My-Husband-Secretly-Married-Another-Woman-Chapter-4

The next day, Uncle Sun rode his bicycle to the village with news.

The factory had held a meeting. Zhenghao was fired, and I was offered his position.

They even promised me a special post, knowing I was a single mother.

I packed up, took my two-year-old daughter, and rode on the back of Uncle Sun’s bike to the city.

The early spring wind was chilly, but my heart was full of hope.

This time, I was determined to take control of my own fate.

The factory leadership wanted to put me in logistics, but I refused.

I knew that in a few years, state-owned factories would start closing down. In my previous life, Zhenghao had worked in sales, spotted the coming changes, and used factory resources to get ahead.

So this time, I chose sales.

The factory gave me a single dorm room, enough for me and my daughter.

She started at the factory kindergarten, and I left the house in Auntie Liu’s care. If anything happened, she’d call me at work.

Every Monday, I dropped my daughter at school, picking her up on Fridays.

I worked like a woman possessed. Within six months, I was the top salesperson in the factory.

People said I was fearless and hardworking, but only I knew how precious this second chance was.

A few years later, the factory restructured.

I volunteered for a layoff. With my savings and a few loans from friends, I started a home appliance dealership.

It began as a tiny shop, but business grew. Soon, I had several stores and more employees than I could manage.

One day, as I was busy at the counter, someone came in looking for work. I looked up and barely recognized him.

It was Li Zhenghao.

In my previous life, he’d used his sales connections and borrowed money from Qiaohua’s uncle to become one of the first appliance dealers.

But this time, he’d been fired and bounced from job to job, never satisfied, always blaming others.

Without a stable job, Qiaohua’s uncle had no reason to help him. I’d heard he’d failed at several businesses and couldn’t borrow another cent.

Zhenghao’s expression was complicated, part envy, part regret.

He tried to ingratiate himself. “I heard you’ve opened several stores. Since we know each other, why not hire me as a manager?”

I sneered, “If you’re hungry, I’ll buy you a meal. But I’ve never heard of a beggar demanding to be the boss.”

Zhenghao trembled with anger. “Yinghua, you wouldn’t be where you are today without me. You should be grateful. Just wait, you’ll regret this.”

He stormed out.

I knew this wasn’t the end of it. Sure enough, two days later, an elderly couple showed up at my shop.

They grabbed my arm, “Yinghua, we’re your parents. Now that you’re rich, how can you turn your back on us?”

I was stunned for a moment, my parents were long gone. Looking closer, I realized it was Mingfu and Xiulan.

The old man was hunched over, the old woman coughing uncontrollably, refusing to let go.

“You and Zhenghao were married, and Yaya is still his daughter. Even if you don’t care about him, think of the child.”

“In our hearts, you’ll always be our daughter-in-law. You have so many stores, can’t you let Zhenghao manage just one?”

I almost gagged. I pointed across the street.

There stood Qiaohua, heavily pregnant, glaring at my shop.

I’d seen her earlier, worried she’d come in and cause trouble, so I’d stepped outside to call for help.

Now, I had an idea.

“Your daughter-in-law is right there. How can you be so shameless at your age? Should I call her over?”

Qiaohua’s face darkened. Mingfu and Xiulan, desperate to guilt-trip me, raised their voices so everyone could hear.

Before I could say anything, Qiaohua, wild as a mother hen, grabbed a street sweeper’s broom and charged over.

“I didn’t know you only cared about your ex-daughter-in-law. Tell me right now who’s your real daughter-in-law?”

She chased them around with the broom. Mingfu, surprisingly spry, managed to dodge, but Xiulan was too slow and took a few blows.

It was a farce.

But the next day, Qiaohua returned.

She sat at my shop’s entrance, belly out, “You couldn’t have opened these stores without the money we gave you. We deserve a share.”

“At least give us two stores, or I’m not leaving.”

She dragged over a chair and sat at the door, scaring off customers and insisting no one do business with us.

As a pregnant woman, she knew we couldn’t touch her.

My employees panicked, asking what to do. Even if we called the police, they could only mediate.

The first day, not a single customer came in.

The next day, I hired a van and asked Auntie Liu to find seven or eight women over seventy from the village, paying them fifty yuan a day.

When Qiaohua arrived, the old ladies were already sitting in a row outside, cracking sunflower seeds and chatting.

No matter which way Qiaohua tried to enter, Auntie Liu and the others blocked her path.

She tried to push through and ended up falling on her backside, wailing, “Help! Someone’s bullying a pregnant woman”

The old ladies, unfazed, kept eating seeds. “Did we touch you? No, we didn’t. We all saw you fell on your own.”

With no other options, Zhenghao took her to the hospital.

They called the police, but everyone insisted Qiaohua had fallen by herself. The officers, faced with a group of elderly women, couldn’t do anything.

In the end, Qiaohua broke her tailbone and was sent back to Zhenghao’s family for her parents to care for her.

Word was, Qiaohua was extremely demanding always wanting delicacies her in-laws couldn’t provide.

Xiulan, constantly coughing, was accused of spitting in the food.

Auntie Liu and the old ladies watched the drama unfold from the yard, eating seeds and gossiping.

When Qiaohua demanded chicken, Xiulan fed her pumpkin after pumpkin, then complained to everyone that her daughter-in-law had eaten a dozen in one week.

One afternoon, as Xiulan was complaining at the gate, someone shouted, “Fire! Fire!”

Everyone looked up to see the Li family’s back yard ablaze. The flames spread quickly, consuming half the house.

Qiaohua stood in the yard, laughing, “You made me eat pumpkin now eat this fire”

Mingfu and Xiulan rushed inside to save what they could, but the fire was too fierce. The house, made of mud bricks, burned fast.

The police came, but it was just another family dispute.

In the chaos, Mingfu was knocked unconscious by smoke, and Xiulan’s leg was broken by a falling beam.

Zhenghao now had to care for his paralyzed parents and the baby Qiaohua left behind after divorcing him two months later.

Auntie Liu told me all about it, shaking her head. “You wouldn’t believe it, Yinghua. Zhenghao’s life is a mess now.”

“Qiaohua gave birth to a daughter and dumped her on him. Now he’s stuck caring for his parents and the child.”

“As they say, what goes around comes around.”

I smiled, handing Auntie Liu a bag of fruit. “Auntie, I couldn’t have kept the business going without your help.”

She waved her hand, “We women have to look out for each other. Seeing you do well makes me happy.”

I squeezed her hand, my heart full of gratitude.

I knew, from now on, life would only get better.

End