"Come back!" Just as one of her legs was about to cross the threshold in the final moment, Hao Chunlai gritted his teeth and called her to a halt.
Once a person compromises the first step, they will compromise the second.
Half an hour later, Hao Chunlai had dug out all the cash in the house and borrowed some from door to door, finally managing to scrape together the sum.
The resettlement fee of three hundred and twenty yuan was not up for debate.
The point of contention was that temporary worker position.
Although Meng Yuan was a temporary worker, in these times, there wasn't much difference between a temporary and a permanent worker.
As long as you worked at a unit for three years without making any major mistakes, you could basically become permanent.
So, at her insistence, the price for this position was finally calculated at the rate of a permanent worker.
The two items added together, principal and interest, came to over 1300 yuan.
It could be said that this sum had essentially drained all of Hao Chunlai's savings.
However, human joys and sorrows are not shared. Just as Hao Chunlai was looking at the IOU on the table, his heart aching so much he could barely breathe, Qi Fang beside him was wishing she could scratch his face bloody.
This wretched man! Crying poor to her at home every day, yet secretly and quietly he had managed to squirrel away nearly a thousand yuan in private savings.
And to think she had actually believed his nonsense.
Fortunately, that money had now ended up in her own daughter's pocket.
Thinking this, Qi Fang looked at Meng Yuan again, her gaze noticeably more eager.
But before she could speak, Meng Yuan took something like a document from her bag and handed it over.
"What is this?" Qi Fang was puzzled.
"A severance agreement."
As she spoke, Meng Yuan finally turned her gaze onto Qi Fang.
Counting it up, it had been nearly eight years since the mother and daughter had last seen each other.
Looking at the white hair at her temples and the extra wrinkles at the corners of her eyes, Meng Yuan thought she might feel some ripple of emotion in her heart.
But no, not a bit.
Even the words she was about to say next, Meng Yuan uttered without the slightest hesitation.
"Once we sever ties, from then on we go our separate ways."
Compared to Meng Yuan's calm expression, the look on Qi Fang's face was far more complex.
She suddenly realized that the daughter before her felt so unfamiliar.
Yet when she spoke again, Qi Fang's tone was still her usual lecturing one, "What you asked for, your Uncle Hao has given you in full, not a cent less! What more do you want? During the New Year, are you only satisfied after turning your maternal home upside down?"
"Have you even considered what good it does you to fall out with your family?"
"Good?" Meng Yuan sounded as if she had heard something laughable, "What good did being on good terms with my family ever do for me?"
As she spoke, she glanced sideways at this room of less than thirty square meters, finally letting her gaze settle firmly on a corner of the living room piled with clutter.
"I slept here for four years, and spent seven years in Xinjiang. In those eleven years, did you ever care to ask me once, ask me if I was doing well out there?"
"Do you know how cold the winters are in Xinjiang?"
"Do you know how I managed to get through those years?"
Finished speaking, Meng Yuan sniffed, forcing back the tears welling in her eyes.
She looked at Qi Fang and asked the question that had weighed on her heart for many years.
"Back then, when he secretly used the household register to sign me up for the Xinjiang support program, you actually knew about it, right? You just pretended not to know, didn't you?"
Qi Fang: "I..."
"You knew about it, but you didn't say a single word for me, not one word!"
"Perhaps in your heart, a daughter is born to sacrifice everything for this family, for your son, and that quota and the three hundred and twenty yuan were the final contribution I could make to this family!"
"Mom," this was the first time Meng Yuan had called her 'Mom' since entering this house, and likely the last, "My heart wasn't this hard to begin with. You all forced it to be!"
"Yuanyuan, Mom knows she was wrong, it's Mom who let you down..."
Qi Fang explained, "I'm just an ordinary woman with little knowledge, I have no real capabilities. Back then, I had no choice."
At this point, she grabbed Meng Yuan's hand, "From now on, Mom will definitely make it up to you, okay?"
It was truly rare to hear the word 'compensate' from her lips in this lifetime.
"Compensate? How do you plan to compensate me?" Meng Yuan said with a smile, "If you really want to make it up to me, let me take over your job."
"That won't do!" Qi Fang blurted out without thinking, "That job is reserved for your sister-in-law..."
Meng Yuan said nothing more, just looked at her with a face full of mockery.
Yet Qi Fang showed not a hint of shame, "Yuanyuan, don't blame Mom for being biased. Your brother isn't as capable as you are, and your sister-in-law doesn't have a job now. They rely solely on your brother to support the family. Their life is very difficult!"
Here, she finally stated her ultimate purpose.
"Yuanyuan, you've married into a good family, your husband is capable too. For Mom's sake, could you help your brother..."
"Sign it."
Meng Yuan directly cut her off, also laying her cards on the table, "If you still want him to keep that job, then sign it. You know, his hands have never been too clean..."
Indeed, no one being threatened can remain calm.
"I am your birth mother!" Qi Fang said angrily, "How can you pressure me like this?"
"If I could choose, I'd rather you weren't!"
After saying this, Meng Yuan added, "My in-laws are waiting for me to go back for dinner. Sign it, let's not waste each other's time."
As she said this, her eyes were very cold.
As cold as if she were looking at a stranger.
Now, Qi Fang was truly panicked.
Although she favored her son in everything, deep down she understood very clearly that when she was old and bedridden,
The ones she could truly count on, the ones who could attend to her bedside, would only be these two daughters.
It's just that she seemed to have realized this truth a bit too late.
Her second daughter had resented her all these years because of the marriage swap.
Otherwise, she wouldn't have delivered the holiday gifts this morning and left without even staying for a meal.
If her eldest daughter also turned her heart away, who could she rely on when she grew old?
"You know I mean what I say."
Meng Yuan spoke again, her tone brooking no discussion, "Sever ties, or he loses his job. The choice is yours."
To subdue a snake, strike its vital point. These words accurately hit the soft spots of both Qi Fang and Hao Chunlai.
No matter how unwilling they were, in the end, for the sake of their respective sons,
The couple still signed their names on the severance agreement and even pressed their fingerprints.
Seeing her goal achieved, Meng Yuan carefully put away the agreement, the money, and the vouchers.
She didn't want to stay in this house a moment longer.
She didn't even glance at the two of them again.
She pulled open the door and walked straight out.
Not until she was almost at the entrance of the motor factory did Meng Yuan stop. She dropped a pre-written letter of report into the staff complaint mailbox.
