Chapter 10

The money my sister-in-law had transferred away would have to be handled in a separate case.

After the hearing, my brother stopped me in the corridor.

He suddenly dropped to his knees and begged me for money.

“Sis, I really have no way out.”

“Help me pay off the debt first. I promise I'll change.”

I walked around him.

When begging didn't work, he immediately stood up. The pleading in his eyes turned to resentment.

“If you'd given me the money from the start, I wouldn't be in this situation!”

I stopped.

“You took the houses.”

“You bought the car.”

“You abandoned Mom.”

“No one else signed your name for you.”

I turned and left.

Behind me, Mom suddenly called out to me.

She looked at her son on his knees, then turned to me.

For decades, every choice she'd made had favored my younger brother.

This time, at last, she didn't ask me to give in.

“Enforce the judgment.”

She turned to the lawyer.

“If he doesn't pay, pursue him to the end.”

After Mom sued, my brother had no assets left in his name that could be seized.

He lost his job.

The debts left over from the restaurant also started coming due one by one.

To force Mom to withdraw her case, he rushed into the nursing home and pulled her out of her wheelchair.

When the caregiver stepped in, he shoved her to the ground.

He took Mom's medication and oxygen machine, then threw a withdrawal form in front of her.

“Press your fingerprint!”

Mom refused.

My brother grabbed her hand and forced it onto the ink pad.

In the struggle, she fell off the edge of the bed, splitting her forehead and breaking her right leg.

When the police arrived, she was still lying on the floor, and my brother was still cursing her.

This time, she made no excuse for him.

She grabbed an officer's sleeve and said only two words.

“Arrest him.”

Mom was taken to the hospital and needed surgery immediately.

The hospital couldn't reach any other family member who could sign the consent forms, so they notified me.

When I arrived, she'd already been taken to the pre-op room.

The moment she saw me, tears spilled from her eyes and she reached out.

I stood beside the bed, hesitated for a few seconds, then took her hand.

Not because I had forgiven her.

I simply didn't want to become the kind of person she and my brother were.

After the surgery, the first thing Mom said when she woke up was that she was sorry.

“I was wrong.”

I poured her a glass of water but didn't answer.

When I didn't respond, she tried to sit up.

The pull on her wound made her gasp in pain.

But she didn't seem to care. She hurriedly asked me, “If I had given you a house at the beginning, would you have taken me in?”

I set the glass on her bedside table.

“No.”

Mom stared at me.

“Why?”

“Because what you regret isn't hurting me.”

I looked at her.

“You only regret betting everything on my brother and losing it all.”

Her lips moved a few times.

The hope that had just flickered in her eyes slowly faded.

The room was silent for a long time.

Suddenly, she raised her hand and slapped herself hard across the face.

Before she could strike herself a second time, I caught her wrist.

“Stop performing.”

Mom's hand froze in midair.

She shook her head frantically.

“I'm not performing. I really know I was wrong.”

“Then are you willing to publicly admit that all the accusations you made against me were false?”

Her hand stopped moving.

I held her gaze.

“Are you willing to tell everyone that my brother took the assets, and you deliberately framed me to protect him?”

Mom was silent for a long time.

At last, she nodded.

The caregiver propped up a phone.

Mom admitted on camera that she'd given both houses, eight hundred thousand yuan in savings, and the shop to her son.

She admitted that I had never taken her pension.

She also admitted that the videos accusing me of neglect had been made to force me to take her home and help my brother hide the fact that he'd abandoned her.

Near the end of the recording, she choked up several times.

“I wronged my daughter.”

“She was always the one who cared for me.”

“But I wanted all the praise to go to my son. I even tried to destroy my daughter's reputation.”

After the video was posted, Chen Zheng got his job back.

The school also publicly apologized to our son and disciplined the students who had led the bullying.

The relatives who had once cursed me came to the hospital.

They crowded around Mom's bed, crying and praising her for finally seeing sense. Then they advised me to take her home out of consideration for her apology.

I brought out a blank care schedule.

“Since you all care so much about Mom, each of you can take a month looking after her.”

The hospital room fell silent at once.

The relatives who'd been wiping tears just moments earlier began making excuses to leave.

One said she had young children at home.

Another said work was too busy.

Some didn't even say goodbye. They turned and left.

Mom watched their backs in silence for a long time.

At last, she understood that lip-service filial piety was worth less than anything.