As soon as Madam Li returned home, she told the family everything she had heard at the market. Rumors had been spreading quickly over the past few days. Everywhere they went, people were talking about Wang Hongxin, calling him ungrateful and unfilial. The family had pretended to be innocent, but in truth they had been delighted.
The situation had seemed so favorable to them. They had even imagined that within a few days Wang Hongxin would buckle under the pressure and lower his head. How could everything have changed in less than two days?
“Mom, is that adoption agreement real?” Wang Hongwei hurriedly asked Old Madam Wang. They had always known Wang Hongxin was adopted, but had never imagined an actual agreement existed.
Old Madam Wang admitted unwillingly, “It’s real.”
Wang Hongwei and his wife went pale. “Then where is it?”
“How should I know? I threw it into some corner years ago.” Old Madam Wang dismissed the matter. She had only signed the agreement to obtain the jewelry and put the old village chief at ease. Once the valuables were in their hands, they had never intended to honor the conditions. So many years had passed that they had nearly forgotten about it. After moving house, nobody remembered where the agreement had ended up.
Wang Hongwei wanted to read it. Knowing what it contained would help him work out a response. But they searched their home several times without finding it. Evidently, their copy really was lost.
“So what if the agreement is gone? Even if Wang Hongxin isn’t my biological son, I’m the one who raised him. I refuse to believe they can twist right and wrong around on us,” Old Madam Wang sneered. Her confidence was precisely the problem. She always assumed no one could do anything to her and therefore behaved without restraint.
Wang Hongwei and his wife were not nearly so optimistic.
“Grandma, the problem isn’t whether Third Uncle is related to you by blood. That agreement is important. It could still carry legal weight today. If you failed to do what it required, Third Uncle may be able to seek to dissolve the adoption relationship. If that happens, he won’t be obliged to support you anymore,” Wang Ningkai explained.
Old Madam Wang’s face changed drastically. “What do you mean he doesn’t have to support me? I’m still his adoptive mother. Isn’t supporting me only right?”
“Grandma, Third Uncle may have some responsibility, but you won’t be able to demand money from him as though you’re automatically entitled to it. He might even be able to get away with giving you only a few hundred yuan a month.”
“Then what are we supposed to do?” Old Madam Wang was not tormenting Wang Hongxin for a few hundred yuan. When she heard that might be all she could get, panic finally set in.
Wang Hongwei and Madam Li looked expectantly at Wang Ningkai, hoping he could come up with a solution.
“There’s one thing we can try,” Wang Ningkai said. “Prove the adoption agreement is fake.”
“How would we do that?” Madam Li asked. “I heard Wang Bo preserved it for his father all these years. With him testifying, people won’t believe us if we say it’s forged. Doesn’t the agreement also have your grandmother’s signature, as well as witnesses?”
Originally, the person supposed to sign had been Wang De. But he had hesitated after seeing how demanding the terms were. Old Madam Wang, eager to get her hands on the jewelry, had signed without a second thought.
Even Wang Ningkai had not expected things to become so difficult. The appearance of an adoption agreement had taken the whole family by surprise.
“If that won’t work, there’s only one option left.”
“What?”
“Deny that Grandpa and Grandma failed to meet the agreement’s conditions. It happened so long ago. Nobody has evidence proving they used Third Uncle’s birth mother’s money to buy the house. We can use that. Say the proceeds from selling the jewelry were all spent on Third Uncle.” The family immediately approved. “That’s a good idea. There’s no proof either way.”
But the next blow came almost immediately. Even Wang De and his wife had failed to realize that they had overlooked a crucial detail all those years ago.
The couple spent two hours making up a long list of events that had never happened. They claimed, for example, that they had paid for Papa Wang to complete high school.
In reality, they had only supported him through junior high, and even that was because the old village chief pressured them. Papa Wang earned his own high-school tuition by working during winter and summer breaks and on holidays. Wang De and his wife had paid for little beyond a bit of food. They even transformed their long history of mistreating him into a fairy tale in which he supposedly received the best of everything, including food and clothing.
Once they had finished writing, they went to Wang Cheng’s home.
The Wang family had become a recurring subject of gossip in Guanjia Village. As soon as villagers saw the elderly couple approaching, they knew there would be another spectacle. People followed them. At the front gate, Old Madam Wang resorted to her favorite method: making a scene. Before Wang Cheng even emerged, he could hear her wailing at the top of her lungs. Outside, she was sitting squarely on the ground, clutching a piece of paper and sobbing about the adoption agreement that had recently come to light. She claimed she had worked herself to exhaustion raising Papa Wang, always giving him the best things as a child, only to be repaid with ingratitude.
Wang Cheng did not have to look at the paper to know it was full of inventions. They were probably counting on the fact that Wangjia Village no longer existed and assuming nobody could contradict them.
He sneered. He was completely determined to put this family in its place. Did they really think he would arrive unprepared? In fact, Old Madam Wang’s latest performance played straight into his hands.
“Wang De! He Ying! Have you no shame at all?” A white-haired man well into his seventies emerged from the crowd. He appeared older than the couple but was remarkably vigorous.
A flash of panic crossed the elderly couple’s faces. The man was Wang Zhiren, a senior clansman from Wangjia Village, seven or eight years older than Wang De. He was one of the elders who practiced Health Fist and got on well with Wang Cheng. This time, Wang Cheng had specifically invited him to confront the couple.
In addition to being an elder of the Wang clan, Wang Zhiren had another important identity: he was the father of Chengping’s new town chief. Many people knew him. More importantly, he had been one of the witnesses when Wang De and He Ying signed the adoption agreement. His word carried even more weight than Wang Bo’s.
“Back then, you stood before my elder brother Wang and swore you’d raise Hongxin properly, treating him like your own son. And what did you do? You seized the property that was rightfully his and treated him cruelly. Don’t give me that nonsense about ingratitude! You only see that he’s still useful and want to squeeze the last bit of value out of him. After doing so many wicked things, aren’t you afraid heaven will strike you down?”
“You claim you never mistreated Hongxin, that you always fed him the best food and gave him the best to drink? Utter bullshit! Growing up, the only new clothes Hongxin ever wore were bought for him by my elder brother Wang. As for food, if my elder brother and I hadn’t discovered what was happening, we’d never have known you regularly left him without meals! And that house! You built it with the jewelry left by Hongxin’s birth mother, but you reserved the best rooms for your own sons. When Hongxin got married, what did you give him? A few hundred yuan?” Wang Zhiren grew angrier with every word, his face turning red. He gave them no chance to interrupt, spraying them both with spittle as he spoke.
The crowd grew furious too. They had nearly been taken in by the couple’s performance. Who knew they had committed so many cruel acts? Taking someone else’s money was bad enough, but demanding more afterward? The sheer shamelessness was astonishing.
“So what? Wang Hongxin is nothing but an adopted son. Why should I give him any money?” Old Madam Wang knew everyone would believe Wang Zhiren now. She might as well drop all pretense.
What a shameless woman!
Wang Zhiren snorted. “Because that money belonged to Hongxin’s birth mother! She left it to her son. You already took the share that was rightfully yours.”
“But my family still raised Wang Hongxin!”
“And what if you did? You never followed the agreement. When you dared to steal his inheritance and mistreat him, you should have expected the consequences. You brought all of this on yourselves. You lost the right to demand that Hongxin support you long ago.”
Wang Zhiren then turned to Wang De. “Wang De, if you have any shame left, take your wife and go. Never appear before Hongxin’s family again, or don’t blame me for what happens.”
Wang De was overwhelmed with humiliation. He knew they had no moral ground to stand on. He had simply grown accustomed to his wife’s unreasonable behavior and harbored a faint hope she might succeed, so he had never stopped her. Now that Wang Zhiren had called him out by name, every gaze in the crowd seemed to pierce his skin. He could not bear another moment there. He grabbed his wife, intending to leave, only to discover he had underestimated her stubbornness.
“I’m not leaving! I’m not leaving! Like it or not, I raised Wang Hongxin into his teens! What right do you have to deny the Wang family credit for raising him with a few words? He owes us for that. Do you think you can wipe that debt away just by saying so? Dream on!”
Old Madam Wang remained sprawled on the ground, refusing to move.
“Since you insist on settling the accounts, then let’s settle them properly.”
Wang Cheng stepped forward.