Tang Qiu suddenly intertwined her fingers with Jiang Shaocheng's and stared at him intently. "What is it?" he asked, puzzled.
"Thank you for bringing me good luck," she said, beaming. "Even as a child, it felt like misfortune perpetually came my way. But ever since meeting you, I feel blessed."
Jiang Shaocheng's heart melted slightly. "You're my wife. What's mine is yours, including my luck." His words–along with that kiss earlier–made Tang Qiu's face grow warm.
"My, my, it's really you, Tang Qiu."
A woman's haughty voice reached their ears. She strutted up to Tang Qiu like a predator closing in on its prey. Tang Qiu frowned at the familiar voice, before turning and registering who it belonged to: Chen Man's daughter, Huamei. Huamei frequently visited the Fengs; once, Tang Qiu had even thought of her as her own cousin.
"Who's that ugly freak next to you, Tang Qiu? Is he a cripple? You know, with the wheelchair and all." Derision dripped from Huamei's every word. Her brows pinched together in revulsion when she saw the pattern of scars on Jiang Shaocheng's face.
Rage flooded Tang Qiu. "You don't know what you're talking about, Huamei. No one asked for your opinion."
"It's a fact that he's ugly. Can't I speak the truth? Is he your boyfriend?" She made a tsk noise. "You've got some screwed up tastes, Tang Qiu, if you went and found yourself a ghastly cripple like him."
Tang Qiu's marriage was not widely-known–naturally, since the Fengs were too afraid to publicize news of it–so Huamei didn't know that the man in the wheelchair before her was actually Jiang Shaocheng. In the past, the Feng sisters took great pleasure in bullying Tang Qiu, and Huamei had been no different, viewing her as no more than an insect beneath her sole. The hideous cripple beside Tang Qiu was just another tool for Huamei to have fun tormenting her.
Tang Qiu's hands balled into fists. "I suggest that you run back to whichever hole you crawled out from. I'm in no mood to deal with you right now."
Huamei's mouth twisted into a contemptuous sneer. Tang Qiu had been nothing more than a servant of the Fengs. Now, just because she had found herself some gruesome cripple, she had become audacious enough to start running her mouth. "You're a little slut who was born to yet another shameless slut. Your whore of a mother seduced my uncle, and now you've run off to play arm candy to such a hideous man. How much is he paying you?"
"Honestly," she continued, "I came to give you a reminder, for your own good: my family has too much dignity to stoop as low as you. It's a shame, you know, that you learnt nothing of value, only how to follow in your bitch mother's footsteps."
At the mention of her mother, fury burned through Tang Qiu, flushing her face. Her knuckles turned white, trembling with rage, and for one instant murder flashed in her eyes. She had left the Fengs' household; she didn't have to thread on eggshells around them anymore. No–she could retaliate freely.
"Huamei, you regularly steal Feng Lu's jewelry, and when Feng Lu can't find them, you allow me to be maligned and beaten. For my own good, you say? Who's the shameless one here?"
Huamei's sneer slipped, giving way to embarrassment, before taking on a caustic, bitter edge. "What proof do you have? You liar–you were clearly the one brazen enough to steal, and now you're blaming me? The Fengs were too kind to you. They should have beaten you to death long ago!"
Before Tang Qiu could retort, the man in the wheelchair grabbed her hand. "This woman used to beat you?"
Briefly stunned, Tang Qiu's eyes drifted to Huamei, whose face was written all over with unabashed mockery. She nodded. It was true–Huamei would steal Feng Lu's jewelry, then point fingers at her, leaving the Feng family to punish Tang Qiu.
Jiang Shaocheng felt a stab of pain in his heart. He gripped her hand. "Qiu, it's a public place, let's not make a scene."
Huamei had dared to lay a hand on his wife, and he would not let her off for it. But it would do no good to create a bloodbath in the mall–or have Tang Qiu bear witness and be frightened.
Mistaking his words for disapproval, Tang Qiu said, "I'm sorry. I overreacted. I won't quarrel with her anymore." Back then, she had swallowed all her retorts, too, rather than argue with the Fengs and earn herself a beating.
"Afraid I'll air all your dirty laundry?" Huamei asked, smug at her sudden speechlessness.
Jiang Shaocheng turned a deadly stare of ice onto Huamei, and a shiver trickled down her spine. She tore her eyes away, not daring to meet his gaze, wondering silently how it was that this cripple could project such a terrifying demeanor.
But a cripple was still a cripple. "That pretty face of yours is a useful tool, Tang Qiu," she said, scoffing coldly. "But one day, you'll have no more youthfulness to squander."
To the man in the wheelchair, she said, "If Tang Qiu is willing to endure your company for money, she must have done the same with other men in the past. Take it as my kind advice: you're pathetic enough as it is, so don't go about aggravating your condition and catching some incurable disease. Although, I must say, you're pretty lucky to have a woman willing to tolerate you at all, let alone one who doesn't care what illness you have."
Jiang Shaocheng held her gaze in frosty silence. Right then, the coffee Tang Qiu had ordered arrived, and he picked it up, pouring the scalding liquid over Huamei's face. She howled out loud, her hands flying to her face.
Jiang Shaocheng's voice was as cold as a harsh winter. "Get lost…" he said, "… unless you want me to disfigure your face."