Chapter 9 An End to this Wrong Marriage

• After a brief moment of disappointment, Lu Yao went through the discharge paperwork by herself, leaving the hospital right after. When she got home, she went into her bedroom and flung her closet door open.
• She didn’t bring a lot of stuff when she moved to Shao Yunchen’s place, so she only spent less than half an hour packing all her things into two big boxes. Even so, there were a few jackets that were too heavy to bring with her. Left with no choice, she abandoned them in the closet.
• Lu Yao took one last look at the condominium she and Shao Yunchen had lived in, noticing that every corner was proof of them living together here. After one last glance, she left the keys on the shoe rack, before pushing her luggage as she left without looking back.
• She understood everything, from the moment that woman took her call to last night’s meeting. She couldn’t move that man’s heart even after three years of marriage, but that didn’t mean other women couldn’t.
• This marriage was a mistake from the start, so all she did now was to give it an early end.
• Lu Yao dragged her stuff to her mother’s place after she left Shao Yunchen’s place. She didn’t want to stay with him, but her current financial status restricted her from staying in exorbitant hotels.
• Nobody came to open the door even after Lu Yao had pressed the doorbell a few times. Annoyed, she called her mother, and the call got through quickly. Lu Yao noticed her mother was in a rowdy place from the sounds she heard in the phone. “Mom, are you not at home now?”
• “Huh? Oh, yeah, I’m not at home. I’m exercising outside, you see,” Mrs. Lu stammered. “Do you need anything, Lu Yao? I’ll call you back later if there’s nothing else.”
• Lu Yao didn’t believe what her mother was saying. “Where are you now, mom?” she quickly asked. “I’ll go there right now.”
• “I don’t think you should. It’s quite far.”
• When her mother was fumbling for an answer, Lu Yao shrewdly caught someone yelling, “Oi, the guests are gone! Why the heck are you on the phone? Go and clean up the table!”
• “I heard it, mom.” Lu Yao pushed down her anger. “Tell me the address,” she said calmly.
• Lu Yao asked the family staying across her mother’s home to keep her luggage for her, giving them five hundred for it before hailing a ride to the restaurant Mrs. Lu told her. The moment she entered it, she saw her mother bending over as she cleaned a table.
• She was the wife of Nancheng County’s top judge, who lived half her life in luxury, but now she was a waitress in a restaurant. Lu Yao stood rooted to the spot as tears welled up in her eyes. “Mom.”
• “You’re here, Lu Yao.” Mrs. Lu felt embarrassed when she saw her daughter. She quickly cleaned up the table before telling her shift manager that she would talk to her daughter alone.
• Noticing the swollen spot on her mother’s left hand, she grabbed Mrs. Lu’s arm. “What is this?”
• “It’s nothing. Just a little scald.”
• Mrs. Lu wanted to hide it by saying it didn’t matter, but Lu Yao wouldn’t have it. She dragged her mother out of the restaurant before hailing a ride to the hospital.
• Her decision was correct. The doctor said it was a serious burn that would develop pus if it wasn’t treated well.
• “I thought I told you to stay at home, mom.” Lu Yao applied the ointment she got from the hospital on her mother’s burn. “I can support you, you know.” She sobbed.
• “I have nothing to do at home. At least working at a restaurant gets me a few hundred a day.”
• Mrs. Lu teared up as she spoke. “If it wasn’t for your father being a fool, we would still be one happy family right now. I wouldn’t have to live in fear all the time. It’s been a long time since I last had a good night’s sleep.”
• “Don’t work there anymore, and don’t try to get any jobs. Just ask if you need any money,” Lu Yao told her. “No matter how bad our situation is, I will not have you suffer for us. I’ll think of something about dad’s matter.”
• “I can’t have you shouldering all that responsibility alone.” Mrs. Lu was glad she had a sensible daughter, but she fell into sorrow once more when she thought of the money they needed. “Two million… I don’t feel like worrying about this anymore. We should just let him rot in jail.”
• Lu Yao knew her mother was just being angry, and that, deep down inside, she was still worried about her father. “Mom, I’ll get the money in time for his bail. You don’t have to worry too much.”
• Mrs. Lu was a rich man’s daughter. She knew Mr. Lu when she was eighteen, marrying into the Lu family at twenty, and taking care of Lu Yao after she was born right until she grew up. Mrs. Lu was dependent on Mr. Lu for all her life, so she panicked once he fell from grace, but she was lucky her daughter was calm enough.
• Mrs. Lu nodded at her daughter, following her every order. Then, Lu Yao left with her mother after taking a week’s worth of medicine, but she saw something unexpected as soon as she exited the elevator.