"Shuyi, you know Mom's getting old and her thinking is old-fashioned. Don't hold it against her." Frazzled, Xu Junshan could only try to soothe Shen Shuyi.
After all, he still had to maintain his image as a good husband in front of Shen Shuyi. He couldn't take his mother's side too openly.
"What could I possibly hold against her? When a mother-in-law vents her anger, her daughter-in-law just has to take it!
If there's nothing else, I'm hanging up.
Whatever it is, we can discuss it when you get home!" With that, Shen Shuyi hung up.
[That's my mom, all right! She's so freaking cool when she isn't blinded by love.]
Shen Banxia almost clapped and cheered.
With that one move, her mother had not only cleared herself of blame but also driven a wedge between Xu Junshan and his mother. It was truly killing two birds with one stone.
Shen Shuyi blushed, glanced at her daughter, and smiled brightly.
She really had never stood her ground like this before. Every time her mother-in-law slandered her, it eventually turned out that her mother-in-law had been the one causing trouble.
Yet Xu Junshan would only say how hard it had been for his mother to raise him and his two siblings alone and put them through school.
He would tell her to be more understanding of his mother's hardships and not hold things against her.
Thinking about it now, if his mother had worked so hard and had it so tough, shouldn't he have been the one to take care of her?
He had expected her to fulfill all three siblings' duties toward their mother, and he had even acted perfectly justified about it. How ridiculous.
She must have had a screw loose herself, blindly doing as he asked. She had genuinely believed her mother-in-law had it hard and deserved more understanding, letting the woman walk all over her and push her luck further and further.
At noon, Shen Shuyi specifically asked Sister Lian to make a few extra dishes her daughter liked. She wanted to reward her.
While waiting for lunch, mother and daughter sat in the side lounge watching television.
Shen Shuyi had specifically had the hundred-inch television installed there after her fourth son became an actor, so she could watch his dramas or movies in her free time and support him.
"Your fourth brother's filming a movie out in the mountains right now. He won't come home until filming wraps up. You'll get to meet him then."
"You mean my fourth brother who's an actor?"
"There, that's him!" Shen Shuyi pointed at the second male lead on the screen as she introduced him.
"He's so handsome, way better-looking than the male lead. Why's he playing the second male lead?" Shen Banxia asked curiously as she ate some fruit.
Either the male lead had brought funding to the production, or he had lost his mind. Acting alongside a gorgeous man like her fourth brother meant getting utterly crushed in the looks department, didn't it?
"Your fourth brother doesn't like playing the male lead. He only likes playing the second male lead. So far, he's only starred as the lead in one movie, and after it came out, the director blacklisted him."
"Why?" Shen Banxia asked in confusion.
"I don't know the exact reason either. When I asked him, he only said he couldn't stand the director and beat him up."
[Getting blacklisted was getting off lightly, then!]
"Your fourth brother's always marched to his own beat, ever since he was little.
I used to worry that he was too headstrong and opinionated, that he wouldn't listen to advice and would go astray.
Now that he's an actor, I actually worry less. With his fans watching him, he has to set a good example."
Shen Banxia really wanted to say, Mommy, don't you know he has way more haters than fans?
Still, for all his diva behavior, her fourth brother's looks really were god-tier.
No wonder that tiny handful of true fans could put up with his unhinged personality for the sake of his face.
Shen Banxia had thought she wouldn't be meeting this fourth brother anytime soon,
but when she came downstairs after her afternoon nap, there he was, the legendary fourth brother.
Dressed in casual clothes, he looked her over before asking coolly,
"You're my biological sister?"
"I honestly wish I weren't!" Shen Banxia shook her head and replied with a soft sigh.
"Why?" Shen Ruogu was rather surprised.
"You're so good-looking, but being my biological brother means I can't have any ideas about you!" Shen Banxia said with deep regret.
Shen Ruogu froze for a moment, then laughed. He had never imagined there would come a day when his own little sister would flirt with him.
That idiot of a sixth brother had even called their seventh sister an idiot. As far as Shen Ruogu was concerned, their sixth brother was the real idiot. He couldn't even judge people properly.
*[Fourth Brother really is the best-looking of all my brothers. No wonder he became an overnight sensation as soon as he debuted!
Too bad he acts like a diva and has no work ethic. No wonder he ends up blacklisted and stabbed to death by a hater. What a waste of that gorgeous face!]*
Shen Banxia sighed inwardly as she watched her fourth brother's radiant smile.
Shen Ruogu's smile froze on his face. He seemed to have just heard something earth-shattering-and it was about him.
He wanted to ask her about it, but no sound would come out.
Just then, faint sounds of an argument drifted over from a distance.
Before Shen Ruogu could figure out what was going on, his seventh sister shot off like a cannonball.
Shen Banxia followed the sound of the argument. After finally finding the closest spot, she was blocked by a wall.
The mother-in-law and daughter-in-law next door were arguing fiercely. They had completely fallen out and weren't even trying to preserve appearances.
How could Shen Banxia let a mere wall stand in the way of her passion for gossip? She quickly climbed the nearest osmanthus tree and craned her neck to look into the neighbors' yard.
"What kind of daughter-in-law are you? The Su Family must have suffered eight lifetimes of bad luck to end up with someone like you!"
"I'm the one who suffered eight lifetimes of bad luck by marrying into your family! I thought I was marrying into money, but you're nothing but a family in decline.
They say even a starving camel is bigger than a horse, but your family's shriveled into a seahorse! I was too embarrassed to even mention it!"
"You... you barren hen!"
"Your husband keeps a mistress, and you don't dare say a damn word. Why are you throwing your weight around with me?"
Clinging to the trunk, Shen Banxia watched with sparkling eyes and listened with relish,
but then the two women tired themselves out and simply glared at each other, practically going cross-eyed, the tension thick enough to cut with a knife.
Neither was willing to strike first and become the one in the wrong.
"Huh? What are they doing? Why did they stop arguing?" Shen Banxia muttered in confusion.
Hearing her, the two women from the Su Family looked around and finally spotted the girl clinging to a tree above their neighbor's wall, enjoying the spectacle.
"You... who are you?" the Su Family's mother-in-law demanded, planting her hands on her hips.
"Exactly! Where did this little brat come from?" the daughter-in-law chimed in, also putting her hands on her hips.
Their reactions were identical. They looked more like mother and daughter than mother-in-law and daughter-in-law.
"Banxia, what are you doing? Get down right now!"
Shen Ruogu had finally found his seventh sister. He hadn't expected her to have climbed a tree like a monkey, and his heart lurched.
Shen Banxia hadn't expected her fourth brother to come looking for her. She could only wave awkwardly at him from the tree.
Before climbing down, she couldn't resist stirring the pot with one last remark to the two women,
"The mistress is about to show up with her child and demand to take your place! Your house is going to get really lively!"
Then she scrambled down the tree, moving as nimbly as a tailless monkey.
"Fourth Brother!" Shen Banxia stood before Shen Ruogu with her head lowered, looking as though she was admitting her mistake.
If Shen Ruogu had bent down for a closer look, he would have discovered that Shen Banxia didn't feel the slightest bit guilty. Instead, she was filled with regret and disappointment at having her gossip session cut short.
"No more climbing trees. What if you fell? It's dangerous," Shen Ruogu warned her sternly.
Perhaps it was their blood connection. Although this was their first meeting, when he saw her run out of the living room, he had followed her without even thinking.
After searching for quite a while, he had finally spotted her hanging from a tree, and his heart had leaped into his throat.
"Okay! I'll listen to you, Fourth Brother!" Shen Banxia agreed readily.
Despite saying that, she had already tossed his warning out of her mind.
She had been climbing trees since she was little. It was as easy as walking on level ground, and she had never fallen.
Shen Ruogu and Shen Banxia went back inside. Meanwhile, just beyond the backyard wall, the neighbors' mother-in-law and daughter-in-law stared at each other.
Both were wondering what that little brat in the tree had meant.
"Mom, could the mistress already have Dad's child and be planning to come here to force you out?" the Su Family's daughter-in-law asked her mother-in-law hesitantly.
"He... he wouldn't dare!" The mother-in-law's voice trembled.
"Mom, don't get upset. Surely the two of us can handle one mistress?" The daughter-in-law hurried to support her.
Because of the mistress, the Su Family's mother-in-law and daughter-in-law were more united than ever.
No one was getting a share of their family's wealth!
Before you continue