Chapter Forty-Four: Double Standards

“Where did all the money go?” Ning Shuyi asked.

Zhao Dabao shook his head. “Wu Caimei doesn’t know either. She said that when Wang Yuluo’s father found out, he was furious—he couldn’t understand how his brother-in-law could run the company into such a mess. But he didn’t plan to look into it further, afraid of airing the family’s dirty laundry and causing embarrassment among relatives.

Still, whether he looked into it or not, that gaping hole in the finances was there for all to see. It couldn’t be ignored, so figuring out how to fill it became a new problem entirely.

At first, Wang Yuluo’s father wanted to give his brother-in-law another chance. Wu Caimei persuaded him to think twice, warning him of the old saying: ‘Give a man a bushel of rice, he’ll thank you; give him a cartful, he’ll resent you.’ His brother-in-law simply wasn’t cut out for business, and if he kept cleaning up after him, he’d lose a lot more money in the process.

The most important thing was, even after all that, the brother-in-law might not even be grateful. In the end, he’d just be pouring money down the drain and get nothing in return.

So it was better to cut his losses while he still could, clear up the mess in the company, and put an end to it. There was no need to keep investing in Wang Li’s venture.”

“It seems like Wang Yuluo’s father took Wu Caimei’s advice to heart?” Ning Shuyi asked.

“Yes, he did. After helping his brother-in-law clean up the mess, he pulled out his investment. After that, Wang Yuluo’s uncle tried to persuade him to come back, pleading and pestering him repeatedly, but he wouldn’t budge. He said that trying once was enough to learn a lesson, and he didn’t have the resources to keep throwing money into a bottomless pit.

Afterward, Wang Yuluo’s aunt and uncle apparently held a grudge about it, but since the company had always been run by her uncle, and it was entirely his mismanagement that caused the losses, there was no way to pin any blame on Wang Yuluo’s father. Whether they were happy about it or not, they had no choice but to keep their anger to themselves. Frankly, it was a mercy he hadn’t gone after them for answers.”

Ning Shuyi guessed the rest. “So they shifted all their resentment onto Wu Caimei?”

“Pretty much. Of course, they couldn’t say anything outright, but ever since then, their attitude toward Wu Caimei has grown even colder. At first, Wang Yuluo didn’t care much, but over time she became more and more resistant. Whether her aunt and uncle had a hand in that, it’s hard to say for sure.”

Zhao Dabao scratched the back of his head. As a married man, he felt he understood these things more directly than Ning Shuyi and the others. “Honestly, after hearing all this, I’m starting to believe Wu Caimei when she says she holds no grudges about her failed marriage to Wang Yuluo’s father.

She said she wasn’t surprised that, faced with family drama and threats, he chose to compromise. After all, if he hadn’t been so accommodating to his sister, brother-in-law, and daughter over the years, they wouldn’t have grown so unreasonable and emboldened.

I think Wu Caimei is a pretty rational person—she’s logical in both words and deeds. With her intelligence, she surely knows that holding a grudge over this would be pointless and self-defeating. Her life now may not be what she once hoped for, but it’s certainly less trouble than being entangled with Wang Yuluo’s aunt’s family. In its own way, that’s not a bad outcome.”

“Wang Yuluo’s aunt really is a character.” Ning Shuyi shared what she and Huo Yan had discovered with Zhao Dabao. “Looking at it now, it all makes sense.

You mentioned that Wu Caimei told you when Wang Yuluo’s uncle and her father started their company together. That’s credible, since business registration records are easy to check—there’s no reason to lie.

Given the timing of the company’s founding and collapse, it’s easy to deduce where Wang Yuluo’s aunt scraped together the down payment for her apartment. As for the mortgage payments, she simply skimmed off the top wherever she could. Since Wang Yuluo’s living expenses had been funneled through her aunt since middle school, and there was little communication between Wang Yuluo and her father, it would have been impossible to balance every account.

As long as she kept both sides in the dark and intercepted the funds, she could siphon off enough to pay off her own loan. And when she made the final lump-sum payment to close out the mortgage, it was during Wang Yuluo’s senior year of college. By then, it’s likely Wang Yuluo and her father had agreed that after graduation, the aunt wouldn’t manage her finances anymore. Her aunt must have realized that after her niece graduated, she’d have no more opportunities to skim from her living expenses.”

“That’s right. Wu Caimei mentioned this as well.” Zhao Dabao shook his head and sighed. “She said Wang Yuluo’s aunt is especially cunning, with a deep sense of calculation, and holds her own children and Wang Yuluo to completely different standards.

She’s extremely strict with her own kids—everything has to be done her way, no exceptions. Not just academics, but behavior and manners in every aspect. With Wang Yuluo, it was the opposite: complete indulgence, to the point of spoiling. You could say she doted on her niece, or, perhaps more accurately, coddled her to the point of ruining her.

Whether that’s a fair assessment, we’ll have to see. But Wu Caimei’s point was, she thinks Wang Yuluo’s distance and coldness toward her father, and their inability to communicate, is inextricably linked to her aunt’s actions.

After all, over the years, her aunt claimed to be helping her brother manage household affairs, but in reality, she became a barrier between father and daughter. They hardly ever had a chance to speak directly; everything had to go through the aunt, who controlled all the information between them. In the end, it was all in her hands.”

“In that light, Wang Yuluo’s aunt has ended up hoisted by her own petard,” Ning Shuyi observed. She knew that there was a way to ruin someone under the guise of love—a method known as ‘killing with kindness’—and that unprincipled indulgence could destroy a person’s future. “I suppose the aunt originally hoped that, under her indulgence, her niece would grow up spoiled and pliant, ready to serve as a useful pawn when necessary.

But she didn’t expect that Wang Yuluo would develop a strong resistance to authority—not only toward her father but toward her aunt as well. In the end, she failed to keep her little cash cow close and lost her golden goose entirely.

I wonder if that counts as losing both the lady and the army.”