Xiao Mandong’s eyes turned cold. She raised her hand and slapped her across the face.
“Have you gone completely crazy? Can’t you see that I’m walking my dog?”
Dong Huimin was stunned by the slap. Covering her cheek, she stared blankly at Xiao Mandong.
Xiao Mandong called out over her shoulder, “Diandian, come here…”
Diandian came bounding over from not far away.
“Look carefully. I was walking my dog on the hill behind the house and had just come back. Are you blind? Which of your eyes saw me with Yang Xueqiang?”
With that, Xiao Mandong turned around and started to leave.
Dong Huimin came to her senses and grabbed Xiao Mandong’s sleeve tightly, refusing to let her go.
“Xiao Mandong, don’t leave! Explain yourself! What will it take for you to stay away from Yang Xueqiang?”
Some people who had come outside to use the latrine that morning noticed the argument. Wearing padded jackets and braving the biting wind, they came over to watch. Before long, the crowd had grown larger and larger.
Dong Huimin’s mind was racing. She knew that catching someone in the act required both the culprit and evidence. She had neither. Xiao Mandong was protected by the Brigade Leader and was well liked in the village. Besides, she had already slept with Yang Xueqiang the day before. She couldn’t let anyone take him away from her.
With more and more people gathering, she realized that force wouldn’t work. Her lips trembled as she gritted her teeth.
Then, with a thud, Dong Huimin dropped to her knees in front of Xiao Mandong.
“Xiao Mandong…I’m begging you…can you please stop competing with me for Yang Xueqiang?” Her voice was hoarse and tearful, completely different from her frenzied appearance just moments ago.
She wiped the tears from her face.
“Actually, there’s no deep hatred between us… I’m inferior to you in every way. I can’t return to the city, and I’m no longer young. I only want to find a village man and live a peaceful life. Could you, for the sake of the fact that I once took care of Xiao Manxue, show me some compassion and stop targeting me?”
Dong Huimin took a deep breath. She had never imagined that Xiao Mandong would go so far to get revenge over Xiao Manxue’s disappearance. No wonder Hu Guizhen had called Xiao Mandong a lunatic.
If this had happened before yesterday, she might have chosen to stay away after learning that Yang Xueqiang and Xiao Mandong had been involved with each other. But she had already slept with Yang Xueqiang yesterday. Other than marrying him, what choice did she have?
“If there’s something wrong with your head, go see a doctor. What gave you the idea that I could possibly be interested in Yang Xueqiang?” Xiao Mandong made no effort to conceal the contempt in her voice. A spineless man like him was something only Dong Huimin would treasure.
“Oh, listen to you! What’s wrong with our Xueqiang? Even if you were interested in him, our family wouldn’t want you. You’ve got a vixen’s face, and you’re divorced to boot. Disgusting…”
The speaker was Yang Xueqiang’s aunt, Sun Fengxia, who belonged to the same clan as Accountant Sun. She glared at Xiao Mandong before stepping forward to help Dong Huimin up.
“Huimin, get up quickly. It’s freezing out here—you’ll catch a chill. Don’t worry. A secondhand woman like her will never marry into the Yang family. We may not be some wealthy household, but the wife we take into our family must at least be pure and respectable.”
Xiao Mandong gave a derisive laugh and shot back, “The Sun family is certainly very ‘clean’…”
“You—” Sun Fengxia was about to say something when the Old Party Secretary, who had just arrived, cut her off.
“Educated Youth Xiao, is there some misunderstanding between you?”
The Old Party Secretary looked at his future granddaughter-in-law kneeling before someone else, and his old face burned with embarrassment.
A villager who had a good relationship with the Old Party Secretary chimed in, “That’s right, Educated Youth Xiao. You can’t keep bullying someone just because you have the upper hand. How can you make Educated Youth Dong kneel before you?”
“Exactly. This is a new society. We don’t allow people to be forced to kneel anymore.”
Dong Huimin had genuinely intended to lower herself and beg Xiao Mandong to let her off. But now that the Old Party Secretary had arrived and everyone had begun taking her side, she suddenly wanted Xiao Mandong to experience what it felt like to be pointed at and criticized by everyone.
“Grandpa, I went to the house today but couldn’t find Xueqiang, so I came here looking for him. But I saw Xueqiang walk out of the old residence. He was pulling up his pants as he came out, and Xiao Mandong followed behind him, straightening her clothes too. They were alone together, man and woman, so I…I just begged her not to take Xueqiang away from me. I truly love him.”
When the Old Party Secretary heard that Yang Xueqiang had come out of this house, his expression darkened at once.
“How did you know Xueqiang was here?”
Dong Huimin assumed that his dark expression was because he had heard that Yang Xueqiang and Xiao Mandong had been alone together at the old residence.
But she didn’t know how to answer. She couldn’t tell anyone that Yang Xueqiang had brought her there to take advantage of her. If that came out, she would be drowned in everyone’s spit.
“I was looking for him everywhere and happened to come across this place. Grandpa, you have to stand up for me. Xiao Mandong is a divorced woman. It doesn’t matter who she gets involved with. I’m different. All these years, everyone knows that I never even had a boyfriend before meeting Xueqiang. I only want to find an honest man and live a good life…”
She was deliberately making sure everyone understood that a woman like Xiao Mandong had probably been slept with by countless men.
The Old Party Secretary’s expression was unreadable as he took a long, penetrating look at Xiao Mandong.
“Educated Youth Xiao, aren’t you going to explain?”
Xiao Mandong looked at him with a faint, mocking smile.
“Old Party Secretary, you’ve been a secretary all your life. Surely you understand the most basic principle? She’s the one accusing me, so she needs to produce evidence. Without evidence, it’s slander, and I can report her. If she can make up whatever she wants, and I have to prove I didn’t do it every time someone says something, wouldn’t I be exhausted to death?”
The Old Party Secretary was momentarily speechless. He hadn’t expected this girl to be so sharp-tongued. But with so many people watching, he couldn’t let the villagers find fault with him. He turned to Dong Huimin.
Dong Huimin felt as though thorns were pricking her back. What evidence did she have?
Just then, someone shouted, “Why not bring Xueqiang over and ask him?”
The Old Party Secretary sighed and called out to the crowd, “Could one of you be so kind as to go find Xueqiang?”
Several young men answered and ran down the hill.
Xiao Mandong glanced at the time. So much time had passed already. Hopefully, the two people had managed to leave the village.
It wasn’t long before the young men came running back, with the Brigade Leader right behind them, panting heavily. He had just heard them give a rough account of what had happened and had been thinking to himself that Xiao Mandong was so aloof and self-possessed—how could she possibly be interested in Yang Xueqiang?
When he reached them and saw Dong Huimin, a wave of irritation swept over him.
Ever since Dong Huimin had started dating the Old Party Secretary’s grandson, she had truly revealed her true colors. Who would have thought someone could pretend for so many years?
His tone was unpleasant. “Why aren’t you going to register your marriage? Do you have nothing better to do than spread rumors here?”
“Brigade Leader, why are you always protecting Xiao Mandong? You didn’t even ask me what happened before accusing me of spreading rumors. Isn’t that going too far?”
Dong Huimin held her chin up as tears slid down her cheeks. She looked stubborn yet wronged. She had known all along that the Brigade Leader would protect Xiao Mandong at every turn. She really wanted to ask him why.
