The sun had set long ago, and the moon was already hanging on the tree branches. The steamed corn buns in the bamboo steamer had been reheated several times, but Elder Brother's family still hadn't returned.
After all, Second Brother was lying on the kang bed after being beaten by the nouveau riche for standing up for her.
Elder Brother and his wife had to harvest crops for both families - wheat, millet, sorghum, one after another. They would be busy for a full three months, and tonight they probably wouldn't be back until the moon was high in the sky.
Second Sister-in-Law had finally finished eating her chicken and was muttering non-stop next door.
She said if it weren't for Meilan's bad temper, hitting the nouveau riche, he wouldn't have divorced her, and Second Brother wouldn't have been beaten. The nouveau riche was the richest man in Xiping City - what gave her, an uneducated country woman, the courage to hit him?
Wasn't it natural for men to hit women and children? The nouveau riche had only kicked the child while drunk, Zhaodi could have just endured it, why divorce over that?
Elder Brother's family was helping Second Sister-in-Law harvest crops in this scorching July. She didn't have to sweat or work, which should be nice, but she wasn't happy about it.
After all, Elder Brother's family had three children and was poor, they couldn't even afford white flour. What if they secretly hid all the grain in their own home while harvesting?
All of this was Meilan's fault, wasn't it?
Besides, since the nouveau riche didn't want her anymore, why not just marry a country man and be done with it?
Marrying Elder Sister-in-law's sister's ex-husband, wasn't that absurd?
How would they all face each other in the future?
Fortunately, Elder Brother had a lot of authority at home. As soon as he cleared his throat heavily outside the courtyard, Second Sister-in-Law immediately shut her mouth.
Elder Brother Chen Degong was a man nearly six feet tall, broad-shouldered and stout. He was a man of few words, but when it came to farm work, he was an expert in the fields.
After tying the donkey back in its pen, he saw a basket of steaming yellow corn buns. He gestured for his children, whose eyes were glazed over from exhaustion, to wash their hands and eat. He lit his pipe and took a deep drag. Only then did the fatigue from working from 3 am until night finally ease.
Sitting down next to Chen Meilan, he took another puff from his pipe and sighed, "Meilan, although I can guarantee your sister-in-law won't harm you, there's all kinds of talk in the village lately. I really don't want to rush you into marriage. Whether you marry Yan Zhao or not, that's for you to decide. If you don't want to marry him, I'll refuse the marriage for you. You can stay at home as long as you want, or take your time to find someone better. What do you think?"
Yan Zhao had been in the army for a long time.
His family background wasn't bad - they were city folk, and his father worked in Capital City.
Initially, he and Zhou Xueqin were introduced by their work units and married after a blind date.
After marriage, except for occasional visits home once a year, he had always stayed in the army.
Chen Degong used to call him brother-in-law, but had only met him properly once. The man was extremely serious and hardly spoke.
According to Zhou Xueqin, he was like that at home too - a man of few words.
However, Zhou Qiaofang always assured them that Yan Zhao was a good man, and if they couldn't get along, it was entirely because of her sister's bad temper.
Although Chen Degong had reluctantly agreed to marry Meilan off to him for the sake of that courtyard house in the suburbs, he still felt uneasy about it.
How good could a man be if Zhou Xueqin herself didn't want him anymore?
Meilan was beautiful, gentle, and had been obedient since childhood. She had already made one wrong marriage, and he really didn't want her to make a second mistake.
Although his wife was very enthusiastic about the match, Chen Degong made the big decisions in the family. If he didn't want his sister to marry, Zhou Qiaofang wouldn't dare say a word.
"I'll marry him. I've decided," Chen Meilan said decisively after listening to her brother.
She fetched water from the well, took her brother's sweaty shirt, threw her daughter's and nephews' clothes into the basin, and started scrubbing vigorously.
What was the point of staying here and listening to Second Sister-in-Law's constant nagging?
Marrying Yan Zhao, returning to the city as soon as possible, and getting that courtyard house under her own name was the most important thing.
Once the house was transferred to her, as someone who had lived an extra lifetime, in the rapidly developing 1990s, even if she couldn't make a fortune, surely she could support herself and Zhaodi?
In her previous life, she had been married to a nouveau riche, the wife of a tycoon.
Even if she hadn't eaten pork, hadn't she at least seen pigs run?
...
At this moment, Sister-in-law Zhou Qiaofang was hurrying towards her family's old house.
They currently lived in a courtyard built after the land reform, but they still had an old house at the other end of the village. After getting the new courtyard, the old one was used exclusively for storing grain and firewood.
The cicadas in the locust trees were chirping incessantly, and frogs in the pond were croaking chaotically.
After a day of farm work, her body was itchy all over from the millet husks, uncomfortable and hot. The cicadas' chirping only made her more irritable.
Zhou Qiaofang's family was from the city in Xiping City. She had only married Chen Degong because her father had been labeled as a "black five categories" element and she had been sent down to the countryside.
Her younger sister Zhou Xueqin had caught a good break. When their father was rehabilitated in 1978, she had just graduated from high school. She didn't have to go to the countryside and was directly assigned to work at the Xiping City Woolen Mill. She even married the military officer Yan Zhao, living quite a glorious life back then.
But today, Zhou Xueqin had secretly obtained a divorce certificate from Yan Zhao, left her two children at her parents' home, and came to seek refuge with her.
The villagers were already saying all sorts of things because she was trying to introduce Chen Meilan to Yan Zhao.
Now with Zhou Xueqin running to her, wasn't she just causing more trouble and giving people more reason to point fingers at her?
So she had quietly arranged for Zhou Xueqin to stay in the old house.
Now, seeing that every household in the village was busy with cooking smoke, and no one was around, she sneaked over to check on her.
She pushed aside the curtain and entered. The long-uninhabited old house had a strong musty smell that made it hard to breathe.
Zhou Xueqin was wrapped in clothes, dozing on the kang bed that only had a mat on it.
Zhou Qiaofang poked her forehead, "You really got the divorce certificate with Yan Zhao?"
"Yes, I did. What's the matter?" Zhou Xueqin sat up, saw her sister's eyes widening at her, and rolled her eyes, "Alright, don't start saying things like 'even if Yan Zhao transfers out of the military, he can still arrange a good job', or 'he has a formal job, so you'll never have to worry about food and drink'. I don't want to hear that kind of talk, it's useless even if you say it."
Zhou Qiaofang was trembling with anger, but Zhou Xueqin continued to ask, "Sis, has your Meilan agreed? Is she willing to marry Yan Zhao?"
Seeing Zhou Qiaofang nod, Zhou Xueqin actually smiled with satisfaction, "That's good then. Xiao Wang and Xiao Lang, from now on I don't have to worry about them anymore."
A mother's love for her own children is irreplaceable. Although Meilan was gentle and kind-hearted, how could a stepmother compare to a biological mother?
Zhou Xueqin always said Yan Zhao was fierce and unromantic, but in a marriage, was romance more important or having food on the table? Wasn't romance just a trifle?
Had she gone mad?
The more Zhou Qiaofang saw her sister's indifferent attitude, the more furious she became.
Zhou Xueqin passed her a packet of spicy strips that only city folks could afford. The red oil-coated spicy strips were sprinkled with sesame seeds, the aroma wafting straight to one's nose, though she didn't know how the flavor was achieved.
But Zhou Qiaofang glared at it, refusing to eat.
She was angry, angry that her sister had divorced Yan Zhao and was going to abandon her children.
Since Zhou Qiaofang wouldn't eat, Zhou Xueqin ate it herself.
Picking up a sweet and spicy strip with a toothpick, Zhou Xueqin sighed softly. Her heart was also in tatters.
Yes, a while ago, Zhou Xueqin had been in a collision between two buses while returning to the city. The impact to her head had somehow given her thirty years of extra memories.
In other words, she had been reborn, and this rebirth had strengthened her resolve to divorce Yan Zhao.
Because in those extra thirty years of memories, her future life hadn't been good - no, it could be said to have been extremely miserable.
In her previous life, after Yan Zhao transferred out of the military, he had been assigned to work at the Public Security Bureau. It was a very good job, from patrol to criminal investigation to economic crime investigation. He had always been a backbone in the public security system, even more valued by his superiors than when he was in the army.
But Zhou Xueqin had never imagined that times would change so dramatically.
She had never imagined that the formal job everyone envied now would be nothing special in the future. Nouveau riche and tycoons, the wealthy would be the most glorious people in the future.
Moreover, for other civil servants, if their wives took some benefits using their connections, the husbands would turn a blind eye, pretending not to know.
But Yan Zhao was different. He was absolutely incorruptible in his police work.
She had only received 50,000 yuan plus a Louis Vuitton bag to help handle a case where a rich second-generation kid had drunk-driven, killed someone in a hit-and-run, and fled the scene. It was such a simple matter - change "fleeing the scene" to "turning oneself in", modify "drunk driving" to "normal driving", bypass the prosecution, avoid indictment. He would quietly take the money, the rich kid wouldn't go to jail, and everyone would be happy.
But not only did he refuse, he even threatened divorce over such a trivial matter.
Her husband was one thing.
But her sons?
Neither of her two sons was on her side. In the future, when the younger son became seriously ill, the elder son would even blame her, saying she was responsible for the younger one's illness, and subsequently disown her as their birth mother.
Thinking about the future, Zhou Xueqin's anger rose.
The more she thought, the angrier she became. She shoved away the oily paper bag containing spicy snacks, got off the kang bed, slipped on her shoes, and was about to walk out.
"You just got divorced today! What will the villagers say about you? Hurry up and lie down. Where are you going? To make a spectacle of yourself?" Zhou Qiaofang called out.
Zhou Xueqin turned back and said in a muffled voice, "Sister, don't worry. If I go out, I'll avoid people. I'm going to live a different life this time around."
...
In her previous life, Zhou Xueqin and Yan Zhao ended up getting divorced anyway.
When they divorced, she left the children with her husband but took all the money and property for herself.
She tried her hand at business, but for some reason, everything she touched failed, and she lost it all, ending up with nothing.
So she never managed to make money, instead falling further and further, to the point of becoming a cleaning lady.
It was by chance that she encountered Chen Meilan while working as a cleaner at a company.
She was a divorced woman, and so was Chen Meilan.
She had gotten all of her husband's money and property, while Chen Meilan had been left with nothing and kicked out by her husband. Moreover, after the divorce, due to the village gossip, Chen Meilan had hastily married a local hoodlum named Lu Jingyu.
At the time, everyone thought Chen Meilan was finished.
But fortunes can change dramatically.
Zhou Xueqin had spent all her money, sold her house, and was forced to become a cleaning lady. Yet that hoodlum Lu Jingyu, whom Chen Meilan had married, somehow succeeded in business spectacularly, becoming the biggest real estate developer in all of Xiping City, and undisputedly the city's richest man.
When Zhou Xueqin encountered Chen Meilan, she was stepping out of a luxurious car, with the wealthy Lu Jingyu extending his hand to help her out.
Holding her mop, Zhou Xueqin was thunderstruck, frozen in place.
She couldn't fathom how the hoodlum Chen Meilan had married had become Xiping City's richest man.
But now wasn't the time to dwell on that.
Lu Jingyu lived in Lu Family Village, right next to Chen Family Village. Currently, he was still poor and had just lost his wife, left with two children.
Chen Meilan was pretty, but Zhou Xueqin wasn't bad-looking either. Before being laid off, she had been the beauty of the wool textile factory.
Moreover, Chen Meilan had been abandoned by her nouveau riche ex-husband and bore the stigma of not being able to bear sons.
Zhou Xueqin had given birth to two sons, which made her far superior to Chen Meilan in this regard.
Plus, she had been reborn, so she knew a crucial point.
The reason Lu Jingyu had married Chen Meilan back then wasn't because she was particularly beautiful or gentle.
It was because after Lu Jingyu's first wife passed away, she left behind a son and a daughter.
Reportedly, when considering his second marriage, Lu Jingyu had carefully observed and concluded that Chen Meilan was beautiful and kind-hearted, and would be good to the children. That's why he ultimately chose to marry her.
She was more beautiful and kinder than Chen Meilan, so wouldn't she be able to capture the heart of the future richest man and his children?
To prevent any unforeseen circumstances, she had to act now.
Seeing Zhou Xueqin stride across the small river towards Lu Family Village, Zhou Qiaofang was so anxious her eyes nearly rolled back in her head. "Xueqin, you're acting crazy! You didn't even explain clearly. What exactly are you going to do?"
"Sister, I've found myself another good match. That man is ten thousand times better than Yan Zhao," Zhou Xueqin called back from a distance.
She was also afraid of people seeing her and gossiping, so she didn't take the main road. Instead, she walked along the riverbank, treading on grass paths and taking shortcuts.
Zhou Qiaofang followed behind, nearly dying of anxiety.
Lu Family Village was full of nothing but lazybones and hooligans. How could there possibly be a man better than Yan Zhao there?
Had Zhou Xueqin really gone mad?
