Chapter 88: He Was No Stranger to Malice

Feng Cuicui chased after them with a hoe for quite a while before finally stopping. In truth, she only meant to frighten the Wang family; she would never really use a hoe to strike anyone.

Last time she had righteous cause, but this time, though the Wangs had come to the door, they had not actually done anything. If she truly beat them, she worried it might affect Little Fourth.

When Li Su returned home and learned of the matter, he decided that the arrangements he had made in the city could be set in motion that very day.

Mother Wang and Wang Dafa gained nothing from their visit and even lost a chicken. As soon as they got back, Mother Wang took out her anger on Tian Hua, cursing and beating her, hurling filth so vicious that the whole house rang with abuse.

Wang Dafa frowned. He had no wish to listen to the uproar at home, so he turned and went off to complain to a friend.

Bruised all over, Tian Hua went to make dinner. Her eyes drifted to the arsenic used for poisoning rats, and a vicious gleam flashed in them. The entire Wang family could go to hell.

She mixed the poison into the food. Her mind was already half-mad; she laughed and cried at once.

Wang Dafa went to pour out his troubles to his friend Gong Chao. Seeing his condition, Gong Chao said, “Dafa, life hasn’t been easy for you. How about this? I’ll take you into the city for a drink. A little wine might make you feel better.”

Wang Dafa did not think much of it and immediately went along. As he drank, he poured out the bitterness in his heart.

“I only made one mistake. Did Li Zhengping have to go that far? She won’t even let me see my own daughter!”

Gong Chao fell silent.

“Mm.”

“Chaozi, my heart is bitter.”

“Mm.”

By the end, Gong Chao could hardly be bothered to humor him anymore. Seeing that he had drunk enough, he said, “How about I take you somewhere fun? I guarantee it’ll make you forget all this.”

Wang Dafa was already quite drunk. “Where?”

“Come on. You’ll know when we get there.”

Staggering, Wang Dafa followed him. Gong Chao took him to a gambling den. At first Wang Dafa did not join in, but when he saw Gong Chao winning a fair amount, and with the feverish atmosphere all around him, he too was tempted and wanted to try.

He won several rounds in a row. Gradually he became intoxicated by it, his eyes shining with excitement.

Gong Chao folded his arms across his chest and watched Wang Dafa sink into madness, the corners of his mouth lifting slightly. This business was almost over.

Later, Wang Dafa not only lost everything he had won, he lost his stake as well, and borrowed a great sum from the gambling house.

At first he wanted to borrow from Gong Chao, but Gong Chao told him he still needed his own money to keep playing. However, since he knew the people at the gambling house, he could have them lend silver to Wang Dafa instead.

Wang Dafa still hesitated a little, but then Gong Chao said, “Don’t worry. If you can’t pay it back, I’ll help you, brother.”

And so Wang Dafa played with even greater frenzy. Every thumbprint on the loan slips was his own, one after another.

He desperately wanted to win his losses back, thinking he would stop as soon as he did, but the more he played, the more he lost.

In only a few hours, the silver he had lost had reached an amount so enormous it was beyond anything he could imagine.

The gambling house threw him out like a dead dog. He lay sprawled on the ground while one of the thugs planted a foot on his chest and said, “You have three days. If you can’t pay, not only you, but your whole family won’t escape.”

The cold wind outside sobered him somewhat, and a chill spread through his entire body. “Gong Chao! Weren’t we brothers? Why would you set me up like this?”

He was finished. There was no way he could repay such a sum. These men would kill him.

He tried to rush inside and find Gong Chao, but was beaten again. He could not understand why Gong Chao would treat him this way.

He was steeped in ruin, neither man nor ghost. People on the street who saw him covered their noses in disgust and hurried away.

When Wang Dafa pushed open the door to his home, it was strangely quiet.

“Mother! Tian Hua!” He staggered as he walked, shouting at the top of his lungs, but no one answered.

He strode inside, and at the sight before him his eyes flew wide.

Tian Hua wore a grotesque smile as she looked at him, while the rest of the Wang family, including Tian Hua’s own son, all lay on the floor with foam at their mouths.

The scene made his scalp go numb. “Tian Hua, what have you done?”

He crouched down and shook Mother Wang’s body. “Mother! Mother!”

Swallowing hard, he reached a hand beneath her nose, then stumbled backward and collapsed onto the floor. “You... you killed them!”

Tian Hua laughed wildly. “That’s right. Your whole family deserved to die!”

Wang Dafa shouted, “You’re insane!”

She screamed back, “Yes, I’m insane! Your Wang family drove me to it!”

Her eyes were filled with hatred as she stared at him, regretting only that she had not managed to poison Wang Dafa as well.

Despair flooded him. Ever since Tian Hua had entered this house, there had not been a single peaceful day. And now the family was destroyed, lives and home alike.

Tian Hua was impulsive, ruthless, and venomous by nature. Wang Dafa had always known that. But before, he had only thought she was different from other women, special, daring, willing to do anything for him.

They had known each other since childhood. After Tian Hua married that sickly husband of hers, Wang Dafa still could not let her go. They began carrying on in secret, and he had only fanned the flames with a few words. Yet Tian Hua had truly gone and poisoned that invalid to death.

For Tian Hua, poisoning was not a first offense. But Wang Dafa had never imagined that in the end, his own family would also be murdered by her hand.

He was full of regret and despair. If only he had lived properly with Li Zhengping, how could things ever have come to this?

Tian Hua, too, was filled with regret. If Wang Dafa had not constantly beguiled her with sweet words, if she had simply stayed with that sickly husband of hers, then no matter what, things would never have ended like this.

She had once despised that husband deeply, yet now she missed him terribly. She regretted everything.

A fierce glint flashed in Wang Dafa’s eyes. He owed the gambling house far too much silver. If he could not repay it, there was no way he could remain here. His family was gone as well. He had to flee.

To flee, he needed money. There was little left in the house, and there was no time to sell the land, not to mention the commotion it would cause.

He lunged forward and seized Tian Hua by the throat with one hand. “You whore!” She struggled but could not break free, and her gaze began to scatter.

Then Wang Dafa seemed to think of something and slowly loosened his grip. She could not die yet. He would use Tian Hua to buy the silver he needed to escape.

He tore off his belt and bound her hands. That very night, under cover of darkness and silence, he took her to the county town and sold her for two taels of silver.

When he tried to leave the city, the men from the gambling house caught him, dragged him back, and beat him half to death, stripping him of every coin he had on him.

They forced him to sell all the family fields, and even that was not enough to cover the debt. In the end, they sold him to a mine as a labor slave. In that mine, the average slave survived less than two years.

When the people of Wang Family Village heard what had happened, they could only sigh in amazement. Tian Hua was truly a vicious woman, poisoning the entire Wang household at one stroke.

They said too that Wang Dafa was worthless. He had once had a perfectly good wife, yet would not keep her, insisting instead on carrying on with Tian Hua. And now look at him: his family ruined, his home destroyed.

After this incident, quite a few men who treated their wives poorly, and families who mistreated their daughters-in-law, became somewhat more restrained. They were genuinely afraid that if they drove someone too far, she might poison the whole household in return.

The Li family was equally shocked when they heard the news. Just the day before, that man had come to their gate wanting to see Sister Ping, and the very next day word came that this was what had become of him. Truly, the world changed in the blink of an eye.

Li Su, too, was somewhat surprised. Wang Dafa’s downfall had been a trap he himself arranged, but Tian Hua’s deed was something he had never anticipated. She was a ruthless one indeed.

He did not think his own methods harsh. Things could have remained peaceful enough, but the Wang family had insisted on disturbing his third sister and her child.

As for the whole family being poisoned to death, that was their own doing. They had treated Tian Hua badly, just as before they had treated his third sister badly. To put it bluntly, the Wang family had brought it on themselves.

In any case, he knew how to guard against others, and when it came to those who harmed the people he wished to protect, he had no shortage of cruel designs.

The inspiration for this scheme had come from the way Lin Xi once dealt with Chen Ping. From that, he had learned something real.

In any case, no one would suspect the Li family, nor would anyone know that he had played a hidden hand in it. From beginning to end, not a trace of him showed.