Bride Swap Backfire: My Cousin's Rebirth Made Us a Power Couple-Chapter 47 - 39: Breaking off the Engagement (Part 3)

If even Mr. Chen could see what was happening, the others certainly could as well.

The two elders from the Qu Family remained aloof since it was none of their business, simply sitting in their chairs to watch the drama unfold.

Mr. Zhao, however, was fraught with worry.

He helped Mrs. Zhao to her seat. "Nothing is more important than your health. Your leg acts up whenever it’s overcast and rainy, feeling like it’s being poked with needles. The doctor told you to rest up at home. If you’re not careful, you might really lose the ability to walk one day."

Mrs. Zhao paid him no mind, slapping the armrests of her chair. WHACK! WHACK! "The men of your Chen family pride themselves on honor and integrity, refusing to bully others or cause trouble. But some people take your honor for idiocy! They see your good nature as a lack of spine and deliberately walk all over you."

Mrs. Zhao pointed at the Old Matriarch. "Why don’t you tell everyone what you’ve done?"

With things having escalated to this point, Xu Su Ying could no longer sit idly by.

She brought Chen Wanqing into the main hall and proactively offered tea to Mrs. Zhao. "Whatever the matter is, please, take your time and tell us. The business about calling off the engagement is already out in the open. There’s nothing else worth hiding, is there?"

Xu Su Ying directed that last question to the Old Matriarch.

But would the Old Matriarch dare admit to what she had done?

If she revealed her ’good deed’, the Zhao family would skin her alive.

’If only I’d known the engagement would be called off this afternoon, why was I in such a rush?’

’If I had just delayed Wanyue and Li Cun’s engagement, I’d be in an unassailable position right now.’

The Old Matriarch clamped her mouth shut, refusing to admit anything. She just kept insisting, "I don’t know what you’re talking about. I’ve done nothing to wrong the Zhao family, and there was certainly no deception involved."

The Old Matriarch’s words were firm, but inwardly, she was wondering which part of her plan had gone wrong.

She and Wanyue had gone out today, but the two of them knew what was at stake. Neither had breathed a word about the engagement to the Li family.

The other three adults in the house had only returned from the county seat in the afternoon, and the subsequent downpour meant they had no chance to gossip with anyone. 𝘧𝓇𝑒𝑒𝑤ℯ𝑏𝓃𝘰𝑣ℯ𝘭.𝘤ℴ𝘮

The Old Matriarch ran through the possibilities. ’The news couldn’t have leaked from our side,’ she thought. ’And Li Cun’s mother doesn’t want him marrying Wanyue either, so she’d do everything she could to hide it. She’d definitely keep her mouth shut.’

’So, could it be that Mrs. Wang, the matchmaker, let it slip?’

The Old Matriarch had guessed right.

This time, it really was Mrs. Wang who had let the cat out of the bag.

The whole affair could only be described by a single word: "coincidence."

It started when Miaohua threw up during breakfast. Afterward, she vomited so violently that only bitter bile came up. Considering when she got married, it was clearly a pregnancy.

It was Miaohua’s first pregnancy, so she took it very seriously, as did her mother-in-law and husband. As luck would have it, though the sky was overcast, it hadn’t started raining yet, so the couple hitched up their ox-cart and headed for the county seat.

When the pregnancy was confirmed, the couple was overjoyed. Miaohua was also famished, so Zhao Tang, doting on his wife, took her straight to a restaurant to eat.

By then, the rain had started, and many people were taking shelter in the restaurant. The first floor was packed, so the Shopkeeper arranged for them to have a private room on the second floor.

And just by chance, in the room right next to theirs, Mrs. Wang was with her daughter-in-law, waiting for a client to arrive.

Perhaps because the day’s events had been so bizarre, or perhaps because she felt safe speaking of private matters in a closed room, convinced no one would overhear.

And so, Mrs. Wang told her daughter-in-law all about the "sister-swap engagement."

At the time, Zhao Tang and Miaohua just treated it as juicy gossip to go with their meal. The food tasted all the better for it.

But then Mrs. Wang’s daughter-in-law started asking questions: where did this happen? What were the girls’ names? And which family was it that insisted on hiding the matter from their son? When the couple heard familiar names fall from Mrs. Wang’s lips, they were completely stunned.

The impulsive Zhao Tang stormed next door, threw open the door to their room, and demanded Mrs. Wang repeat everything she had just said.

Mrs. Wang, realizing she’d let the secret slip, repeatedly slapped herself across the face.

But she refused to say it again, insisting that she couldn’t ruin the business she was there to conduct.

When Mrs. Wang later learned that Chen Wanqing—one of the girls from her story—had been engaged to Zhao Tang’s cousin for years, she was utterly dumbfounded herself.

As the young couple was leaving, she couldn’t help but add one last comment. "Perhaps this isn’t a bad thing for your cousin. A girl so fickle, from a family with no integrity... I’ve never seen anything like it. Not marrying into that family is a blessing for you all."

Zhao Tang and Miaohua couldn’t care less about blessings or good fortune.