"If it's really like you say, then let the marriage happen."
"But if it's fake, you run. We'll make your brother take the fall..."
My brother seemed terrified I would try to steal her back.
He insisted on holding a banquet that very night and demanded I help with the preparations.
The entire village knew he had taken a fancy to Jasmine McLaughlin—a girl so intellectually disabled she couldn't care for herself. Not only had he dragged her into the cornfield, but now he wanted to marry her.
A crowd gathered outside, mocking him. They said he was thinking with his dick, willing to take a fool just to get laid.
My brother's eyes went red with rage. He pointed a shaking finger at them.
"When my wife claims her inheritance, you'll all come crawling back like dogs!"
"You'll kneel on the ground and beg me, and I won't give you a single cent!"
The villagers laughed harder.
"A fool with no parents who can't even wipe her own ass? You're banking on her?"
He stomped his feet and ran back into the house.
Naturally, Mom dumped her anger on me. She grabbed my arm and twisted the flesh until I gasped.
"They're cursing your brother, cursing your parents! Why didn't you stop them? Why didn't you curse back?"
She went inside to coddle my brother.
My dad, in a fit of pique, flipped the table.
"Forget the banquet! We aren't doing it!"
Bowls and chopsticks shattered against my body. He pointed at me, his face twisted with disgust. "Clean this mess up, or I'll clean *you* up."
I stood there, eyes stinging, clutching my bruised arm. My heart was a frozen wasteland.
Jasmine McLaughlin, wearing a red cotton jacket, shyly entered the courtyard and stumbled upon the scene.
She didn't hesitate. She walked straight toward me.
My heart leaped.
Memories of the fifty years we spent together in my past life flashed through my mind. How she used to shield me when my parents beat me and called me worthless. How she held me after every blow.
My throat tightened. I couldn't help but soften my voice as I said her name.
But she looked at me with cold, guarded eyes.
"Bad man! Don't you dare hurt my husband."
I froze.
She snatched a knife from the ground and drove it into my arm.
When I didn't dodge, she paused for a second, confused, but her voice remained vicious.
"My husband told me everything. You love bullying him."
"You even drugged me and my husband! You bullied me because I'm a fool! You wanted to ruin us!"