Grievance of the Young Bride

Chapter 01: Death by Sickness

Zhou Qing never knew that living could be so painful.

Because of a high viral fever, she had caught smallpox.
She laid on her bed dazedly, cheeks deeply sunken, and her body slimmed to the bones…

A middle-aged woman’s loud voice could be heard from the other side of the door, “That sick woman in the family is still alive? Smallpox is an abhorrent disease.
After she dies, we should quickly burn her body.
Otherwise, it would infect everyone and bring bad luck that no one would be able to escape.”

Zhou Qing had never wronged Aunt Wu.
She even paid from her pocket the expenses Aunt Wu needed just to cure herself when she was seriously ill.

And yet the first thing they wanted to do was to get rid of her.

Zhou Qing didn’t believe this at first.
She always thought that being kind to people would bring blessings.
However, the human heart was the most complex as she now thought differently.

Her eyes welled up with tears, sight became blurred, and her body trembled.

Her mother-in-law, Mother Luo, spoke in a grumbling tone, “My son was unfortunate to marry such an unfaithful wife that even after he fed her and her son well, she still wouldn’t let us live in peace even before she died.”

Zhou Qing froze for a moment.
When she remembered her four-year-old son, tears fell even harder.

If she died, what would happen to her son? Mother Luo would definitely not treat him well.
On the other hand, Luo Yu seemed kind but reality proved otherwise.
Since he possessed a heart of stone.

Bang!

Zhou Qing fell to the ground.
She could barely feel the pain as she slowly crawled towards the door.

In the courtyard, Mother Luo and Aunt Wu heard the commotion and their faces turned ugly.
They saw the door being slowly opened and Zhou Qing, with a hideous face, filled with pus poked her head out as she breathlessly said, “Mother, I’m going to die soon.
Please treat Zheng’er well.
Please, just consider me begging you!”

Zhou Qing kowtowed with all her strength.
The muddy ground was full of gravel and debris.
The crimson blood on her already festered and pus bumped-filled face slid down and stained the ground.
This appearance was no different from an evil ghost.

Mother Luo drew a breath of cold air in fright as goosebumps spread all over her body.
She spat on the ground and yelled, “Bit*h, why aren’t you inside? Are you trying to pass the disease to me? You are so vicious! How can a poisonous woman like you have a son? I advise you not to be too anxious.
After you die, that little bastard will also accompany you……”

A fishy sweetness welled up within her mouth as Zhou Qing tore her heart out while coughing, even spitting out a mouthful of blood.

She was so thin yet her eyes widened as she pleaded, looking at Mother Luo.

Aunt Wu was also repulsed by Zhou Qing’s hideous look so she pressed herself against the wall and left.
Mother Luo snorted coldly and went back to her room in order to coax her other grandson.

Before night fell, Luo Yu entered the house.

He was working in the Imperial Court as a retainer for an Eighth-grade Official, with a monthly salary of two taels of silver.
Although it seemed like a lot, the daily expenses stretched his salary to the limit.
Moreover, he was never around.

Their financial condition was so severe that Zhou Qing had to work at a laundromat.
The owner of the laundromat somehow got sick with smallpox.
Because of the open wound on her hands, Zhou Qing also was infected by the disease.

Luo Yu stood at the door of the woodshed.
His face was calm, staring at the woman’s motionless body as if his feet had taken root in the ground below.

Zhou Qing seemed to feel something.
She slowly opened her eyes, muddy tears kept falling down her face as she pleaded, “A’Yu, Zheng’er is just a child.
Please, take care of him, please.”

This one sentence already exhausted her remaining strength as Zhou Qing’s two hands propped herself up from the ground.
A long time has passed, yet she didn’t hear any answer from him.

“You and I are husband and wife, just consider me begging, can’t you?”

“Good.” Luo Yu finally nodded his head.
His phoenix-like eyes were so obscured that people couldn’t tell what his thoughts were.

The woman smiled and her body just collapsed, until finally, she just passed away.

After her death, Zhou Qing didn’t know how it happened but she found that she had been lying on a small earthen platform, unable to either leave or escape.

People often say that ghosts who couldn’t let go of their families in the mundane world, would gaze at them from a platform, was this that platform?

Stumbling and crawling towards the edge of the earthen platform, Zhou Qing looked down into the distance and saw snow-white clouds churning.
Surprisingly, the sight of the Luo family came to view.

She saw her corpse sprawled on the ground.
Mother Luo was still a woman in the end.
Though her demeanor was usually arrogant and domineering, she was still a bit frightened of the dead.
As she stood next to Zhou Qing’s body, Mother Luo’s long thin face showed disgust, shivering in fear she asked, “This sick ghost is dead.
What should we do with the body?”

Luo Yu, who read a lot of books and was more insightful than ordinary people, paused and said, “Smallpox is a repugnant disease.
One must burn the body to ashes.
Otherwise, we might get infected.”

People die like the fire in the lamp.
Zhou Qing didn’t care about herself in the afterlife.
Her only concern in the world was Luo Zheng, her four-year-old son.

In the beginning, Luo Yu’s mistake caused her to be pregnant to give birth to this child, Zheng’er called him father for four years, and even raising a small dog and cat for four years would give rise to some feelings, and he promised.
So he would take good care of Zheng’er, right?

She believed so in her heart, but at the back of her mind, she thought otherwise.
Luo Yu might be soft-hearted, but he never displayed a trace of tenderness towards the mother and son.

The man’s handsome face was cold and solemn.
As he brought out the canola o