Yue Niang then exclaimed to the crowd. "See everyone? All this time you thought our restaurant was a second-rate noodle stall, but it turns out there was someone spreading poison all this while!"
Their noodle restaurant had managed to still do well enough, due to the quality of their food, but they could have done better, and provided a better life for their children. This couple had robbed her of that opportunity. For that, she would never forgive them!
"This bitch!" Tai Xuan growled angrily, cracking his knuckles. "You're lucky your children are girls, because if they were men, I'd beat them up in front you!"
"I'm sorry!" Poh Jin Lian repeated, shaking in fear.
"Sorry? How will your apologies compensate me for the income lost from all these years? And to think you've often made derogatory comments about my family's lack of money, when you've been contributing to it all this while!" Yue Niang roared, and everyone hushed in fear.
"Not to mention, do you think I wouldn't know what you've been saying to my daughter all those years? All the things you influenced her peers to call her? About how you got them to ostracise her?"
"I - I'm sorry!" Poh Jin Lian wept, but Yue Niang wasn't in the mood for forgiveness. She was out for vengeance.
"You! A full-grown adult, bullying a child because you didn't like me, her mother, because your husband, had the fucking gall to find me attractive! To call you pathetic would be an insult to the word!"
Everyone watched in stunned silence, casting judgemental eyes over Poh Jin Lian and sympathetic eyes on Xue Ning. A grown woman bullying a child was just ridiculous!
Xue Ning stangely felt like crying at the sudden sympathy - she didn't like to think about her relatively sad and lonely childhood and adolescence, but there was no denying that she could have been a happier person if Poh Jin Lian wasn't getting people to make her life more difficult than it had to be. She hurriedly wiped at her eyes with her hand, but she didn't do it quickly enough - Jingwei turned around just in time to see her cry!
Oh, that was embarrassing.
Follow on NovᴇlEnglish.nᴇtSun Jingwei just stared at her as though someone had kicked an entire litter of puppies after throwing a sack of kittens to drown in an icy river. She immediately pretended nothing was wrong, but Jingwei's heart still ached when he saw a suspiciously pinched look remain on Xue Ning's face.
It looked like she was still holding back tears! Xue Ning, who was one of the strongest, most steady people he knew, looked like she wanted to bawl.
That wouldn't do!
He wanted to go and hug her, but then her brother slung a supportive arm around her shoulder, muttering reassurances to her. If he did something now, he'd attract undue attention to her, and Xue Ning hated that.
So instead, he decided that he would take revenge for her! Jingwei turned back to that scumbag couple and smirked.
"Wow, so you're an evil stepmother?" Jingwei chimed in placidly, but his eyes were cold. "But you're not even related to her at all - ah, I guess that just makes you evil. But don't worry, you're still a tiny bit above your husband."
"Damn right she is, I'm surprised the churches don't catch fire when she and her husband walk in every Sunday." Yue Niang added, snarling at them even as her heart felt joyous at Jingwei's input.
Her own husband could have joined, but he had always preferred to leave the verbal warfare to her while he sat aside and ate popcorn. He tended to comfort people more - there was a reason why he was often on the clean-up crew.
"They are Christian?" Jingwei's mouth fell open in surprise, staring at them with new eyes. "Wow, guess God really is accepting everyone nowadays. Jesus Christ."
The crowd laughed. He could hear Xue Ning snicker from behind him, and he smiled.
Mayor Poh's face flushed an angry red. "Li Yue Niang, don't try to kick people when they're down! You'll suffer retribution for this!"
"Ho ho ho, did I just hear a rat speak?" Yue Niang asked condescendingly,
"Are you deaf?" Jingwei asked. "I was the one that insulted you! Why are you blaming Mrs Li for my words? I see that you really don't register my existence!"
"N-no, Mr Sun, I wouldn't dare - " Mayor Poh quickly amended his words, mentally smacking himself for saying the wrong thing. Now Sun Jingwei was just waiting to be offended, why did he still open his mouth to say something that wasn't an apology?
(Because he couldn't take being insulted by Li Yue Niang! How dare this woman, who rejected him a long time ago, dare to insult him like this? He was the Mayor! How dare her daughter follow her footsteps! If she had just let him cop a feel, he'd treat her so lovingly!)
"You wouldn't dare insult me, but you'd dare insult the same person that you tried to hit on?" Jingwei commented incredulously. "You're not very bright, are you?"
"According to him, neither am I," Yue Niang cheerfully interrupted. The couple now leaned backwards, refusing to meet her eyes, but Yue Niang wasn't going to let them off until she squeezed everything from them.
She grabbed Mayor Poh's chin and raised it so he had no choice but to meet her eyes. Yue Niang gave a feral smile at the fear and humiliation she could smell from the couple, or maybe that was just their nervous sweating.
"Unfortunately, just like how you loved to insult me by calling me a brainless slut, I am not as highly educated as you! As such, I have no elegant words to describe you. Perhaps Sun Jingwei can help?"
"Me? I don't know… but I've always been a man of action." Jingwei replied as he remembered how sad Xue Ning looked. "I think stripping them of their Mayor status and then letting them spend some time in prison for them to reflect on their actions would be a good start."
The couple looked up in pure horror.
"Well, that's settled then! Goodbye Mayor Poh, I guess I have to call you Mr Poh from now on. I hope your CEO son-in-law and your daughter will visit you in the holding cell tonight." Yue Niang promised sweetly, even wiping away the tears that escaped from Poh Jin Lian's eyes.
Jingwei turned to the befuddled police officers. "What are you waiting for? Take them away! Or do I need to replace all of you too?
"No Sir!" They hastily agreed, pulling the kneeling couple off the floor. But it seemed like their bodies were stuck to the concrete and they refused to leave at all.
Follow on Novᴇl-Onlinᴇ.cᴏm"Mr and Mrs Poh, please come with us." One of the officers cajoled.
"No! You cannot do this to us!" Mr Poh raged, his eyes bulging out. His wife began to cry harder. "I'll get you for this!"
"Please stop making a bigger spectacle of yourself." Another officer pleaded as he dragged their stubborn bodies from the floor. "Do you not want to leave with dignity?"
"Laogong, he is right," Poh Jin Lian said through teary eyes. "We - "
"Shut up! This mess wouldn't have happened if not for you! No matter what, I'm divorcing you after this!" Mr Poh yelled.
"How could you say something so heartless!" Poh Jin Lian screamed back at him. "After all I've done for you… and who says you can divorce me, if anything, I should be divorcing you - you unfaithful bastard!"
"Me? Unfaithful? Have you given me anything worth being faithful too? Just look at yourself! Fat and ugly and useless!"
"You're not handsome either! You're balding and smelly and bad in bed!"
The couple then started to kick and claw at each other, intent on ripping the other party to shreds physically, not just with their words, scandalising their onlookers. The Poh couple was known to be quite lovey-dovey by everyone, and they even raised two lovely daughters, but no one could have guessed that their love was so fragile that it was broken by a single setback!
"Fuck you bitch!"
"You fucking manwhore!"
They continued to scream expletives at each other, even as the officers hurriedly pried them apart, cuffed them and pulled them to the police car. Unfortunately, they only had one police car, which meant that this troublesome couple had to share the backseat!
Husband and wife screamed and lunged for each other even with their hands cuffed. It would have been supremely romantic, if not for the fact that they were trying to murder each other!
"Sorry for all the trouble they have caused you," the police officers bowed lowly to Sun Jingwei.
"Caused me? What about the trouble they caused them?" Jingwei gestured to the Li family. "What was your entire department doing for 10 years? You heard that creep! They were deliberately slandering the Li family for a decade! If this happened to them, who knew how many other families this happened to!"
The officers could only hang their heads, ashamed.