Predictably enough, Wang Ling Er left in a huff, slamming the door of her limousine and ordering her chauffeur to drive away. We watched them go, then returned home to put aside the groceries before returning to the antique store.
The rest of the afternoon passed without incident, and we prepared to close the shop and go home. When we did that, we passed by a very familiar figure, who was at the head of a bunch of similarly aged youths.
Mu Rong Qiu.
"Hey, Qiu, isn't that your cousin and cousin-in-law?"
"Ah, the trash, right? The henpecked simp who eats soft rice and relies on his wife to rears him?"
"Ha ha ha! They're still together! He really is a spineless simp who bows down to his wife!"
The moment Mu Rong Qiu's friends caught sight of me and Mu Rong Shu, they burst out laughing and began throwing insults at me. Mu Rong Qiu, on the other hand, turned very pale when he saw me. He staggered.
"S…shut up!" he shouted.
"What's the matter, Qiu?" One of his friends turned to regard him strangely. "Why are you so afraid? You can't possibly be afraid of this trash, right?"
"Yeah! Weren't you the one telling us what a trash he is? How he's weak and spineless for marrying into your family, how he eats soft rice and relies on his wife to raise him? A useless loser who needs your family to give him a job?"
"N…no!" Mu Rong Qiu stared at me in fright and dropped to his knees, bowing desperately. "I didn't say that! I was wrong! I didn't mean it! Please treat me as just blowing hot air out of my mouth!"
I sort of understood what was happening. Throughout the three years when I married into the Mu Rong family, Mu Rong Qiu had been spreading rumors about me being a trash and useless loser so as to smear my reputation. He didn't know who I was, but he decided that I was a waste because I was a son-in-law who married into the Mu Rong family. He had heard that I was kicked out of the Zhao family for being a trash, and that cemented his poor impression of me in his mind.
First impressions mattered…even if they happened to be third-hand impressions based upon rumors and falsehood. They were hard to change until something caused a tremendous shock to shatter that impression. Like me summoning Lu Bu to intimidate him, for example. That near-death experience had embedded fear so deeply into Mu Rong Qiu's bones that he would shiver whenever he saw me. It had become an instinct…a survival instinct of sort.
What, you wanted me to kill him just because he insulted me? Did you think I was Chen Fan, some sort of psychotic mass-murderer who took the lives of other people for something as trivial as looking down upon me? Stop being such an edgelord. You might think spouting such nihilistic and shocking statements makes you cool, but it just makes people cringe at how delusional and disturbing you are in reality.
As long as the guy learned his lesson and never bothered him again, why should I care about him? Talk about disproportionate payback. Words might hurt, but it wasn't as if his insults killed me. So why should I murder him?
In any event, it was gratifying to see him beg me for mercy.
"What the fuck are you doing?!"
"Why are you kowtowing to this loser?"
"What the hell happened to you?!"
"Shut up!" Mu Rong Qiu snapped at them. "If you value your lives, just shut up right now!"
Mu Rong Qiu's friends were completely taken aback. They stared at him in disbelief before glancing at me in disgust when I said nothing.
"Hey! Who do you think you are? Demanding that Qiu bow to you?"
"What did you do to him?"
"Me?" I feigned surprise. "You saw the whole thing. I didn't do anything. He was the one who dropped to his knees and apologized to me on his own."
"Shut up! You definitely did something!"
I ignored them and approached Mu Rong Qiu, grabbing his arm and hauling him up. "Stop that. You're embarrassing me. Stay on your feet. I'm not your master or something."
"T…thank you for mercy, cousin…!"
The jaws of his friends dropped when they watched him grovel before me, their gazes disbelieving.
"Why are you acting so pathetic for? Why do you seem so afraid of this trash?"
"I told you to shut up!" Mu Rong Qiu growled through gritted teeth. "If you want to live, stop talking!"
"Are you seriously standing up for this trash?"
"Yeah, you're the one who told us he's trash. Why are you sucking up to him now?"
"Hey!" Mu Rong Shu had enough. "You keep calling my husband trash. I don't think you know what that word means."
"Why?" One of them sneered. "Can't handle the truth? That your husband is a piece of trash?"
"You can't accept the truth because you don't want to face the reality that you've married trash!"
"I don't blame her! I wouldn't be able to live with myself either if I married a trash! I feel sorry for her!"
"Yeah, just how sad can you be if you marry trash? Hey, beautiful lady, why don't you divorce that trash and marry me instead? I promise I'll be good to you. I'll treat you very well. I bet I'm better than him in bed!"
"Scum!" Mu Rong Shu glared at them. The three friends laughed in unison.
"Better than trash!"
"If Zhao Huan Shi is trash, we're all worse than trash…" Mu Rong Qiu was despairing at how stubborn his friends, and why they refused to take the hint. He looked as if he was about to hyperventilate at the stupidity of these idiots.
"Excuse me? Are you comparing us to trash like him?"
"Why do you insist that my husband is trash?" Mu Rong Shu asked icily. "You don't even know him! You have never met him before! Why do you believe that he is trash? Because you heard second or third hand that he is trash? Yet none of you ever tried to validate the rumors for yourselves, never bothered to find out for yourselves what kind of person he really is!"
"Why do we need to?" One of them sneered. "There's no need to waste time on trash."
"Again, why is he trash? Because you say so? Because you heard someone say so? So regardless of the reality in front of you, you will always insist on believing such nonsense?!"
"It's not nonsense," another guy said firmly. Mu Rong Shu looked as if she was going to slap him, but I held her back and shook my head.
"Don't waste time on such jerks," I told her. "They aren't worth your time or effort."
"Jerks?" One of Mu Rong Qiu's friends came up to me, trying to intimidate me. "Who do you think you are? Go wash your mouth."
"Yeah! Do you know who you're messing with?"
"I give up!" Mu Rong Qiu moaned and backed away. He looked at me fearfully. "I have nothing to do with them anymore! Sorry! I shouldn't have brought them along this way!"
"Coward." Mu Rong Qiu's friends gave him a disgusted stare before one of them tried bumping into me. "Say that again? You called me a jerk?"
"Yeah. Just look at how you're behaving. If you're not a jerk, then what are you?"
"Shut up!" Mu Rong Qiu's friend threw a punch at me. Mu Rong Qiu could only close his eyes and shake his head, whispering prayers so that his friend's soul could pass on peacefully.
As for me, I caught the guy's fist and stopped his punch. He tried to use brute strength to push his fist forward, only to come up against what seemed to be a brick wall.
Then I tightened my grip.
"Ugh!" The poor brute turned extremely pale, perspiration dripping down his face. He began screaming in pain, tears running from his eyes. "Please…please let go!"
"What?!"
"How is Li Liang being overpowered?!"
The other friends stumbled back in shock. I shoved Li Liang back, causing him to sprawl on his back on the ground. Weeping, he nursed his bruised hand and shook it, hissing in pain.
"I warned you," Mu Rong Qiu muttered under his breath.
"So…so what?" Another of his friend snapped. "He's good at fighting, I'll give you that, but it doesn't change the fact that he's a soft rice eater who relies on his wife to raise him!"
At that moment, a familiar car roared past, coming to a stop beside us. Mu Rong Lao stepped out, his brow wrinkling when he caught sight of Mu Rong Qiu.
"Xiao Qiu, what are you doing here? You didn't come here to harass your cousin-in-law's store again, did you?"
"N…nothing." Mu Rong Qiu shook his head frantically. "I did nothing! We were just passing by! I swear!"
"Grandfather Mu Rong." Li Liang and the other two politely bowed their heads respectfully. Mu Rong Lao frowned at them, but nodded back in greeting. He then turned to me.
"Huan Shi, did you already close the store?"
"Yeah, but I can open it again. I'll prepare the guest hall."
"No need." Mu Rong Lao shook a hand and approached me. "Here's the check for the Xuan Huan Sword you excavated from the Tomb of the War God. Eighty percent of the profits, so sixteen million yuan total."
"Thank you." I accepted the check while Mu Rong Qiu's friends gaped at me. I smiled at Mu Rong Shu and was rewarded with a dazzling expression. "My wife and I will take it."
"What? Sixteen million yuan?"
"Xuan Huan Sword?"
"Oh, if you're interested in buying treasures, you're welcome to visit Huan Shi's store anytime. He and Xiao Shu often explore tombs to retrieve treasures. They might be able to sell them to you at a discount."
"Uh…" Li Liang and the other friends were turning very pale now. On one hand, they were very aware of how dangerous tomb explorations were, with traps and monsters often protecting them. No ordinary person could simply walk in and then walk out carrying a bunch of treasures. On the other, they felt really stupid – after insulting me and ridiculing my wife, there was no way they could shamelessly ask me for a discount.
In fact, they would be lucky if we let them go free after deriding us so much.
Fortunately, I wasn't petty. On the other hand, Mu Rong Shu wasn't going to let this slide.
"Oh, we are not worthy. Why would they buy something from trash like us?" She made a face. "Not to mention, one of them wants me to divorce my husband and marry him instead. I think he already has the intention to take over the antique store. What he doesn't realize is that the store belongs to my husband, not the Mu Rong family."
"What?" Mu Rong Lao scowled and turned to glare at the three friends, who were quailing before him. They dropped to their knees, fervently pressing their foreheads against the floor.
"Sorry! We…we were just talking nonsense! Pay no attention to us!"
"You're apologizing to the wrong person," Mu Rong Lao replied coldly. They stiffened, and then slowly turned to me. Banging their foreheads against the ground until their skin broke and they bled, they whimpered pitifully.
"Please, kind sir, don't bother with ants like us. Forgive us for our nonsense! You're such a great and magnanimous person, don't take what we said to heart!"
"It's fine, just don't do it again."
"Thank you for your mercy!" the three of them started to scamper away, but Mu Rong Shu stopped them with a word.
"Wait."
"Eh?"
Li Liang and his friends slowly raised their heads to look at her fearfully. She smiled frostily, causing them to shiver even more violently.
"My husband might have forgiven you…but I have no intention of letting you go."
This was why I love my wife so much.