One Night Changed Everything (PAUSED)

13

Fengmian and Jia Li come running when they hear the commotion just in time to see Wuxi slap her again "You vindictive bitch, what did I ever do to you huh? You have always been so vicious to me, hitting me when no one was looking, not letting me eat because I was such a bad child, saying mean and hateful things to me every day I lived in this wretched house and now you get me kicked out of school? You ruined my chances of getting an education? WHY? WHAT DID I DO TO DESERVE YOUR HATE?" he screams in her face causing her self-preservation instincts to kick in so she tries to move away from him.

Fengmian and Jia Li are both frozen in shock at the scene playing out before them. Fengmian recovers first and quickly gets between his wife and Wuxi and tries to defuse the situation "AXian what's going on? Why are you so mad and why are you hitting Madam?"

He sneers at Fengmian "Why don't you ask your viper of a wife Uncle? Since she is the one sabotaging my fucking life."

He turns to Madam Yu "What is going on?"

She holds her cheek and says nothing, she just looks at Wuxi with hate and rage burning in her eyes. Fengmian turns back to Wuxi "AXian calm down and tell me what happened."

He points angrily towards Madam Yu "She spoke to the Dean and now I am kicked out of school because I'm pregnant, I can no longer attend classes or get my degree."

Fengmian turns wide eyes to Madam Yu "Is this true?"

She scoffs "The Dean called me I didn't call him, he didn't want him and his wickedness degrading the school's reputation and asked if he could remove him from attending, I agreed because I wouldn't want someone willing to lay with some filthy wild man and get pregnant with their baby around the good and wholesome students if I were him either. He is not worthy to be with students who comport themselves with dignity unlike him, spreading his legs so easily, he's just trash that needs to be taken out."

Wuxi takes a step towards her, his fists clenched, chest still heaving in anger, speaking through clenched teeth "I was drugged and taken advantage of you viperous bitch. No one would bother to let me explain that though before you all looked down on me and made me leave my home, did you? Every one of you took her side and allowed her to do whatever she wanted to me for years and did nothing about it."

He takes a deep breath, tears streaming down his cheeks "All of you can go to hell for all I care, don't contact me, don't call me, don't try to come to MY home because right now I don't want to see any of you. I'm glad you kicked me out, at least now I can walk around my home and not have to worry about your poisonous words spewing from your hateful mouth every time I see you. At least now I can eat what I want when I want without having to go hungry because you decided to be extra bitchy that day. At least now I don't have someone hitting me where no one will see the bruises so that you have a punching bag to take out your anger on." He sneers at her and looks at the others in the room.

Fengmian's face had gone pale and his eyes wide at hearing the confession AXian had just thrown out for everyone to witness. His sister just stands there a blank expression on her face, he scoffs "Don't tell me none of you realized what was going in right under your noses?" He sneers again "How fucking pathetic."

He turns to see Jiang Cheng and Yanli both standing there in the entryway, by the looks on their faces they heard most of it, Yanli has tears streaming down her face and Jiang Cheng looks horrified. He storms out the door pushing past them in his haste to leave, gets into his car and drives a few miles down the road before he has to pull over, his hands shaking so badly that he can no longer drive safely and breaks down, releasing all of the hurt and torment he has been feeling for so long. He lays his head on the steering wheel and stays like that for a long time until he hears a soft knock on his window. He lifts his head and turns to the window with red swollen eyes and sees Carmen standing there, he opens the door and falls into her arms, his tears falling harder as his broken heart bleeds out the tears he has been holding back for so long.

She holds him for a while before she motions for the security detail that called her, to pick him up and put him in the back of the SUV, she gets in with him holding him as one of his security drives them to his house. They take him inside and lay him down on his bed while Carmen strokes his hair and mothers him until he falls asleep. She watches over him until she sees he is deeply sleeping and leaves the room.

She walks up to one of the security guards "What happened to him?"

He explains what happened, they followed him into the house but stayed back and let him do what he needed to. They watched over him until he pulled over and worried, they called her to calm him down before he had any problems with his pregnancy. She nods thanking them then calls someone "I need all of the information you can get about the Jiangs and everyone who lives in their home. I want backgrounds on each one, in full detail and I want it now."

She hangs up, her anger rising as she thinks back to how she found him and how upset he was, and more so when she recalls what his security recounted what they had heard in the Jiang house. She walks into his room and checks on him and sees he is sleeping soundly, which he needs after such a stressful interaction. His body needs to calm down so that he doesn't have any complications with the babies. She moves some of his hair off of his forehead and sighs softly. He looks so familiar to her but she just can't seem to figure out why. She pulls the comforter up and tucks it around him then leaves the room and makes herself a cup of tea as she waits for the information she asked for to arrive.

An hour later she has a folder in her hands and is pouring over the information. She reads the details about each Jiang family member, and when she gets to the wards of the Jiang's she gasps. Her eyes widen and tears spring to her eyes, she looks toward the room where Wuxi is sleeping and then back down at the paper with a photo attached to the top of it. She caresses the photo fondly as a tear drops to her cheek and slips down to dangle from her jaw. "Oh, Cangse my beautiful, sweet friend." She whispers as another tear drops to her cheek.

She looks at the picture of her childhood friend, her heart aching knowing that she will never see her beautiful face again or hear her infectious laughter. "My friend how I have missed you, I will watch over your children and make sure they are safe and happy. I wish I had known you married and had children I would have watched over them for you. I'm so sorry we lost touch so many years ago but I never stopped thinking of you, my wonderful friend."