The spring rain in the south of the Yangtze River should have been gentle and soft, but the whip that fell on Lin Wanxing's back that day was more biting than the ice in the twelfth lunar month.
Three whips.
A whip broke her childhood sweetheart relationship of ten years.
The two whips shattered the five years of support she had received from her family.
Three whips woke her up from her dream of adhering to "a woman's duty".
The bright red blood soaked into the hibiscus skirt she had embroidered by herself - it was the wedding dress she had prepared for today's wedding banquet. And the person holding the whip was none other than her fiancé Jiang Qingyan, who had just become the number one scholar in high school and returned home in glory. Next to him stood the eldest sister-in-law Su Yuehua, who was weak and frail, but was about to serve her husband as an "equal wife".
"Wan Xing, you have to be sensible." Jiang Qingyan's voice was blurred in the drizzle. "The Jiang family needs heirs. My brother died young and Yuehua is lonely... It is also my filial piety to carry two families on my shoulders."
Filial piety?
Lin Wanxing wanted to laugh, but choked out a mouthful of blood. She thought of the last shop she sold, her eyes reddened by cooking Jiang Mu's medicine late at night in the cold winter, and how she, a woman who had not yet left the government, had been responsible for the livelihood of two families in the past five years.
It turns out that all her efforts were rewarded with "You have to be sensible."
But Lin Wanxing doesn't want to be sensible anymore.
She staggered to her feet and tore up the yellowed marriage certificate in public. Scraps of paper mixed with the rain of blood were flying, and she spoke every word with a voice like cracked silk:
"Lin Wanxing received all three whips today - from now on, all ties with Jiang Qingyan will be cut off; life and death will have nothing to do with the Jiang family."
The streets were in an uproar.
