The people from the groom's family knew that Li Yaner was unwilling, and they guessed there would be trouble tonight, this wedding night. They were all listening outside, so when he shouted like that, the people outside immediately burst through the door, only to come in and see Li Yaner standing there, and their own son lying on the ground, looking like he was breathing more out than in,
"You little wench, what did you do to my son? Did you hit him?"
The first to rush over was his mother. She came up and slapped Li Yaner twice. Li Yaner was caught off guard by the man's frailty and was stunned. As the slaps came at her, she raised her hands to shield her face and cried out,
"I don't know!"
The old woman was about to hit her again when the father, seeing his son in such a state, knew something was terribly wrong and quickly interjected,
"Never mind her for now, we need to get our son to the hospital!"
He's breathing more out than in; if we don't get him to the hospital now, he's in danger!
Luckily there were many people in the house today, so they managed to carry him out in a commotion. As the situation unfolded abruptly, everyone was a bit panicked, and no one paid any attention to Li Yaner. She stood there in the deserted living room when she heard someone calling her,
"Yanyan, what are you waiting for, run for it!"
Li Yaner then came back to her senses, hesitatingly said,
"Run..."
The man looked to be in a bad way. What if he died?
Gu Shi Yi urged,
"Forget about him for now, it looks like he's not going to make it. If you don't run, do you want to wait for them to come back and kill you?"
Get out of here first, and whatever happens after that, we can deal with it when the police arrive!
Shiyi was right. With the family's arrogance in town, if the man really died, she was likely never going to see the face of a police officer and would be beaten to death by them!
Having lost all her own will, Li Yaner, upon hearing Gu Shi Yi tell her to run, actually did run out of the house. Unfortunately, it wasn't long before she ran out that she was discovered by relatives who had not yet left, and they shouted,
"The bride has run away! You think you can run after hitting someone? No way!"
These relatives didn't know the full story either; they only knew the groom had walked in on his own feet and was carried out. They also knew the bride was unwilling. After giving it a little thought with their toes, they figured the bride must have hit her man, and now seeing her rushing out panic-stricken, they naturally started to chase!
So it was one running, and one chasing, in the dead of the night. Li Yaner ran along the town's main road towards the outskirts. Beyond the town were nothing but fields and fish ponds. In her blind panic, her foot slipped, and she plunged headfirst into a fish pond by the road. She couldn't swim and started to thrash about desperately in the water.
Her mother-in-law, who had heard the news and also came chasing after her, led people to the edge of the pond. She saw Li Yaner struggling in the water but prevented anyone from saving her, cursing as she did,
"You little tramp, you've messed around outside for years, you've already been played out by others. My son marrying you is your good fortune, and yet you dare to kill your husband. If anything happens to my son, I'll make sure you're buried beneath his coffin!"
By then, the doctors at the clinic had already shaken their heads, indicating that they should send the man to the county hospital...
The old woman shouted,
"Nobody is allowed to save her. You had the guts to run; you might as well have the guts to drown in there!"
The groom's relatives, upon hearing this, all stood by and did nothing. Even the relatives from her own family eventually arrived, and some of them indeed wanted to save her, but this was the nephew of the town's mayor's family. Who would dare to offend them? The old woman had said not to save her, and truly, no one dared to make a move!
Li Yaner bit her teeth and floundered in the water, seeing that she was running out of strength, her body began to sink deeper. In her desperate and helpless eyes, she saw on the bank of the pond her own biological father and mother, as well as her own brother who had also arrived. They stood there with flashlights alongside a crowd of relatives, and just like the others, they kept their faces stern and said nothing, merely watching her occasionally float and then sink again in the water. At that moment, Li Yaner felt a chill from the inside out, remembering the grievances and hardships she had endured for over twenty years in this family. Now, finally seeing a glimmer of light, she was about to fall once again into an unfathomable darkness,
"The man looks to be unsavable, and even if I were to get out, I would be dead. Even if not dead, there would be no good end in their hands. Better to die here cleanly!"
With a grit of her teeth and a hardening of her heart, she kicked wildly, dove a few times deeper into the water, and then ceased to move, sinking down. She even feared that she wouldn't die and reached into her pocket...