She Let Them Torture the Wrong Mother

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My wife lost a game, and per the bet, she had to prank her own mother.

But she couldn't stand to let her assistant do it to her own mother, so she called mine over instead.

She even told the assistant that my mother loved to fake being hurt, so not to believe her, and to go as hard as possible.

That day a hurricane hit our hometown, so my mother didn't come. Her mother came instead.

The moment she walked in, the assistant dumped a whole bucket of garbage water over her out of pure spite, and she stormed into the bathroom to wash it off, shaking with rage.

She didn't know the bathroom door was transparent. A whole crowd stood watching her shower, laughing at her.

She was so furious she wanted to grab her clothes and put them back on, but the assistant had already cut them to shreds.

"Auntie, don't blame us for being cruel. Your daughter-in-law lost a game, so we have to prank you. We can't stop for at least two hours."

Later, with my wife indulging them again and again, her mother was tormented to death. And she went mad.

...

Edwina Harding called me and told me to drive over to the next city to buy the sugar cookies she loved.

I didn't refuse her. I turned to head out.

But a coworker had just come back from the next city with a few boxes too many, and he handed me two.

With the cookies in hand, I drove home in a good mood the whole way.

Then my mother-in-law called, her voice full of panic.

"Rod Dickerson, come home quick, help me."

"There's a man who says he's Edwina's assistant. He says Edwina lost a game, and the bet says he has to prank me..."

She didn't even finish before the call cut off in a rush.

I slammed the brakes so hard I nearly went into the brush by the roadside.

Losing a game means pranking a mother?

What kind of game was that?

Sick with worry for her, I didn't dare linger and rushed straight back.

At the front door I found the ground soaked with filthy water, the reek of leftover food gone sour, sharp enough to sting the nose.

I pushed the door open and heard a crowd upstairs, laughing and jeering.

"Ha, not a bad figure at all. She's no spring chicken, but she's still got something to her!"

"Did you get it on camera?"

"How could we dare film this!"

"She's Ms. Harding's mother-in-law, after all. We can't get carried away."

"Oh please, don't play innocent. Everyone at the company knows you're Ms. Harding's new favorite. Look at you, you just casually say she lost a game so she has to prank a mother, and she agrees without a second thought."

"It's only that Ms. Harding couldn't bear to prank her own mother, so she called Rod's mother over."

"Everybody have your fun. It's fine."

"Rod's mother is just some country woman, no power, no connections. Ms. Harding said herself we can go as hard as we want with her."

As those words fell inside, my mother-in-law started screaming and cursing in the bathroom, and only then did I understand one thing.

The box of sugar cookies slipped from my hand to the floor, and some feeling I couldn't name filled me completely.

No wonder she'd suddenly said she wanted sugar cookies. She wanted me gone so they could prank my mother.

But my mother hadn't come. Her mother had.

I picked up my phone and called Edwina, again and again, before she finally answered.

"Rod, are you done calling yet?"

"Do you have any idea how rude you're being? I finally got Dominic Delgado's baby to sleep, and you deliberately call to wake it up."

A little displeasure crept into my voice. "You actually have the mood to go take care of Dominic's dog?"

"Let me ask you. Did you lose a game with him, and the bet was you had to prank your own mother, and then you couldn't bear to do it to your own mom, so you called mine over, then sent me away so they could have their fun with her?"

I asked every question that needed asking, all in one breath, my mood rising right along with my voice.

Edwina went quiet for a moment, then let out a sigh.

"Yes!"

"You know how coddled my mother is. My dad treats her like a treasure. She can't take even the smallest bit of hardship."

"If I let Dominic prank her, can you imagine? My dad would tear me apart."

"Your mom's different. She lives out in the country. She's been through everything. She can hold out just fine till the game's over."

"And you're always calling to whine, aren't you? Country people don't fuss over things or get pampered like that."

She chatted with me while rocking Dominic's dog to sleep, even singing in the gentlest voice she had.

Hearing that, I felt the anger rise in me.

"What do you mean your mother's too coddled to take any hardship, and my mother's just a country woman so she isn't so delicate? That's blatant favoritism!"

"Enough!"

She screamed at me.

"You were a country nobody. I'm a city heiress, and I didn't hold your background against you. Marrying into your Dickerson family was already the best luck your family ever had."

"Doing one little thing for me isn't asking too much!"

From upstairs came my mother-in-law's furious shriek: "Get away from me, all of you! You put another cockroach in here and I'll have my husband make sure none of you get away with it!"

I was getting frantic. It wasn't my own mother being pranked, but she was still my mother-in-law.

I said to Edwina right away, "You'd better call them and make them stop. Pranking her like this isn't right."

"They actually dumped slop all over her, then waited till she went in to shower and put cockroaches in there" But Edwina didn't seem to hear a word I said, still singing softly to lull the dog to sleep.

The moment my tone hardened, she laid into me.

"You're deafening me!"

Beyond impatient, she snapped, "Since when is some country hag that delicate? Hasn't she fed pigs and chickens? Doesn't that reek too?"

"What's there to be mad about over one little prank? I'm letting them go all out, so I can set the tone in your Dickerson family too."

Her words filled me with a cold, hollow desolation.

Everything she'd said came down to one thing. She looked down on us for being country people, and she didn't care about my mother's dignity at all.

But the Harding family's business.

So much of it ran on the big orders I brought back for them, and the partnerships I pushed through with one company after another.

Even after everything I'd done for her, following her every lead, she still looked down on my mother.

If that was how it was, then let's just get divorced.

"Edwina, do you even know who it is they're pranking?"

"That's your mother"

"Shut up. There's no way it's my mother."

"She's lying in bed with a face mask on, enjoying herself right now!"

With that, afraid of waking Dominic's dog again, she hung up in a hurry.

So this was her babysitting Dominic's dog so he'd have the time to prank her mother to his heart's content?

I couldn't help wondering how she'd treat Dominic once she found out the one being pranked was her own mother.

Just then I heard the sound of someone falling, followed by Dominic and the others laughing.

"Ha, look at her, the way she's sprawled out. Doesn't she look just like a dog?"

"Tch, she's sprawling like that on purpose."

"She knows we've got a lot of good-looking guys around here, so she does it on purpose. Doesn't even look at her own age. Makes me sick just looking."

"Toss a rat in there, get her up."

"Ha, you guys are wicked!"

My mother-in-law's forehead was scraped raw, her body wrapped tight in a small, pitiful towel.

"You animals, get out of here now"

"Aaah! A rat! A rat!"

"Hahaha, look, see? She scrambled right up!"

My mother-in-law's face flushed with rage as she glared at the crowd in front of her, furious and mortified, probably the first time in her life anyone had ever treated her like this.

I rushed up to the second floor, and even from a distance I saw a crowd gathered around the bathroom.

The door was clear glass. I could see my mother-in-law inside, huddled in on herself.

"Mom!"

"Stop him! Don't let him ruin the prank game!"

The moment she saw me, my mother-in-law was so overcome she nearly wept.

Dominic had me pinned, blocking my way.

"Rod, save your mom!"

"These people have no respect for the law. They treat me like dirt. They say they're going to torment me to death."

"Who are they? Why are they only picking on me?"

They had me caught fast, unable to move. All I could do was roar at Dominic, my face flushed with fury.

"Let my mom go!"

Dominic not only ignored me, he hummed a little tune and winked.

"Ms. Harding said your mom's worth nothing. We can do whatever we want to her."

"And we're not done having fun yet!"

Hearing this, my mother-in-law knitted her brows and demanded of Dominic,

"This Ms. Harding you keep talking about, is she Edwina Harding of Harding Corp?"

Dominic shot her a contemptuous glance. "That's right!"

"She lost the game, and per the bet, she gets to let us torment you."

"How about it, you old hag! Bet you're furious!"

"See this? We took plenty of nice photos of you too. Step out of line, and we'll post them, let the whole world see what a shameless slut you are."

My mother-in-law was so enraged she nearly fainted. She never imagined these people had actually photographed her.

She had never swallowed the smallest indignity in her entire life, and now she had been brought down at her own daughter's hands.

I fought with everything I had, desperate to rush over, grab the phone, and delete those photos.

But Dominic had someone fetch a rope and tied me up.

"Dominic, you despicable snake."

"At the office you were always undercutting me, stealing my credit, and now you've got the nerve to break into my home and torment my mother!"

"I'll report all of you for illegal trespassing and for deliberately abusing an elderly woman."

Dominic dug at his ear with an arrogant, swaggering air.

"Report us? You and your mother think you can go up against Harding Corp?"

"One word from Ms. Harding and you're both dead. Understand?"

Then, on purpose, he lifted his hand to show the couple's ring on his ring finger.

That ring had been Edwina's custom-made anniversary gift for the two of us. Now the man's band was sitting on Dominic's finger.

"See that? Bit by bit, I'm taking your place in Ms. Harding's heart."

"All I have to do is ask, and she gives."

"So even if we play your mom to death, she won't blame me."

"Because she likes me a lot!!!"

Hearing that, my mother-in-law was filled with guilt toward me, and just as furious at her own daughter.

But I only stared hard at Dominic, and something deep inside me stung, a pain I couldn't shake.

My mother-in-law didn't dare come out, trapped inside, cursing Edwina at the top of her lungs.

"Edwina, you animal!"

"You hire a man like this as your assistant, you wrong Rod, and now you let him torment me like this. Once I get out, I'll beat you to death, you beast."

Those words set Dominic off.

His face went dark as he charged toward the bathroom and kicked my mother-in-law out of it.

He walked over and grabbed a fistful of her hair.

"You old hag, who are you calling an animal!"

Blood ran from her mouth and nose. I couldn't imagine how much it hurt.

I struggled as hard as I could, and it did nothing.

"Dominic, let go of her!!"

"My mom has a heart condition. She can't take your violence."

The mother-in-law had been beaten dizzy, too far gone to answer Dominic at all.

"You old hag, answer me!"

"Don't you play dead on me. Ms. Harding said you love playing dead."

"Somebody get me some chili peppers."

Chili peppers?

A cold sweat broke over me. Were they going to burn her awake with peppers?

The thought had barely formed when someone brought them over, fast.

Like it had all been arranged in advance.

They broke open a few hot chili peppers and shoved every last one into her mouth, and the heat jolted her awake on the spot.

She lay on the floor retching in agony, her voice gone hoarse.

I shouted and wrenched free of the restraints, rushed over and shoved Dominic aside, found water to give her, only for Dominic to kick it out of my hands.

"Dominic, this is elder abuse. What you're doing is against the law."

"Screw your law. We didn't take a knife to her, we didn't lay a heavy hand on her."

"Worst case, she just couldn't take it herself and dropped dead from her own temper."

The peppers were too much for her, and she tried to crawl into the bathroom to rinse out her throat under the tap.

But Dominic wouldn't let her in, no matter what. He wanted her to get down on all fours like a dog, barking and apologizing at the same time for having cursed Edwina earlier.

All ten of her fingers were dug in raw. She had to be in unbearable pain.

"Mom, don't kneel!"

"I'll call Edwina right now."

The line picked up soon enough, and her first words were: "What now? Is the old hag still not dead?"

Everyone there heard it. Everyone knew she didn't care in the slightest about the mother-in-law right in front of us.

"Edwina, make Dominic and the rest of them stop. Mom's about to be played to death."

"They've even taken a whole stack of photos of her. This is humiliation."

"Played to death? Who are you trying to scare?"

"Dominic knows his limits. You're the one being downright rude."

"You woke my son up."

A dog's barking came from the other end. Furious, the mother-in-law lunged over and cursed at the phone.

But her voice was too hoarse for Edwina to make out, and it only gave Edwina an excuse to say we'd deliberately woken up her and Dominic's precious son.

I wondered what was going through the mother-in-law's head, hearing that.

That she counted for less than a dog Dominic kept.

Edwina slammed the phone down, and the mother-in-law spat a mouthful of blood and passed out cold.

"Ah! Someone's dead."

"What do we do? Is she really going to"

"Really my ass. She's faking."

I was the only one who knew she wasn't. The father-in-law had told me again and again that her heart was bad.

I panicked, went to her, and lifted her up.

"Mom, how are you doing?"

No response. Her face was drained white, not a trace of color left.

Terrified, I hauled her onto my back to carry her to the hospital.

Dominic kicked us both to the floor and shut the door.

"There's still twenty minutes left. Don't think you can play dead and slip out."

"Dominic!"

"Open the door! This is Edwina's mother. If she dies of this, the Hardings will kill you."

"Ha, why not call her your own mom now? You're just grabbing at some new excuse to scare me. Not a chance."

I called Edwina again for help, and all she did was yell one line.

"Coughing up blood? So is she dead or not? If she's not, she can hold on until the game's over."

"Get that door shut, and don't let those two play dead and escape."

"Don't worry, Ms. Harding, we locked the front door ages ago."

After hearing that, Edwina, afraid I'd disturb their precious son's sleep, blocked my number outright.

And so the mother-in-law lost her best chance to be saved.

I tried calling the father-in-law, but his phone wouldn't connect.

I went to call the police, and Dominic charged in, snatched the phone out of my hand, and backed out again.

There was nothing I could do. I could only watch the mother-in-law slowly die.

Once the game's time was up, Dominic opened the door.

He left with that swaggering air of his, and he even drove off in Edwina's supercar.

I got the mother-in-law onto my back and rushed for the hospital.

Back home, Dominic couldn't wait to describe the whole prank to Edwina.

Edwina laughed, well pleased, then scolded him in a tone that was half doting, half reproach:

"What kind of photos did you even take of my mother-in-law? Delete them right now."

Dominic kissed her lips. "Let me show you the old woman first. Not a shred of the class you'd expect from someone country folk raised."

Edwina rolled her eyes at him, then looked up at his phone.

And the next second, her breath went ragged, and she was thrown into a panic...