The Stepmother’s Counterattack: Raising a Child in a Bygone Era
Chapter 480 - 479: Teaching Shen Baolan a Lesson

Chapter 480: Chapter 479: Teaching Shen Baolan a Lesson

Pei Yang’s face was a canvas of displeasure, "Wear the watch I gave you."

Although Shen Mingzhu found the men’s competition for favor both speechless and amusing, she still coaxed instinctively, "I’ll wear yours tomorrow."

"Every day?"

Shen Mingzhu thought for a moment, "Tomorrow’s Thursday, so I’ll wear yours every Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday."

"And Monday, Wednesday, Friday, and Sunday?"

Shen Mingzhu glanced at him without speaking, her expression clearly asking why he was fussing over details.

Pei Yang felt aggrieved, "Why does that little rascal get one more day than me? I don’t accept this."

The two of them together acted no older than ten.

"So, you take the even days, and the son takes the odd ones, happy now?"

"I want the odd numbers."

Pei Yang was mentally doing the math; after all, the longer months had 31 days, and odd days outnumbered even ones by quite a few.

Shen Mingzhu reminded him, "Tomorrow’s the 18th."

Pei Yang choked, "I won’t compete for a temporary advantage."

"Suit yourself, but move aside so I can serve the soup."

"I’ll do it."

Eager to please, Pei Yang offered his help, and Shen Mingzhu, more than happy to relax, shoved a pair of heat-resistant gloves into his hands.

After dinner and cutting the cake, Pei Yang had to return to the store to continue working.

The store stayed open until 8:30 p.m., and he had come back specially to celebrate Shen Mingzhu’s birthday.

Shen Mingzhu placed the remaining half of the birthday cake into the trunk of his car, asking him to share it with Pei Ke and the employees.

"Don’t eat it in the store to keep bugs and rats away," she warned.

Pei Yang agreed with his words, and while making sure no one was around, he leaned down and gave her a kiss on the lips.

"Happy Birthday. I’ll come back to keep you company after work," he said.

"Okay, get going," she replied.

"Mhm."

Watching the car disappear into the night, Shen Mingzhu turned and went back into the house, the corners of her lips slightly upturned.

Pei Ziheng was standing in front of the dining table, tiptoeing to tidy up the dishes and cutlery.

Guoguo knelt on a dining chair, passing the chopsticks and bowls one by one to her brother.

Watching this scene, Shen Mingzhu’s eyes inexplicably welled up with warmth.

Time flies so fast, it seemed like the kids had grown up in the blink of an eye.

As she was about to join them, the telephone in the living room rang.

It was Zhou Shuhuan on the line.

"Pei Yang’s gone to the store, page him there; remember the number..."

After jotting down Pei Yang’s pager number, Zhou Shuhuan continued, "Sister-in-law, give me your pager number as well, just in case I can’t reach Pei Yang in the future, I can contact you."

Shen Mingzhu reported her own pager number as well.

Just as she was about to hang up, she heard Zhou Shuhuan wish her a "Happy Birthday."

Shen Mingzhu was surprised, but then it occurred to her that he must have heard it from Shen Baolan, so she didn’t dwell on it.

Zhou Shuhuan leaned against the wall, smoking a cigarette, his thoughts involuntarily drifting back to that absurd dream.

In the dream, he and Shen Mingzhu were husband and wife, and every year on this day he would celebrate her birthday.

Shen Mingzhu had also given birth to a daughter for him.

Their daughter’s name was Niuniu.

Unbearably adorable.

It was only when the cigarette burned his fingers that Zhou Shuhuan’s thoughts snapped back from the dreamland.

He didn’t know why he had such a dream, whether it was fate or the regret and dissatisfaction in his heart.

Yes, he was full of regret.

```

Countless sleepless nights filled with dreams, he wondered why he hadn’t chosen Shen Mingzhu in the first place.

How wonderful it would have been if he had married Shen Mingzhu instead.

...

As night engulfed the world in silence, all sounds ceased.

Exhausted from the day’s toil, Shen Baolan lay in bed tossing and turning, unable to sleep.

She was furious.

She finally understood why Shen Mingzhu always managed to outshine her, and it made her heart and lungs ache with frustration.

They both had dreams, so why were Shen Mingzhu’s dreams more fragrant and beautiful than hers?

Shen Mingzhu dreamt of all kinds of opportunities to get rich, while her dreams were muddled and unclear.

Aside from knowing that Pei Yang would die young and Zhou Shuhuan would prosper, she dreamt of nothing else.

Why should that be?

Could it be that her sleeping posture was incorrect?

What was Shen Mingzhu’s sleeping posture again?

Shen Baolan racked her brain and finally remembered.

At the age of ten, she had seen Shen Mingzhu taking a nap, lying on her stomach, with drool soaking the pillow. She had made a joke out of it, and Shen Mingzhu had been ridiculed for a long time because of what she said.

Shen Baolan promptly turned over and lay on her stomach to sleep, mimicking Shen Mingzhu, to see if she could dream of opportunities to make fortune.

Three days later.

When Shen Mingzhu saw Shen Baolan, who had come looking for her, she was taken aback.

Shen Baolan’s face was sallow, with lifeless eyes, and two enormous dark circles that could rival a giant panda’s.

Shen Baolan was full of melancholy.

She had lain on her stomach for three days straight, not only feeling suffocated but also unable to sleep.

She had to work during the day and couldn’t rest properly at night; she was nearly at her breaking point.

But she was not ready to give up, so she decided to confront Shen Mingzhu and demand answers.

"Shen Mingzhu, I know everything now, your secret."

Shen Baolan spoke with certainty, a smug look on her face as if there was no way Shen Mingzhu could deceive her.

Shen Mingzhu’s first thought was that her identity as a transmigrated individual had been exposed, but she was not panicked.

Even if she adamantly denied it, what could Shen Baolan do?

"You’ve dreamt it too, haven’t you? Dreamt that Pei Yang will die, that Zhou Shuhuan will become prosperous."

Shen Mingzhu remained calm, not taking Shen Baolan’s bait, and waited patiently like a hunter for Shen Baolan to reveal more information.

Shen Baolan took her silence as a confirmation, her emotions suddenly intensifying.

"Exactly, how after you got married into the city did you change one hundred and eighty degrees. In the countryside, not even cooking or feeding the dog was to your taste, but once you were in the city, suddenly, you had great skills and even learned to do business. All of that you learned from my man, right?"

Shen Mingzhu was bewildered, "Why would I learn from him?"

"Why pretend? You and Shuhuan lived a lifetime together in your dreams. You’ve shared a bed night after night, how could you not know what he’s done? All those money-making methods, you learned from him, didn’t you? Shen Mingzhu, you have no shame; you’re married to Pei Yang and still longing for my man, exploiting him to make money."

The amount of information in this paragraph was overwhelming, even with Shen Mingzhu prepared, it took her a while to digest.

She suddenly understood.

Why Shen Baolan kept saying she had let Pei Yang go for her sake.

Because, in Shen Baolan’s prophetic dream, it wasn’t she who married Zhou Shuhuan, it was the original host. It seemed Zhou Shuhuan became quite successful in his career, making a lot of money, which provided the original host with a good life.

However, Shen Baolan, having married Pei Yang, became a widow at an early age and lived an unsatisfactory life.

With Shen Baolan’s competitive nature, she could not tolerate such an outcome and plotted to have the original host fall into the water, claiming Zhou Shuhuan, the promising candidate, in advance.

Everything finally made sense.

But Shen Baolan did not expect that the original host had already passed away due to that fall into the water, and her body was taken over by a modern person from forty years later.

"Shen Mingzhu, I won’t hold the past against you, but you must tell me everything you dreamt about. Zhou Shuhuan is my man, and all his money-making methods should be mine!"

With a mindset to teach Shen Baolan a lesson and to vent the original host’s resentment, Shen Mingzhu finally spoke —

```

Search the lightnovelworld.cc website on Google to access chapters of novels early and in the highest quality.