Chapter 42 What I Am Doing Is Prescribing the Right Remedy for the Illness

One look at Zhao Qinqin's expression told Du Yu that getting the money out of her right now was simply out of the question.

However, if he didn't make her pay a heavy price, there was no telling when she might lose her mind and come back here to cause trouble again.

This was a storefront he was running, not a hospital; it would never do for Zhao Qinqin to keep running over here every time she had a fit.

"What? Trying to welsh on the debt?"

Du Yu reached out and gestured toward the street. "Take a look around here. People pass by every single day. Because of the scene your people just made, I've lost at least several potential orders. If this damages my reputation and scares customers away for good, won't I be taking a massive loss?"

Seeing Zhao Qinqin glare at him with pure venom, Du Yu gave her two choices.

"Option one: hand over the money right now, all two hundred yuan, not a single coin less. Option two: I go down to the village and talk to the village chief, just to see how many years someone can get for defamation and spreading rumors."

"You! Du Yu! You despicable coward!"

Without choosing either option, she simply turned on her heel and bolted.

Watching her leave, Wang Xiaowei grew anxious since Du Yu made no move to chase her. He hurried over and asked, "Brother Yu, are you just going to let her walk away like that?"

"What's there to worry about?" Du Yu remained entirely unruffled. "The monk may run, but the temple can't run with him. If worse comes to worst, I'll just collect the debt from her old man."

Wang Xiaowei chuckled. "Well, that's true. There's no way we'd ever let ourselves take a loss like this."

With Zhao Qinqin dealt with, there was still another person waiting inside the shop.

Du Yu walked back across the street and stepped straight through the door.

The moment his sister-in-law caught sight of Du Yu, her face melted into an ingratiating smile. "Xiaoyu, we're all family here. I only heard what that girl from the Zhao family was saying, so that's why I..."

"Sister-in-law, since we're family, we can skip the polite nonsense."

Hearing Du Yu bring up the word "family," the sister-in-law immediately beamed, completely ignoring the flash of coldness in his eyes.

"Right, right, right! We're all family, and we've got to get along well in the future!"

It looked like her brother-in-law still had some common sense after all. If she let this incident slide and buttered him up with a few nice words later, she'd definitely find a way to get her own family in on some of these profits!

To her surprise, Du Yu spoke again, his tone dropping several degrees.

"Since you've already come all this way, sister-in-law, why don't you stay for dinner? It's been quite a while since I last saw my older brother, so I can tell him all about what happened today."

The expression on the sister-in-law's face shifted instantly.

"Du Yu! What are you dragging your brother into this for? I only did what I did because I listened to Zhao Qinqin! I didn't mean to do it on purpose!"

Du Yu couldn't be bothered to listen to her excuses. He simply turned to Wang Xiaowei and gave a brief instruction.

"Keep an eye on the shop and my sister-in-law. I'm going out to buy some food."

There was no way to cook inside the shop, but fortunately, there were restaurants nearby.

Wang Xiaowei grinned broadly. "No problem at all! Consider her guarded!"

Wang Xiaowei was a straightforward, stubborn guy. Though he was two years younger than Du Yu, he was a grown man all the same.

The moment Du Yu left, the sister-in-law completely deflated. Her bravado only ever extended to bullying her own family members.

The eldest brother arrived quite late in the evening.

Du Yu had already filled him in on the general situation. Seeing his wife sitting there looking abashed and shifty, a surge of fiery anger instantly ignited in his chest.

Still, he needed to address Du Yu first out of basic courtesy.

"Xiaoyu, your brother has let you down..."

"Brother, we're family. If you hadn't helped me out back then, I might not have even made it to high school."

Du Yu had long since realized that his eldest brother was actually a decent person at heart; he had just been cursed with a terrible wife.

With that, Du Yu assumed a troubled, heavy-hearted expression.

"You know how it is—Mom is still living with me. Everything I earn now is just to let her enjoy some peace and comfort in her later years. With sister-in-law making such a huge fuss, I don't even know if I can keep this shop running. If something really goes wrong..."

Playing the victim game—two could play at that.

If his sister-in-law was allowed to act innocent, then he was certainly entitled to look pitiful in front of his older brother.

With a few carefully chosen, emotionally charged words of prodding, the fire in the older brother's chest didn't subside—it burned all the fiercer.

He had originally been invited for dinner, but how could the older brother possibly have any appetite left?

With a darkened expression, he strode over to the inner area and pointed a finger at his wife.

"You were the one who kept pushing for the family to split up in the first place, and I didn't say a word against it. Now that you see Xiaoyu and the others doing well, you come over here to sabotage them? And you call yourself a sister-in-law!"

Usually, the older brother was a quiet, taciturn man at home, always yielding to whatever his wife wanted.

When he suddenly flipped a switch and turned hostile like this, the sister-in-law sat frozen, utterly speechless.

Yet the blazing anger in the older brother's heart wasn't so easily vented.

After a moment of grim contemplation, he finally spat out two words.

"Get a divorce."

Hearing that, the sister-in-law panicked. "What did you just say?"

Before saying it, the older brother might have harbored some hesitation, but once the words were spoken, there was no turning back.

"I said get a divorce! Rather than letting you drag my brother down like this, I'd rather make a clean break!"

Not to mention the sister-in-law, even Du Yu drew in a sharp breath at the declaration.

It seemed his older brother had truly been bottling up his frustration for far too long; otherwise, he never would have uttered such words.

Du Yu had only wanted to teach his sister-in-law a lesson; he hadn't actually intended to destroy their marriage.

Seeing that things were heading in a dangerous direction, he quickly stepped in to mediate.

"Brother, I'm sure sister-in-law just had a momentary lapse in judgment to do something like this. Don't be too hasty. Let's just treat this as a wake-up call, and you two should keep living your lives properly."

The sister-in-law's complexion looked dreadful as she muttered under her breath, "Hypocrite."

The older brother's face darkened further, and at that, the sister-in-law finally dared not utter another word.

"Alright, whatever issues you have, go home and work them out slowly. Just make sure you don't start fighting," Du Yu advised from the side, seeing that neither of them was in any condition to eat.

"Xiaoyu, your brother has failed you this time. Don't worry, nothing like this will ever happen again."

With his older brother's assurance, Du Yu finally felt a bit more at ease.

He stood at the doorway, watching the two of them walk off into the distance.

"Brother Yu, what kind of brilliant tactic was that?"

Wang Xiaowei was still busy shoveling food into his mouth with huge bites.

"I call that prescribing the right medicine for the illness!"

Zhao Qinqin's family was obsessed with money; hitting her where it hurt financially was the only way to scare her off for good.

As for his sister-in-law, after receiving such a severe warning through her husband's reaction, she would certainly never dare to pull a stunt like this again—at least, not so openly.

The only thing that still troubled Du Yu slightly was the matter of his shop's reputation.

Even though the incident had lasted less than ten minutes and Du Yu had resolved it quickly, the people on the street might not know the full story.

As long as malicious rumors spread, they would inevitably, in subtle ways, end up affecting his business.

"Brother Yu, are you worried about the shop's trade?"

Seeing Du Yu fall silent for a long while, Ma Yue spoke up. "I don't think the impact will be that severe. Besides, some items are only available here; even if other shops are envious, there's nothing they can do about it."

Take the bluefin tuna, for instance—people elsewhere had only ever heard tales of it, but who had actually laid eyes on a real one?