Joreen was about to turn when she heard the sound of someone getting hit but Sara quickly came out from the shock and turned Joreen to continue facing her instead of looking behind.
Joreen still did not want to stay still. She thought that was probably her mother who was just hit. Her tiny hands did not do much in blocking the sounds from entering inside her ears and so, she had heard her mother"s squeal after the slap.
As Jianjun and Cixi continued to stare at her in shock, Sara pulled Joreen with her and towards the kitchen since they could not go inside the room without pa.s.sing by Changyu and her aunt.
"Let me go. What is going on? I need to see" Joreen tried to turn around but Sara did not let her.
She did not want the little girl to see her mother getting hit. And aside from the fact that it was not a good sight for a young child like her, Joreen also had a temper like her mother and even if she liked Changyu, it was totally going to make a U-turn when if she sees her mother being abused by her.
"What do you think you are doing?" Jianjun also broke out from the shock and quickly pulled Changyu away from Cixi by the arm when she was about to hit her again.
"Let me go. Let me go this instant!" Changyu yelled at Jianjun as he continued to pull her further away from his sister.
"Are you crazy Changyu? Who do you think you are to come in here and hit me? Have you gone nuts?" Cixi yelled at her in anger but made no move to go hit the crazy woman back.
"How could you? How could you have done that? How could you have done that to your own brother? Was it fun for you? Was it fun to play us?"
Cixi bit down on her lower lips hard enough to the point where she almost drew out blood. She looked into her brother"s eyes guiltily.
She was not a dummy. She obviously knew what Changyu was talking about.
"What are you talking about?" Jianjun asked Changyu after turning her to face him directly.
He also looked at Cixi in confusion. "What is she talking about?"
Changyu was obviously not in her right mind. She turned back to face Cixi again and looked at her with a face br.i.m.m.i.n.g with anger and tears.
She had thought there were no tears left for her to cry, but she was wrong. She had more than enough.
"Do you want to deny it? Do you want to act like you had no hand in it? It was you right? You hid all those letters I sent to him. It was you who also sent me that mail right?"
Her face was dark and her eyes were sad as she yelled at Cixi.
"W..h...at?" Jianjun widened his eyes before taking slow steps to stand in between the two women.
"How can you accuse her of such a thing? Why....why would she do so?" He then turned to look at Cixi, expecting her to say something or deny the accusation but she remained quiet with her eyes looking at anywhere but at him.
"Did... you do that? You didn"t right?" He asked in a very low voice. For some reasons, he was afraid of whatever answer he was going to get from her.
"Are you deaf? He asked you a question." Changyu chipped in.
"Can you stop shouting will you?" Cixi finally blew up at Changyu, who thought she had the right to fault her.
"Yes! It was me. So what? I did that for us. To save my family. If I hadn"t done that, do you think my brother and I would have still been alive? We probably would have died in your useless parents" hands."
When Jianjun heard her, he staggered backwards with a look of disbelief clearly written in his face.
He kept going back until he finally collapsed on the couch in shock.
"How...how could you? How could you have done that? Things would have been different if you hadn"t done that!"
Changyu cried even more and tried to hit Cixi one more time but Cixi pushed her away which caused her to stumble on her heels and land on the floor.
Cixi did not look the least bit guilty about making her trip. She was also burning with anger. So now she was the bad person? She had done it to save her family so why were they looking at her like she was the bad one?
"How so? How would things have been different? Would you have been able to protect us from your family? You are only saying all of that because of your selfishness. You believe if I hadn"t done any of that, then you would have still been with my brother.
That is all you care about. Yourself! What about my family? Your crazy father asked me to do it if I wanted to save my family. He threatened me! Threatened the w.a.n.gs. At first I was skeptical about it. Until I saw your first letter. Our father just died, the restaurant was taken away from us, our reputation was tarnished, I dropped out of medical school, my mother was unwell, my brother had a lot of responsibility and we went bankrupt but you wrote stupid letters about how you missed him and was stuck at home? How would you have felt if you were in my shoes? Wouldn"t you choose your family. Look Changyu, I do not regret anything I did back then. If I was given the chance, I would do it over and over again. Because my family.... comes first before your stupid love"
Changyu looked at her from the floor and felt her heart begin to ache. She placed a hand on the left side of her chest and pressed it down, hoping that it would stop the pain she was feeling.
Jianjun was also stupefied. He used both palms to cover his face as he listened to his sister"s narration.
He had no idea the Song elders had also met his sister privately.
So Helene was not the culprit? It had been his sister? No wonder he did not get any letters. Helene would not have successfully blocked it all from him. But his sister, he had even asked her then to help him check for letters always and give it to him whenever there was any from Changyu. But she had hidden it all from him?
"If he had continued meeting you, did you think we would have survived? I wanted to save my family. I wanted to save our lives!" At this point, Cixi was already beginning to cry also.
"If I had let him know you were pregnant, we would have died that instant. I know my brother and how reckless he behaved most times. I had the option of saving our lives by merely keeping the letters away from him, why wouldn"t I choose that?"
Changyu did not know what else to say. To a point, she felt Cixi was right. There was nothing she could have done to save them from her family. But he still did not want to accept it. That Cixi, someone she called her friend at one point, was one of the people who had contributed to her misfortune.
"But why? Why did you have to send me that kind of mail? Wasn"t it enough by simply keeping the letters away from him? Why did you have to send that mail? I wouldn"t have sent that kind of letter to him."
Most importantly, she would never have thought about getting rid of their baby. She would have stayed healthy all though.
If Cixi had not sent that mail, it would have been easier to conclude that Jianjun did jot see any of her letters. But then, telling her he wanted her to get rid of the pregnancy and saying he liked Helene, how could she have done something like that?
"How could you, a young girl, ask me to get rid of my baby? Do you know what you caused me?"
Changyu tried to get up but the pain in her cheast could not even let her stand up.
"It is only unfortunate that he saw that last letter because Helene wasn"t smart enough to keep it from him."
"So Helene was also in this after all?" Changyu asked her in a very weak voice.
"She had no option. Besides, she was someone who cared about this family unlike you. I asked her to do it and even though she was skeptical about it, she had to because it was a perfect way of not letting you get together with my brother. It was also to protect him from your evil parents. Everyone who cared about my family would have done so!"
"But why did you send me that kind of mail!? Don"t you have a conscience?"
"Are you not smart? Didn"t I get rid of you easily by doing so? Didn"t you stop sending those stupid letters? You caused my family"s misfortune. Was I still supposed to see you as a friend?"
"Enough!" Jianjun spoke for the first time in a low but firm voice.
He stood up from the couch with an unreadable expression and moved to where Changyu was.
Gently, he helped her stand up and noticed she had twisted an ankle as a result of the push.
He slowly carried her and placed her on the couch while she cried silently.
After placing her there, he turned to face Cixi.
"I am not saying you did something very terrible. I get that you tried to protect our family. But you should leave now. Until you realise you went over board, I don"t want to see you appear in front of me.
Cixi kept trying to blink back tears but she could not.
"I.. I did it for us Brother Jun." She choked on her words.
"No. You did it out of spite. To the woman who was carrying my child. You asked her to get rid of—."
He paused and shook his head like he could not believe any of it.
"Leave. And do not think about going with Joreen. I do not want her to be with you until you are done thinking."
He could not believe that while he had been trying to speak with his sister and explain things to to her about Changyu, his sister had even done worse. Her only hate for Changyu had been because she caused their family"s misfortune and she did not see Changyu at all for her to transfer her aggression then.
Changyu swallowed hard and closed her eyes. As she did so, more tears rolled down from her eyes.
"Fine." She said in a very faint voice before going inside the room.
It did not take long before she returned with a only a purse and then, she left without looking at any of them.
"You were wrong. She is your sister." Changyu said to him with her eyes closed.
"I know." He said before heading inside the room.
Changyu hoped her parents rot in jail. By now, she believed the news about the Song elders arrest must have gone round. She had created the opportunity for anyone who had been bullied by them to also file charges against them.
It was what they deserved and she did not feel bad about it. She liked Justice! Everyone must pay for their crimes.
If only her parents had stopped the letters from leaving the house, things would have been different. But her parents knew about the letters she had been sending and they allowed her so she would think he had been receiving her letters but was being snubbed.
Meanwhile, they had already asked Cixi to block it off whenever it got there. They had planned everything to punish her. But according to them, they never asked her to send any mail. Cixi had done that on her own out of spite and now, they were all here.
She opened her eyes to see Jianjun coming out with a first aid box in hand.
Meanwhile, in the kitchen, Sara and Joreen continued to look at each other in shock. The place was obviously not soundproofed and so, they had heard every conversation in the sitting room.