The Stepmother’s Counterattack: Raising a Child in a Bygone Era
Chapter 133 My Only Opinion, Divorce

Chapter 133: Chapter 133 My Only Opinion, Divorce

Seeing Qin Jinlian staring intently at her stomach, Yang Lizhen’s heart skipped a beat, but she acted as if nothing was wrong, "Mom, it’s getting late. If we don’t leave now, we’ll miss the bus."

At that moment, Qin Jinlian couldn’t care less about going into town; her head was filled with the words Liu Cuihua and the others had said.

"Lizhen, going into town isn’t urgent right now. I just remembered something important. Your belly is already over three months along; it’s time for a prenatal checkup. Let’s go to the town health clinic now."

Qin Jinlian said this and tried to pull Yang Lizhen along, but Yang Lizhen dodged her movement.

"Mom, I don’t feel well today; I don’t want to go out. Let’s go in a couple of days."

"If you’re feeling unwell, that’s even more reason to have a checkup to see if there’s any problem with the baby in your stomach. Come with me!"

As Qin Jinlian spoke, she tried to pull Yang Lizhen again, but this time, Yang Lizhen slapped her hand away.

In the conservatively minded countryside, this was already considered hitting one’s mother-in-law; it would be a cause for gossip if word got out.

But Qin Jinlian was too preoccupied to care about these trifles; she was only concerned with whether Yang Lizhen was actually carrying the next generation of the Shen family.

She insisted on taking Yang Lizhen to the health clinic, but Yang Lizhen refused to go, and soon the mother-in-law and daughter-in-law were entangled in a scuffle.

The villagers, hearing the commotion, all ran over to watch the excitement.

Shen Jianguo and Shen Xiangnan, who were working in the fields, also hurried back.

"What’s going on? Why has a fight started again out of the blue?"

Shen Jianguo entered holding his hoe and saw the two women looking like hens that had just finished a fight. He started cursing Qin Jinlian without getting his facts straight.

"You damned old woman, can’t you ever calm down? All you know is how to cause trouble; what are you fussing about now?"

Qin Jinlian was already furious, and being publicly berated by her husband without any clarification just made her feel wronged. The grievance in her heart overflowed like a flood, uncontrollable.

"Yang Lizhen, you damn liar, you’ve made me so miserable, wuwuwu..."

Qin Jinlian, with no regard for her image, sat on the ground and wailed, tears and snot streaming down her face.

It was as if she had just lost her own mother.

Shen Xiangnan, being filial, hurriedly helped Qin Jinlian up, "Mom, what exactly happened?"

With tears pooling in her eyes, Qin Jinlian looked at her son, grief coursing through her, "Xiangnan, your wife has deceived us all; she’s not pregnant at all. She’s not carrying the Shen family’s grandson, my grandson..."

The onlooking villagers were taken aback.

Shen Jianguo looked from the silent Yang Lizhen to his tearful wife and struggled to find his voice.

"Lizhen, are you pregnant or not?"

"She’s pregnant with nothing! I told her to go with me to the health clinic for a checkup, and she flatly refused, even hitting me! If she were pregnant, why would she be afraid to go?"

Yang Lizhen knew she couldn’t avoid the truth any longer and admitted, "... I thought I was pregnant at first, but later found out it was just an irregular period."

"I didn’t say anything later because I didn’t want to dash your hopes, thinking maybe next month I would be pregnant..."

As she spoke, Yang Lizhen glanced at Shen Xiangnan and defensively said, "Who knew he would be so useless, never managing to get me pregnant. Whose fault is that?"

Qin Jinlian trembled with anger.

It wasn’t enough that she had been tricked, but now her son’s reputation was under attack.

This was outrageous!

"Quit your bullshit! You’ve been married for so long and haven’t gotten pregnant, and still have the face to blame Xiangnan? I think you’re the hen that can’t lay eggs, and my Shen family’s misfortune is to have married such a lazy and useless daughter-in-law like you!"

Yang Lizhen sneered, "You think I wanted to marry into your Shen family? With nothing to offer, if it wasn’t for the fact that you had a son-in-law from the city, who would marry a deadbeat like Shen Xiangnan? Useless at everything, always fooling around in the village."

Qin Jinlian was beside herself with rage and was about to launch at Yang Lizhen.

"You still have the nerve to say that! You disgrace of a woman, the profitable business of my Shen family able to ’lay golden eggs’ was ruined by your Yang family!"

"That’s laughable. Shen Xiangnan himself has no capability, but he blames it on a woman like me. Do you have any shame? Shen Chaobei can earn money, so why can’t he? In the end, it’s because he’s not good enough!"

——

```

The news of Yang Lizhen’s fake pregnancy to swindle a gold necklace quickly spread throughout the villages within a ten-mile radius.

Yang’s mother looked at her daughter who had just left yesterday and today had run back to her parental home again, sighing incessantly.

"I told you long ago that this wouldn’t work, but you wouldn’t listen. Now look what happened, everyone is laughing at our Yang Family."

Yang Lizhen was also annoyed, but her annoyance wasn’t about the failure of the fake pregnancy; it was about not getting the gold necklace back.

Originally, she had planned to wait until she got her hands on the gold necklace and then pretend to have a miscarriage due to a fall.

Unfortunately, man’s schemes are no match for heaven’s, as Qin Jinlian somehow found out about the fake pregnancy ahead of time.

"Mom, you didn’t tell my cousin-in-law about my fake pregnancy, did you?"

"I wouldn’t dare to tell her something like that, I didn’t even tell your dad."

Yang Shan frowned so hard she could trap flies.

Only she and her mother knew about this, so how did it get out?

What the hell!?

----

As the time to pick up the children from kindergarten was approaching, Shen Mingzhu took her keys and wallet, ready to head out.

As soon as she opened the door, she saw Qin Jinlian sitting on the stairs opposite, looking dazed.

"Mingzhu, wuu wuu wuu..."

Looking at Qin Jinlian, who was crying unabashedly, a phrase popped into Shen Mingzhu’s mind: There’s something hateful about those who are pitiable.

Shen Mingzhu did as she said, she didn’t let Qin Jinlian enter, and instead had her accompany her to pick up Pei Ziheng from kindergarten.

On the way, Qin Jinlian sobbed as she detailed everything that had happened at home, leaving out no detail.

Shen Mingzhu listened with half an ear.

"Mingzhu, the Yang Family is too hateful, they’ve deceived our family so badly..."

Shen Mingzhu casually retorted, "It’s all your own doing. If you hadn’t been so blindly biased in favor of your second brother, Yang Lizhen wouldn’t have had the audacity and opportunity to play you like this."

Qin Jinlian’s tears, which had stopped, suddenly gushed again, annoying Shen Mingzhu.

"What’s the plan for dealing with this at home?"

Qin Jinlian, startled by the question, hiccupped between sobs, "What plan?"

Shen Mingzhu let out a cold laugh, "You’re here to seek my advice, aren’t you?"

Qin Jinlian looked at her expectantly, silent.

Shen Mingzhu went straight to the point: "My advice is just one word, divorce."

"How could we do that? Your second brother is not young anymore; it wasn’t easy for him to get married, and it cost so much money. If they divorce, wouldn’t that money have been wasted?"

Shen Mingzhu sneered, "You’re worried about the money spent on the wedding, but don’t you care about how your second brother is going to live the rest of his life? Yang Lizhen dared to fake a pregnancy this time; next time, she will dare to make him a cuckold, believe it or not!"

"She wouldn’t dare!" Qin Jinlian was so agitated by the words "make him a cuckold" that her forehead started throbbing, "Mingzhu, you can’t just say that. If word gets out, your second brother will be a laughingstock."

Shen Mingzhu mocked, "Oh, you’re afraid of being laughed at? Haven’t you been the butt of jokes ever since the family split up?"

Qin Jinlian choked up, "That’s different, which household doesn’t quarrel or argue? It’ll pass in a few days. This matter affects a man’s dignity and reputation; your second brother would be ridiculed for life, you can’t talk nonsense!"

"Fine, let’s talk about the cake incident then. You don’t really think the Yang Family let that recipe slip by accident, do you?"

Qin Jinlian expressed her confusion, "How does letting out the cake recipe benefit them?"

Shen Mingzhu was almost amused to death by Qin Jinlian’s naïveté and foolishness.

Indeed, if she weren’t foolish, she wouldn’t have been played by Yang Lizhen this whole time.

```