Chapter 11 - The Repulsive Family

Before Hua went back, she had asked Master Wang for a favor. They stopped by the mall to buy something. Hua knew that she needed to have a better contingency plan for the future. She needed to collect evidence of the abuse she was receiving and suffering.

Master Wang was gracious and helped her buy the device. Since he had been an intelligence military officer he knew what kind of device Hua was looking for. Something small but easily mistaken as a regular object. They ended up buying a recording pen. No one would be able to tell that it was a recorder.

The recorder pen was even able to be charged with a USB so she didn't need to buy batteries in the future. Hua deeply bowed as Master Wang drove away after giving her a ride back. She would forever be grateful to him for his help.

Hua entered the house and saw the Zhangs sitting in the living room. Mr. Zhang was reading his newspaper while Mrs. Zhang was reading a fashion magazine. Mingmei was eating and Fang was on his phone.

All four of them looked up and Mingmei shouted first, "LI HUA! You didn't make breakfast! Where have you been?"

Mrs. Zhang frowned, "Why does she look worse than usual? Where have you been? Slacking off work because we've been so kind to you?"

Mr. Zhang grunted, "She can't hear you so stop yelling."

Mingmei and Mrs. Zhang blushed with embarrassment for having despite interacting with Hua all these years. Li Hua blankly stared at them and moved her eyes to Fang who looked visibly uncomfortable. Hua walked over to them slowly. She already had a piece of paper ready. Hua had written it in the hospital.

She gave it to Mr. Zhang and Mrs. Zhang scooted over to read it.

"Zhang Fang burned me using cigarettes last night with his friends. I was at the hospital because I needed treatment. A police report was filed."

Mrs. Zhang screamed in horror, "Don't tell such horrible lies, LI HUA!"

She stood up to slap Hua but Hua stepped back in time to avoid it.

"How dare you!" Mrs. Zhang screamed her head off.

Hua then slowly took off her jacket to show the bandages on both arms. She took out the doctor's note to show that she wasn't lying about what was underneath the bandages.

Mr. Zhang looked at Fang and shouted, "Zhang Fang, what the hell did you do!?"

"What! I didn't do anything! My friends and I were just fooling around. We got carried away a little. It's no big deal."

Mr. Zhang frowned in anger, "A police report was filed!"

Fang's eyes grew wide like saucers, "YOU WHAT?!"

He looked at Hua like he wanted to kill her.

Hua wrote on the paper, "I didn't. The doctor did."

Mingmei read what Hua wrote out loud. Hua wanted to smirk because Mingmei reading aloud was helping with the recording she was taking of this discussion. The pen had been on since she walked into the house.

Hua continued to stare at Fang like he was a piece of shit. Mr. and Mrs. Zhang started to get worried. Mr. Zhang was a smart man and immediately thought of a quick solution to appease Hua. He immediately wrote in Hua's book.

"It's just boys being boys. Take rest. You don't need to do work for the next 3 months. Take it as a vacation. There is food in the kitchen. Eat it."

Never had he once said anything like that to Li Hua in the almost 10 years that she had lived with them. Suddenly, he seemed awfully concerned about her well-being. Hua held back the urge to roll her eyes but took him up on his offer. She made her way to the kitchen.

She had left the pen with her notebook on the table while she got food.

"Brother, did you take a video? I'm sure one of your friends did. I want to see it!"

"Shut up Mingmei. I don't have the video, Yichen does. And, you're a girl. You don't need to see things like that. Be more ladylike."

Mingmei rolled her eyes and laughed, "I wanna see her burns. I'm sure they're ugly!"

"Leave her alone. If she went to the cops with this and filed a complaint against Fang then it would be the end of all of us. I have friends at the police department. I'll make some calls but once this kind of thing gets out it'll be hard to ever make it go away completely. Do you understand, Fang?"

"Yeah, yeah, we were drunk and having fun. It really doesn't matter anyway. She's just a maid."

"Just a maid?! She is within these walls but outside, she is the reason why people look at our family as being magnanimous for taking her in at young age. Her adoption has elevated our status."

Fang scoffed but realized that he needed to thread lightly from now on. He had big ambitions and he did want his future ruined over small incidents like these.

"Tell Yichen to delete the video."

"Yeah, yeah."

Yichen, however, never deleted it and kept it on his hard drive. Of course, this would come in handy later on. After grabbing food, Hua made her way to the living room and grabbed her notebook and pen from the table.

None of them were even aware of the trick she pulled.

Also, what the Zhangs did not know was that in the following days, Hua was able to get her hands on the CCTV footage that clearly showed Fang and his friends attacking her. The alley was the back entrance to a restaurant.

The owner of the shop was an old grandmother who was kind enough to let her go through the camera footage when she explained that she got robbed. She was very sympathetic because she, herself was robbed just last year, and hence, her grandson had installed the camera.

Hua got the original file on a USB and she stored it in her safety deposit box at the bank. She knew someday she would get back at them for all the crap they put her through.

Hua mouthed the words, "You will reap my wrath."

Written by Uner90 (R.R.)