1 CHAPTER 1: CALISTA

"Hey, stop for me! You shameless vixen!" a shrewish female voice angrily yelled towards two young women who were currently on their way home from the river.

Susan and Calista, were both startled as they heard that, after all, they weren't expecting a peaceful day to suddenly turn into a chaotic one in a matter of seconds.

And judging by the tone of the person yelling, it was no surprise that the vixen being called out was Calista.

After being called many names in the past decade which were mostly degrading, only Calista would fit that bill.

Calista, who was lost in her thoughts recalling a certain past after bidding farewell to the kids she had come across a while ago, found herself being shrouded by a dark cloud as she came face to face with someone she hadn't seen in a very long time.

Someone she wasn't very fond of and someone she desperately wished she could spank and teach a great lesson over the past decade she had known the other.

"Benita, is that the way you speak to your elders?" Calista suddenly scolded with a dark face without warning as she glared at the young woman standing disrespectfully with her hands on her waist in front of her.

That wasn't how the young ones should stand when speaking to their elders. Who taught her to be so mannerless?

"Haha!" Benita burst into a peal of mocking laughter upon hearing Calista's words, her hands clutching her belly as she laughed without restraint not bothering to hide the scorn on her face. "You… haha, an elder! Whose elder are you? Do you think that just because you married my father back then, you deserve to be anyone's elder? How dare you flaunt yourself around like a courtesan instead of hanging yourself and following my father?"

"Weren't you the one who spoke affectionately before about how much you loved him? Why are you still alive, splurging and dressing like a courtesan, wrecking poor women's marriages because of your sluttiness? Do you think that switching villages would make people forget what a jinx you are?" Benita scolded shrewishly, without a care for the people who had slowly gathered to eat melons.

Calista's hold on the baskets had tightened, the veins hiding beneath those long sleeves had long popped out while her beautiful black eyes seemed to have turned red for a moment.

"Benita!" Calista angrily yelled as she glared at the other. "How dare you insult me like that? Have you forgotten that according to the law and customs, I am your elder? Even if you don't like it, you have to call me the second mother when we meet. Who gave you the guts to come and call me names like this?"

Calista was simply angry as she thought of how daring this step-daughter of hers was.

Since when did she have so much guts to scold her in public without shame like that?

Although the two of them were never on good terms before, Benita never showed such impudence to her. And yet suddenly, she had guts to do otherwise.

What tiger's gall bladder did she consume to act brazenly like that?

Unfortunately for her, what Benita said next made Calista to understand which gall bladder this brazen step-daughter of hers had taken.

"Ha, you are the only delusional person around here! I have only one mother, you hen, that can't lay any eggs!"

A tiger one!

 …..

'A hen that can't lie eggs!'

That's all her mind kept on repeating as she moodily hung the wet clothes on the clothing line in her yard.

How could someone shamelessly say something like that in public?

There were small kids around who could learn such bad words for crying out loud!

Besides was giving birth something that she had to do on her own? Wasn't it something that took effort from both people involved?

To think that in her life she would get to hear such degrading words which hurt so much from a child she literarily raised in her own way. A child who once called her second mother and a child born from the man she once loved so much. Calista felt as if she had been poked where it hurts the most.

It's been an hour and yet the taunting from Benita's words still lingered everywhere. In her mind, soul, heart and body itself.

She just couldn't stop hearing the words and every time she recalled them, all she wanted to do was snap that girl in two and feed her to her pets.

How dare she say that in public and in her face like that?

"Puu! I have fed all generosity to wolves. Hehe, since you are so daring to say something like this, it means that you are indeed planning to go all out. If that's what you want, I will fight with you. I have tolerated you enough!"

'I will deal with you slowly, just wait and see!' she swore as she finished hanging the clothes.

Since Benita, her stepdaughter and child of her late husband from the first wife had so much guts to point fingers at her and then poke where it hurts, there was no way she was going to take it low.

However, before fighting back, Calista always believed that fighting with a padded stomach was always the best.

Why should she stress her body and mind because of people who intentionally came to find trouble?

She would attack back when they least expected it. For now, she had other things to do.