Divya looked at him innocently, a playful smile tugging at the corner of her lips. "But... you were the one who held your hand out," she said, her tone a little too sweet, her eyes dancing with mischief.
The village chief was left speechless, blinking in disbelief. What the hell? How could this woman actually think he'd ask for a used handkerchief—one with snot on it, no less? He could feel the frustration bubbling up, but the sympathy he'd forced himself to feel for her pitiful widow status kept him in check. He took a deep breath—two, maybe three—to calm himself. After all, he had to maintain some sense of dignity. Then, with a smile that was more of a grimace, he tried again. "Miss, please hand over your ID card."
Divya's face suddenly flushed with embarrassment, her mind scrambling to catch up. "Oh! Uh, right," she muttered under her breath, quickly digging into her pocket. After a few seconds of searching, she pulled out a crumpled, slightly torn piece of paper and handed it over with all the grace of a person handing over a half-eaten sandwich.
The village chief took it cautiously, inspecting the paper like it was something far more precious than it appeared to be. His eyes narrowed. "Is this your ID?"
Divya nodded, a little too confidently for someone who really had no idea what was going on. "Yeah, I think so...?" She paused for a moment, squinting at the paper. "I mean, it's... paper, right? So, yeah, probably."
Inside her head, she was panicking, of course. She had no idea if this piece of paper was even hers. She'd grabbed it when leaving the damn sect, after all. It was either this crumpled note or another one with a big red stamp on it—something about being expelled, but she didn't know what the hell it said. The only Chinese she could decipher was "Made in China" and, well, that wasn't helping her right now.
Meanwhile, the village chief was trying hard not to lose his mind. This woman just waltzed into his village, not knowing a single soul, with no help from anyone. And now, she was handing over an ID that looked more like the receipt for a discount on stale bread than an actual document of any importance. But to him, this scrap of paper was everything. It was the lifeblood of bureaucracy. Without that ID, you couldn't travel, you couldn't own land, you couldn't even prove you existed. And here she was, treating it like it was the wrapper for a half-eaten burrito.
He was trying really hard not to show his shock, but it was written all over his face. "This... this is your ID?" he asked again, though he was pretty sure he already knew the answer.
After taking a long, dramatic breath to calm himself, the village chief unfolded the wrinkled piece of paper like it personally offended him. His eyes scanned it once—twice—and then his brows knitted into a full-blown frown. He looked up at Divya, his voice dipped in cold suspicion.
"Is this really your ID?"
Divya blinked, then tilted her head slightly, like he was the one being difficult. "Yes, it is," she said firmly. Then, dialing her voice down into innocent confusion, she added softly, "Why? Is there something wrong?" Her tone was the vocal equivalent of a fluffy kitten caught in the rain—grimy, adorable, and somehow still dramatic.
The village chief didn't fall for it. He stared. Hard. "You said you were married, right?"
Divya gave him a slow blink and a raised brow. "Yeah…?"
"How many years?" he pressed.
That made her blink again—twice this time. "Wait, is this an interrogation or a census?" she asked, her tone sharp enough to slice through the tension. "Why does it matter?"
He ignored her sass and snapped, "Because your ID doesn't say you're married."
Divya almost rolled her eyes.
Really?
She huffed, clearly unimpressed.
Damn. Y'all got that on IDs too? What's next? Blood type and favorite dumpling flavor?'
She sighed, flopping her sleeve over her eyes dramatically before sniffing. "So, you're saying it doesn't say I'm married. Fine. But that's not my fault."
The village chief looked like he regretted his entire morning.
And then—tears. Huge, fat, glistening tears dropped from her eyes and splattered onto the table with Oscar-worthy timing.
"I knew it," she choked out, hiding her face behind her sleeve like she was performing at a melodramatic village theatre. "I knew that evil mother-in-law of mine would never let it happen! And I still… still trusted my husband."
Now sobbing like a tragic heroine from a soap opera, Divya carried on. "I was married into this huge family. Like full-on palace drama. My father-in-law has three wives, each of them with four kids. Four! What is this, a dynasty or a daycare?"
The village chief blinked, confused, but she was already deep into her tale.
"My husband—he was supposed to marry someone else, but he chose me. Love at first sight! We even ran away. And just when things were finally calm, bam—his parents summon us back. I thought maybe they changed. Nope. I was scrubbing floors, raising nieces and nephews I didn't even know existed, making soup for in-laws who treated me like invisible dust—"
"Wait, wait, wait," the chief interrupted, waving his hand. "What does this have to do with your ID?"
Divya sniffed with flair. "Everything." Then, with her eyes wide and voice hushed like she was revealing a dark secret: "You see, my husband took my ID. Said he wanted to register our marriage officially. Said he needed permission from his mother first. I trusted him. I thought he'd done it. But now? Now I see the truth. That old hag—excuse me, my mother-in-law—must've stopped him. Of course she did. I'm just a girl from a two-ward orphan background. Why would she want me officially in the family?"
She ended her monologue with a shaky breath, one hand dramatically clutching her chest.
The village chief? Still frozen. He was not prepared for this soap opera-level plot twist over a crumpled ID.