AWB Chapter 204: She Has Nowhere to Go
Chapter 204: She Has Nowhere to Go
Calls from home all went straight to voicemail. By the time he remembered to check, he’d already missed over a dozen.
The source of his "peace and quiet," naturally, was another woman. She kept him company, doting on him, flattering him endlessly, and treating him like a king.
That woman’s surname was Yan. She was in her early thirties and worked as a lounge singer in a bar.
She knew how to make coffee and brew soup. She spoke in a soft, gentle voice and never raised it in argument.
Her apartment was always tidy, the sheets were changed weekly, and the refrigerator was stocked with his favorite foods.
She never asked about his past or brought up the future, only caring that their present days were pleasant.
Whenever he came over, she would have slippers and a hot towel ready for him. She even remembered the exact brand of his favorite cigarettes.
As for the mess at home, he just closed his eyes to it and threw Cao Jiajia out to take the fall.
He never answered calls from home, nor did he ever ask about his wife’s health.
Cao Jiajia was left to handle everything by herself.
Shopping for groceries, cooking, doing laundry, cleaning the house, serving tea and water—she also had to constantly monitor Yuan Zhihe’s mood swings.
The slightest misstep would immediately earn her a tirade of abuse.
One time, she forgot to warm the milk. Yuan Zhihe smashed the glass on the spot. Shards of porcelain cut the back of her hand, and though beads of blood dripped down, she didn’t dare cry out in pain.
Yuan Zhihe was her stepmother in name only, and in reality, wasn’t much older than Cao Jiajia herself. Yuan Zhihe had despised her from the beginning, partly because Jiajia had a history in the nightclub scene.
The first time they met was outside the Civil Affairs Bureau. Cao Jiajia was wearing a simple dress, her hair in a ponytail, looking like a recent graduate.
But Yuan Zhihe looked her up and down, then snorted coldly.
Shortly after the wedding, while going through her husband’s old things, she found a photograph. In it, Cao Jiajia was wearing a backless dress, standing under neon lights with a brazen smile.
From that moment on, she was convinced the girl was devious and would sooner or later try to steal what was hers.
Now that she was pregnant, she controlled Jiajia at every turn, capable of finding fault with anything and everything.
She complained that Cao Jiajia walked too heavily, claiming it startled the baby in her belly.
Then she’d say her cooking was too salty and would affect the fetus’s development.
Even a clothes hanger being crooked by half an inch while drying clothes was twisted into a deliberate provocation and grounds for a scolding.
She forced Cao Jiajia to scrub the floors on her knees every day until they were raw and festering.
Meanwhile, she would lie on the sofa, playing on her phone.
The girl was only eighteen, but after just a few days of torment, her face grew ashen and she swayed when she walked.
She used to have fair skin and a slender figure, but now she was so thin her cheekbones protruded and her eyes were sunken.
She often woke with a start in the middle of the night, trembling in fear at the sound of the wind rattling the windows.
She didn’t dare lock her door, draw her curtains, or even take a shower for more than ten minutes.
At the dinner table, she was only allowed to pick at the vegetable leaves on the side; she wasn’t permitted to even touch a slice of meat.
One time, she secretly hid an apple in her pocket. After Yuan Zhihe found it, she forced her to devour the entire thing in front of the family, core and all.
Yuan Zhihe wouldn’t let her eat properly, made her stand in a corner as punishment at the drop of a hat, and would force her to get up and wait on her at the slightest sound during the night.
She was ordered to stand outside the master bedroom at ten o’clock every night. If she heard a cough or someone tossing and turning, she had to immediately go in to pour water, pull up the blankets, or massage their shoulders.
One night, during a fierce thunderstorm with lightning and thunder raging outside, she was so sleepy she could barely stand. Her head kept nodding, bumping against the wall.
Hearing the sound, Yuan Zhihe immediately shrieked, accusing her of slacking off to sleep. As punishment, she made her kneel all night on the cold tiles of the balcony, letting the rain soak her to the bone.
One day, in the middle of the night, Yuan Zhihe said she wanted pork rib soup and forced Jiajia to stay up all night, squatting by the stove to watch it.
The flame couldn’t be too high, and the broth couldn’t turn cloudy. By the time she had simmered a pot of rich, creamy-white soup, she was completely drained.
Cao Jiajia sat on a small stool, a ladle in her hand, her eyes fixed on the white steam rising from the pot.
The kitchen was unbearably stuffy. Sweat trickled down her cheeks and dripped into the pot, but she didn’t dare raise a hand to wipe it away.
The next morning, she served the soup. Yuan Zhihe, sitting at the dining table, took a tiny sip and frowned. With a sharp flick of her wrist, she sent the entire bowl splashing onto the wooden floor.
She sneered, "How dare you serve me such a foul-tasting soup? Are you trying to poison me?"
Watching the soup she had poured her heart into all night gurgle down the floor drain, a lump formed in Cao Jiajia’s throat, and tears welled up in her eyes.
But she knew crying was useless.
She had no place to live, no money in her pockets, and could barely even get a full meal.
All she could do was bite her lip hard and swallow the bitter injustice.
Her ID card was locked away in Yuan Zhihe’s drawer, and her bank card had been frozen.
She was penniless, and the clothes on her back were old hand-me-downs from someone else.
She had tried to contact her biological mother, but the woman had long since remarried. When the call finally went through, her mother said only, "Don’t ever contact me again," before hanging up.
She knew she had nowhere else to go. No matter if it was raining or snowing outside, she could only stay in this house and endure.
If she displeased Yuan Zhihe, Cao Jiajia wouldn’t even have a roof over her head.
She had tried to pack her bags and leave once. The moment she shouldered her backpack, Yuan Zhihe blocked her at the door.
After that, she never mentioned leaving again.
She learned to bow her head, to remain silent, to keep her face blank amidst the torrent of curses.
"If you dare shed a single tear, you can get the hell out! Who are you trying to look so pitiful for all day?"
Whenever Cao Jiajia showed the slightest hint of exhaustion or sorrow, Yuan Zhihe would immediately snap at her.
She wouldn’t permit any sign of weakness, viewing it as a challenge to her authority.
She installed two cameras in the living room, one pointed at the kitchen and the other at the stairwell, to monitor Cao Jiajia’s every move.
The very sight of Cao Jiajia infuriated Yuan Zhihe, but if she actually let her leave, she would lose her personal punching bag.
She needed someone to handle all the housework, and she needed someone to bear the brunt of all her resentment.
With her husband away for long periods, she had no outlet for her pent-up anger. The only way she could find a fleeting sense of psychological balance was by controlling Cao Jiajia.
She both hated the young girl’s existence and couldn’t live without her servitude.
This contradiction made her behavior erratic. One day she would slap her, the next she might reward her with half a piece of cake.
She was constantly simmering with a rage that needed to be vented.
She would suddenly call for her late at night, waking Cao Jiajia up just to have her stand there for a while, whether she needed anything or not.
She would deliberately knock over a glass of water and then blame her for not cleaning it up quickly enough.
She would even pretend to be gentle and considerate in front of guests, only to drop the act the moment they left, putting on a cold mask and forcing Cao Jiajia to scrub the floor on her knees.
She enjoyed this sense of control, as if she were playing a game she could never lose.
Cao Jiajia kept her head down and said nothing.
She no longer argued, no longer tried to explain.
’She knew words were useless; it was better to save her energy just to survive.’
The thought of how many bastards Cao Daqiang was fathering on the outside, all of whom would one day come to fight for the family inheritance, brought her a grim satisfaction.
She had once seen a woman at the entrance to their residential complex looking for Cao Daqiang. The woman was furious, her belly eight months pregnant, claiming that no one was taking responsibility.
She kept these incidents in mind, silently gathering evidence.
She believed that one day, all these people would come flooding through the doors of this house like a tidal wave.
’So what if Yuan Zhihe is acting all high and mighty now?’
’When those women show up at the door with their children to claim their father, let’s see if she’s still smiling then.’