Cheng You's eyes were red. "Now you know, they are not good people at all!"
Cheng Wen Yu dared not look up, ashamed to face her.
He had promised to protect her, but made a mistake in the blink of an eye.
"I know, but it's too late... I've signed so many IOUs. If I don't repay the money, they'll surely cause trouble!"
Cheng Wen Yu ran his fingers through his hair. He didn't know what had come over him at the time; he thought as long as he had capital, he could win back what he had lost.
Cheng You slowly closed her eyes and gritted her teeth. "Don't worry about this for now. I'll think of a way. I'll help you take leave from school for a few days, and you can stay home and study."
"Sister, don't go find them..."
Those people beat him, they would surely bully Cheng You.
Cheng You snorted. "Even if I go, I won't go alone."
She still had Qi Cheng Yan.
Putting this matter aside for the moment, Cheng You had intended to take him to see Uncle Li for some medicine.
Before they could leave, they ran into Cheng Tian Hua.
Seeing the injuries on Cheng Wen Yu's face, he became furious without asking any questions.
"I spent money to pay your tuition, and you go out and hang out with those hooligans again!"
Cheng Wen Yu retorted, "I wasn't fighting with anyone."
He had promised Cheng You he wouldn't fight, so he purely took a beating without retaliating.
As a result, Cheng You slapped the back of his head.
"They beat you, and you didn't even fight back? Are you an idiot?"
She hadn't seen the whole thing, only that Cheng Wen Yu had been beaten, but she couldn't tell if he had fought back.
Cheng Wen Yu drooped his head, because as long as he didn't retaliate, it didn't count as him fighting.
Cheng Tian Hua raised his hand to slap Cheng Wen Yu again, but Cheng You blocked it with her arm.
She could discipline her brother, but Cheng Tian Hua couldn't!
"What right do you have to shout here? Since my brother and I were born, how much time have you spent at home? How much have you taught us? You don't praise when we do well, and you don't teach when we do poorly, just resorting to the stick without a word. My mother never treated us like this!"
Cheng Tian Hua was choked with anger, his face turning ashen. He roared, "Drop out! You are not allowed to go to school from today onwards! From now on, you will work in the fields with everyone else. If I see you messing around with those people again, I'll shoot you!"
As soon as he finished speaking, Zhang Yun Mei's voice came from the doorway. "Captain, don't rush to discipline the children. Go and see your wife first; she's gotten into a fight with Wang Hong Xia."
Her face was full of schadenfreude.
She had just come to deliver the message and was going back to watch the show.
One wave had not subsided before another arose, and Cheng Tian Hua felt overwhelmed. He quickly turned and went out.
Cheng You stretched her neck to look outside. "A fight? Let's go and see too."
Cheng Wen Yu followed her out. "Sister, it's not about you, is it?"
"I'm not the one fighting, what does it have to do with me?"
When the two of them arrived, the fight between Song Yu Lian and Wang Hong Xia had already ended, thanks to Cheng Tian Hua's presence.
However, Song Yu Lian's resentment was so strong that she wished the whole world could hear her as she hysterically accused Wang Hong Xia.
"That old hag actually embezzled my daughter's dowry of eighty yuan! It's outrageous! She even said that since we are all one family and haven't split up, the money must be handed over. Bah! I've never heard of dowry money being kept by the mother-in-law. What kind of rule is this?"
Cheng You looked confused and suddenly asked, "What eighty yuan? Wasn't it twenty?"
Zhang Yun Mei instinctively felt there was more to the story and quickly asked, "Cheng You, what twenty?"
Cheng You said innocently, "My father gave me the dowry that Old Zhao's family gave Cheng Tao as compensation, a full twenty yuan. I didn't want it at first, but my father dotes on me and insisted on giving it to me!"
With her words, everyone understood.
Song Yu Lian had claimed the agreed dowry was one hundred yuan, but now she said Wang Hong Xia had embezzled eighty.
This meant that the original one hundred yuan should have compensated Cheng You, but perhaps Song Yu Lian was unwilling to give it all to Cheng You, so she only took twenty and wanted to give the remaining eighty to Cheng Tao.
Who would have thought Wang Hong Xia simply refused to give it?
One didn't know whether to call Cheng Tian Hua hypocritical or Song Yu Lian greedy.
However, this Wang Hong Xia was truly wicked.
If these eighty yuan had been given, this incident wouldn't have happened today.
Cheng Tian Hua had known about this matter, but now that it was exposed in public, he could only pretend to be ignorant.
He pushed Song Yu Lian away and stared at her with feigned shock.
"Didn't you say the dowry was only twenty yuan? So you and Cheng Tao were both deceiving me!"
Song Yu Lian felt as if she were in the middle of a severe winter, chilling her to the bone.
She knew she had once again been abandoned by Cheng Tian Hua.
She closed her eyes, enduring it.
"I... I was doing it for Cheng Tao. It's one thing that she didn't get a dowry when she got married, but not even a cent of dowry money. How could she hold her head up in the Zhao family? Tian Hua, I know I was wrong, but you've already given Cheng You five hundred yuan as compensation. What's a few dozen yuan in dowry for Cheng Tao?"
The message she was trying to convey to everyone was: no dowry, five hundred yuan compensation, a few dozen yuan dowry.
Every word and sentence was telling everyone how heartless Cheng You was.
If one didn't think it through, they would be led astray by her.
Sun Xiao Wan, standing nearby, suddenly burst into laughter, her laughter growing louder.
"Didn't Cheng Tao choose this herself? She snatched Cheng You's fiancé and now wants Cheng You to pay for the dowry? Is she expecting a generous blessing? If it were me, I wouldn't be so magnanimous. It would be considered good upbringing if I didn't spit at that pair of scoundrels."
Everyone suddenly realized that in the end, if Cheng Tao hadn't snatched Zhao Yun Lin, none of this would have happened.
Cheng You's bright eyes were wide, and she looked at Sun Xiao Wan with gratitude.
Her dewy, deer-like eyes made Sun Xiao Wan's heart race.
She felt as if she had been injected with a shot of adrenaline, capable of fighting another three hundred rounds.
Soon, Sun Xiao Wan cleared her throat and continued, "Besides, Cheng You just didn't let her father subsidize Cheng Tao's dowry; she didn't say you couldn't provide one! Most of the Cheng family's assets were built up by the captain and Cheng You's mother together, right? Even if Cheng You was given five hundred yuan, that was for their biological daughter. What right do you have to object? If I remember correctly, you only had two sets of clothes when you married the captain! So you can't afford a dowry yourself and are now trying to take advantage of Cheng You?"
Zhang Yun Mei covered her mouth and giggled; she loved to see this kind of scene.
Sun Xiao Wan's righteous demeanor and resolute words were compelling: "Cheng Tao hurt Cheng You. The captain is too busy doting on Cheng You to give Cheng Tao a dowry. Dream on! I ask everyone present, which parent would neglect their own child to dote on one brought by a stepmother?"
Everyone nodded in agreement, the words were crude but made sense.
Cheng You looked at Cheng Tian Hua with a moved expression, "I knew Father would dote on me the most."