Stepmother

Letters

After the Zhang Family left, the kids and Sun Baohai resumed dinner and ate with relish. After they finished eating dinner, Xiao Xi cleared the table as Sun Baohai bathed Qiqi and Xiao Yan. After Xiao Yan and Qiqi were cleaned up, Sun Baohai cleaned up Xiao Xu and Qiqi. After the kids were bathed and dressed comfortably, Sun Baohai went to teach them some more characters. After the kids learned they went out to play, then came back, and slept.

This became the new norm and routine for Sun Baohai, and another few days quickly went by. His shop was still doing fine and was now just stable. There were some copycats that emerged which took away some of his customers. He was a little worried, but he knew that the copycats did not taste like his since the makers were reluctant to use so much sugar to make jam, which is why most of his customers stuck with him. So his income was still very stable and he and the kid's life were pretty decent.

On the other side of the northern border, it was a very different story for Zhang Jinhai. After Zhang Jinhai learned what his kids were going through at the Zhangs he immediately agreed to the marriage and separation. Wan Meirong had been actively sending him updates about his kids, so he had written a little to his new wife.

After some years in the army, he finally had a stroke of luck and was promoted, so his life became a bit better. He wanted his kids to have the best life possible, so he did mind sending over more than half of his salary to them every month, but even after sending the money he was still very anxious. He knew that the letters would take about three days to get here, and he expected a letter from both Wan Meirong and his new wife. He knew Wan Meirong would tell him the truth about how his new wife was treating the kids. Right now he was in line with other soldiers, waiting for their names to be called to get their letters.

"Zhang Jinhai!" The letter carrier called.

"Right here!" Zhang Jinhai called before going to get his letters and walking back to his tent.

"Ohhhh, you got two letters in one go! You normally don't get letters that often, who is it from?" Le Ke, a tanned young man asked. He was what you would call a sworn brother to Zhang Jinhai, as they had been in many life-and-death situations together, and always tried to save one another.

"One is from my wife and the other is from my sister-in-law." Zhang Jinhai responded.

"Wife? I thought she ran away?" Le Ke asked. He knew how much that incident hurt his friend and how long it took for him to finally get over it. Matter of fact he probably would never get over his runaway wife if it wasn't for the fact that she took part in the abuse of his kids.

"I remarried," Zhang Jinhai responded. He knew what his friends were thinking about, and it was really true. He and his wife, Li Wen had married out of love. Even if she knew his position at home, she still decided to marry him. Though she started to change after giving birth to their first child, he still loved her very much. So his reaction when his wife sent him a letter of divorce was not so great.

He knew that he had no time for and she was practically a widow with four children, but he had overestimated their love and thought that his wife would wait for him to come back in a couple of months. Though he was devastated by the news, he still respected her choice and signed the divorce agreement. It wasn't until Wan Meirong sent him a letter that he finally knew the real reason behind their divorce.

It turned out that after she gave birth to their last child, Li Wen was no longer faithful. At first, it was just one affair, but then it turned into multiple affairs until she finally became the concubine of a landlord. When the landlord denied her request to bring the children, she did not hesitate to throw them to the Zhang family, knowing what they were capable of, just to become a concubine.