Xiao Mandong’s eyes were bloodshot as she stared fiercely at the two people before her.
Wang Xiumei looked with pity at the blisters raised on Lu Jianguo’s skin from the burn. “Mandong, Jianguo is your husband. How can you be so cruel?”
Xiao Mandong couldn’t help but sneer. “My husband doesn’t need your pity, sister-in-law. It’s been less than half a month since my big brother died, and you’re already afraid the field will go barren, so you’ve found someone to plow it and plant anew?”
“You… what nonsense are you talking? Why do you have to make things sound so ugly?” The flush on Wang Xiumei’s face hadn’t yet faded. She hadn’t expected Xiao Mandong to speak so harshly!
“You’ve already done something ugly, and now you’re complaining about my words? Trying to get pregnant early and pass the child off as a posthumous one—is that to cheat the pension? That’s illegal. And you dare to intercept my letters. No matter my background, corresponding with my family is my right. You even want my job. Wang Xiumei, I’ve never seen anyone as shameless as you.” Xiao Mandong’s eyes were full of contempt. If she weren’t so weak right now, she would have torn a chunk of flesh off Wang Xiumei.
Wang Xiumei’s fair face instantly turned pale. Had she been awake all along? Had she heard everything she said? What was she going to do now?
But Wang Xiumei quickly steadied herself. She couldn’t admit it no matter what. There was no one else in the house. If she refused to confess, what could Xiao Mandong do to her? Even if she went out and talked, no one would believe her. Besides, her in-laws cared about face. Even if they knew the truth, they wouldn’t let Xiao Mandong prove it:
“I, I just came to bring you some hot water. I almost tripped, and Jianguo caught me. How can you slander me like that? My husband’s body is barely cold, and you’re already defaming me. You’re trying to drive me to death! Boohoo…”
Looking at Wang Xiumei’s hypocritical face, Xiao Mandong felt like tearing that mouth apart. But she was naturally frail, and had just fainted from heatstroke. Now she had no strength left at all.
At this moment, Lu Jianguo snapped to his senses and stepped in front of Wang Xiumei. “You can eat whatever you want, but you can’t just say whatever you want. Slandering our sister-in-law’s integrity like this could get you locked up. She’s the wife of a fallen soldier. And don’t forget who you are. You’re a capitalist’s daughter. Everyone in the village knows it. Who would believe a capitalist over her? You’d better not cause me any trouble, or I’ll make sure you can’t survive in this village.”
That was a blatant threat. It was precisely because her family had been sent down and her class background was bad that they dared to act so brazenly. They dared to carry on an affair right in front of her, dared to switch her child. They were certain she could do nothing about it. Even if she spoke out, no one would believe her.
Because of her background, from the day she married into this family, they had never treated her kindly. After work, she still had to feed the chickens and pigs, work in the fields for work points, and hand over her entire salary.
Xiao Mandong didn’t know how she had lived so spinelessly in her past life, but this life would be different. “So you do remember your husband’s body is barely cold. I thought you’d forgotten. Heaven is watching everything we do. Whether you admit it or not doesn’t matter. But when you sleep at night, be careful big brother doesn’t come looking for you.”
Xiao Mandong felt herself barely holding on, as if she might faint at any moment. She had just been reborn and needed to rest well, gather her strength, and plan carefully before fighting them again.
Wang Xiumei trembled at Xiao Mandong’s words. Her mind was filled with the bloody, mangled face of her husband. She felt chills down her spine, and her hands clutching the edges of her clothes shook uncontrollably. “You… this is feudal superstition. I’m not arguing with you anymore. I kindly brought you water, and you slander me. How ungrateful.”
“Give me back the letter,” Xiao Mandong said, holding out her hand.
Wang Xiumei, now consumed by fear and wanting to leave quickly, pulled the letter from her pocket, threw it on the ground, turned, and fled.
Hearing Xiao Mandong’s words, Lu Jianguo thought of his eldest brother and felt a pang of guilt, as if the blisters on his back suddenly hurt less. He shot a vicious glare at Xiao Mandong and chased after her.
Watching their retreating figures, Xiao Mandong finally let herself relax, leaning against the doorframe. Her face was terrifyingly pale. She crouched down, picked up the letter from the ground, and clutched it tightly in her hand. She locked the door and stumbled back to lie down on the heated brick bed.
Thinking back to her past life, it was from this day onward that she never received another letter from her younger brother. So it had been Wang Xiumei secretly hiding them all along.
Xiao Mandong opened the letter. Her brother was indeed asking her for money. Since their family had been sent down over a year ago, her brother’s every letter had been asking for money. Recalling her brother’s death in her past life, she suspected something had gone wrong with him. But it was still over a year until his fate. For now, she needed to solve her own problems and her younger sister’s situation.
As for Wang Xiumei, she had been widowed young. In her past life, Xiao Mandong had truly sympathized with her and helped her in every way. They had both discovered they were pregnant at the same time. Mandong had a job, and she always shared her food and drink with her. It was a case of “a favor becomes a grudge when it’s too much.” As for those two children, she had raised them with all her effort and sacrifice, only to find they were two ungrateful wolves.
Since heaven had given her a second chance, she was determined to change her and her family’s fate.
She knew the village cadres would visit to offer condolences tonight, and the commune would send people tomorrow. She needed to sleep well now and, while the cadres were there tonight, find a way to escape this family.
Lying on the heated bed, smelling the scent of the 1970s soap from the plant ash, she slowly drifted into sleep.
She dreamed of the past. The Xiao family had been traditional Chinese doctors for generations, with comfortable means. Xiao Mandong had grown up under the care of her parents, grandparents, and her younger sister and brother.
But one day, her father received word. The Xiao family had been framed and reported, facing relocation to the countryside. At a time when the family should have united, her mother Wang Meixia proposed a divorce, saying she could take their son and cut ties with the Xiao family.
Her father thought it sounded good. Neither his son nor his wife would have to go to the countryside. Without hesitation, he immediately divorced his wife, with their son going to her, and he gave her a sum of money.
But her mother didn’t expect that less than three months after the divorce, she would remarry, taking her brother with her, and never cared for them again.
If only her mother had come to see her occasionally, the Lu family wouldn’t have bullied her so relentlessly.
Her father knew the kind of people Wang Meixia’s family were. Back then, they had used underhanded methods to force her mother to marry her father. To keep Wang Meixia’s family from controlling Xiao Mandong’s marriage, he arranged a match for her to marry. Afraid she would be mistreated, he also bought her a job. Her younger sister, being only seventeen and too young to marry, was sent to a village near Mandong to work as a sent-down youth, so the two sisters could look out for each other.
The Lu family was the one her father had chosen, and he gave two hundred yuan as a dowry.
She and Lu Jianguo had been married with a certificate for a year, but they had never held a wedding banquet. Right after they got the certificate, Lu Jianjun had been promoted in the military. The promotion required a political background check. Because Xiao Mandong’s family background was bad, with the Xiao family just being sent down, Lu Bingshan feared it would affect his eldest son, so the Lu family decided to postpone the wedding for a year.
In the countryside, a wedding isn’t considered official without a banquet, even if the couple has already registered their marriage. Although Lu Jianguo always tried to take advantage of her, Xiao Mandong never liked him and consistently refused his advances, insisting that their wedding night had to wait until after the banquet.
Then Lu Jianjun’s promotion fell through—the real reason was that a more capable candidate had competed for the position. But driven by vanity, Lu Jianjun told his family that Xiao Mandong’s background check had ruined his chances for advancement, which made the Lu family despise her deeply.
This secret had accidentally been let slip by Wang Xiumei in their previous life. Tonight, she was determined to tear off Lu Jianjun’s mask of hypocrisy.
