Han Xuehan gasped when she felt the somewhat lukewarm tea hit her face; though the tea was not hot, it still made her wince. She slowly closed her eyes and then turned to look at Old Madam Qiao, who was glaring at her with a smirk playing on her lips. "What? What are you looking at?" Old Madam Qiao glared at the woman and snapped at her, "You are such a lazybones; can’t you see that my tea has turned cold as well? Why didn’t you serve me some hot tea as well? Is this how you serve your mother-in-law?"

"Auntie, there is no need to get angry," said Xiao Ai with a hint of green-tea art in her tone. She smiled gently and continued softly, "Xuehan must have forgotten. It’s not like she did it because she doesn’t respect you."

"Humph," Old Madam Qiao sneered coldly while looking at Han Xuehan, who was dripping wet. "She is lucky that I am a kind mother-in-law; if not, she would have long been killed by being beaten with a stick. A useless woman like her, who can’t do anything right, and she can’t give birth to a child. She is really not good enough for anything. I wonder why we are even keeping a woman as useless as her in our family." 𝒻𝘳ℯℯ𝑤ℯ𝒷𝘯ℴ𝓋ℯ𝘭.𝑐ℴ𝑚

Old Madam Qiao hadn’t forgotten how this woman had locked her out when she was talking to her father and was determined to take her anger out on her.

Han Xuehan raised her head and glared at Old Madam Qiao. Her eyes were filled with anger, though she was used to being disrespected and treated like she was nothing but a mere bug in the eyes of the Qiao family members, but it was another thing if they were insulting in front of others. Who was Xiao Ai? What kind of status did she even have?

"What? What are you looking at? Lower your gaze. How dare you look me in the eyes?" Old Madam Qiao caught Han Xuehan’s glare and turned even more furious. How dare this useless woman glare at her? So what if her father was the owner of a pig farm? She was not his only daughter; he also had two other daughters. There was no way he was going to support her throughout her life. Humph, just because her father called her, this woman was getting all arrogant. Just wait; if she did not stomp on her head and teach her a lesson, then she would change her last name!

Han Xuehan didn’t. She was breathing hard. In the end, she could not help but say, "Since I am such an eyesore, I will pack my bags and leave. That way, I won’t be a hindrance in your way of getting a new daughter-in-law."

Though Han Xuehan was determined to keep her temper, she could not do it. Not with the mother and son treating her like she did not exist.

"You! How dare you speak to me like this?" Old Madam Qiao was so angry that she was trembling. She never expected that the docile cow that she had brought home would one day dare to swing her horns at her. She clutched her chest and pointed a trembling finger at Han Xuehan while looking at her son. "You see this? You saw this? Did you not? Look at how your wife is talking with me. Is this what you taught her? Can’t you see how she is disrespecting me? Teach her a lesson now! Beat her up! Beat her hard! Break her legs!"

Old Madam Qiao had long wanted to teach a good lesson to Han Xuehan. Anyway, breaking her legs won’t kill her.

Qiao Tingyan nervously looked at his mother and then glanced at his wife. He said, "Mom, will this be okay? Her father can come any day now."

"So what?" Old Madam Qiao was fearless. "So what if he is coming? She is your wife and my daughter-in-law. That man has two unmarried daughters as well. Would he dare to take a married daughter home or try to get her divorced? What would happen to her two sisters? With her reputation as a divorced daughter who would dare to marry her sisters?"

"Beat her! Even if you beat her to death, her father won’t say anything. At most, I will give him some compensation and then send him away."

Old Madam Qiao believed that Han Yichen was the same kind of person as Meng Yunhan. A greedy man who would sell his daughter for the smallest sum of money. Anyway, even if Han Xuehan died, she would still be better than a divorced woman. So, she was in fact doing a favour to Han Yichen.

Qiao Tingyan listened to his mother’s words and thought that they did make sense. He turned to look at Han Xuehan and slowly got to his feet. He said to her, "Why do you always do this, Xuehan? You know that I don’t want to hurt you, but you always force me into taking action." As he spoke, he raised his fist as if he were about to punch her.

Seeing this, Han Xuehan closed her eyes at once. However, the pain that she was waiting for never came. She opened one of her eyes and saw a woman holding Qiao Tingyan’s wrist. Though the woman looked frail, she was holding Qiao Tingyan’s wrist with apparent ease.

"You—who are you?" Qiao Tingyan was startled when he saw a woman holding him tightly. He never expected a woman to hold him back, and that too so tightly that he could not break free from her grasp.

"Who am I? Who are you to raise your hands at my elder sister?" Han Ruochen sneered. She raised her foot and kicked Qiao Tingyan on the back. She listened to his and his mother’s nonsense just now and was so angry that she wanted to beat this man to death!