaneously, Wei Chengan froze for a split second, his entire body going stiff and rigid. He looked down quickly to see Chi Yin with half her face pressed against his chest, her hair brushing against his chin, tickling him.
Chi Yin scolded the children, "Alright, alright, stop pushing! Uncle Chengan is going to fall over."
Wei Chengan took a step back to steady himself, then gripped Chi Yin's shoulders to hold her upright. Just then, Wei Chengliang and Zhang Xiufen walked in.
Zhang Xiufen stared at the pair in shock.
Wei Chengliang looked equally incredulous. He glanced from Chi Yin to Wei Chengan, taking a long moment to process what he was seeing. "Chengan! You're back?!"
It finally dawned on him why Zhang Xiufen had chosen such an odd time to kill a chicken. His brother, who hadn't been home in his four years of military service, had returned!
Four years ago, shortly after Wei Chengliang had married, Wei Chengan had rushed off to the army. In those four years, there had been no leave, no visits home—not even a single letter. Everyone in the family had assumed he was dead.
When they were younger, his brother had been inseparable from him, following him everywhere, whether he was climbing mountains or wading through rivers. Seeing him now, standing tall and ramrod straight, it was clear he had done well for himself in the military.
Good. It was truly good.
Wei Chengliang was overjoyed by Wei Chengan's return. But as he laughed, he suddenly recalled what Chi Yin had just said, and he felt as if he had been struck by lightning.
Subconsciously, Wei Chengliang glanced at the hands Wei Chengan still had on Chi Yin's shoulders. With a subtle, calm movement, he reached over to steady Chi Yin himself and nudged her slightly to the side.Wei Chengliang looked again at Wei Chengan's expression. It seemed normal, but both of his earlobes had turned pink...
Wei Chengliang's eyes widened. Could it really be that kind of relationship?!
Wei Chengliang's face turned pale.
He had assumed that Chi Yin and Wei Chengan had only spent a dozen days together, and since Wei Chengan had been away in the military for four years without coming home, Chi Yin's words must have been purely meant to spite him.
Yet now...
Wei Chengliang felt an anxiety gnawing at his heart as if scratched by a cat's claws!
As for Zhang Xiufen, she had completely passed out.
Her mind was left with only a few words: *It's over, the sky has fallen!*
They had managed to kill a small rooster to celebrate the younger son coming home to visit relatives, but because of Zhang Xiufen fainting, nobody even had a chance to drink two sips of the soup.
Everyone scrambled in a panic to administer first aid.
As a veteran of four years, Wei Chengan handled such sudden emergencies with practiced ease.
First, he unbuttoned the collar of Zhang Xiufen's shirt, turned her head to one side, and then fetched the blood pressure medication she usually took for her to swallow.
Once that was done, he carried her into the bedroom to rest.
Wei Chengliang wiped away his tears in a panic. His mother had suffered from high blood pressure for years and could not handle being angered in the slightest, yet tonight he had told her so many aggravating things!
The two children anxiously followed them into the room, crying and wailing, "Grandma, Grandma, don't die, Grandma."
With both of her sons present and the children watching, Chi Yin had no choice but to pretend to care by pouring a glass of water and handing it over.
Chi Yin's gaze fell upon Zhang Xiufen, who lay on the bed with her eyes closed, looking as dead as a corpse. In her heart, she did not wish for her to die—not out of any great kindness, but simply because dying like this would let her off far too easily!
In her past life, when the twin daughters met with disaster, Zhang Xiufen was also at the scene, collapsing to the ground and beating her thighs in a frantic breakdown.
Later, Zhang Xiufen explained to her that she and a neighbor had been out playing mahjong that day, and upon hearing the villagers shouting, she ran home only to find that the children had mistakenly ingested paraquat.
Yet when the police investigated and found that she had not actually appeared at the mahjong table that day, she changed her story to claim she had only heard about the accident on her way to play mahjong.
This aroused Chi Yin's suspicion, leading her to believe that Zhang Xiufen must have condoned Wei Chengliang's murder; otherwise, how could her madness have happened with such convenient timing?
Only, in her past life she had been in too much pain and completely numb, barely holding on until the children's seventh day after death before she finally collapsed.
Xixi tugged pitifully at Chi Yin, crying, "Wuwuwu, I don't want Grandma to die!"
Wanwan also shook her with tearful eyes, saying, "I don't want Grandma to die either."
Chi Yin closed her eyes and took a deep breath, pressing down the resentment rising in her chest.
Wei Chengan turned around, intending to comfort the crying children, and coincidentally caught sight of the expression Chi Yin had not yet managed to wipe from her face.
Chi Yin crouched down and gently used her sleeve to wipe the tears from the children's faces. "Don't worry, your grandma has plenty of spirit. She, well, she's going to live to be a hundred."
The smile on her red lips was soft and gentle, carrying an air of pure innocence.
If he hadn't seen the look in her eyes just moments before, Wei Chengan would have almost believed that Chi Yin's blessing was genuine.
Chi Yin looked back at Zhang Xiufen, who still wore the face of a corpse on the bed.
She fainted with quite convenient timing.
That was fine, too—it saved her from having to spend another night in this household.
While Zhang Xiufen's two sons were dancing attendance on her, she would take the children away and make a completely clean break with this family once and for all.