Wang Daren was the head of the family. Once he spoke, no one dared object. After calming down and thinking it over, Wang Zhuo’er also felt that it was too dangerous for a four-year-old to be on a train. He nodded his little head and agreed to ride in the sedan car with his grandfather.
To make things look more convincing, Wang Daren tore his clothes a bit and had the others smear some dirt and ash on their faces. Combined with the tear tracks from earlier, the family of five really did look pitiful.
After rehearsing their story, Wang Daren buried the stone table with the carved words in the vegetable patch. Only then did he lead the family to the Party secretary’s house.
“Secretary Li, save us! Shen Fuyao found herself a lover. That lover seems to be a bandit who wasn’t completely wiped out in the old mountain raids. Five or six big men tied our whole family up and robbed our house clean—they even tore off the roof!” Wang Daren cried, bringing his family to the warehouse, his voice full of tears and anguish.
Western Hunan was mountainous, and bandits had once been rampant there. The People’s Liberation Army had carried out a large-scale suppression campaign, wiping most of them out, though a few had slipped through and occasionally came down from the mountains to steal food. Wang Daren dumped all the blame on them.
“That can’t be possible, can it?” Li Gangpao, who had relieved the accountant and was on duty at the warehouse, said skeptically. “Comrade Shen Fuyao has pretty good political awareness. She wouldn’t collude with bandits, would she?”
“You never really know a person’s heart by their face. My son is away all year long—she couldn’t stand the loneliness and went looking for a man,” Zhou Lanxiang spat.
Li Gangpao looked at Zhou Lanxiang with some speechlessness. He thought to himself that back at the Chen house, Zhou Lanxiang’s expression had looked far more like that of someone who’d been thoroughly “nourished” after a long time alone.
“If you don’t believe me, go look at my house. There’s no way we’d trash our own place like that just to frame Shen Fuyao. Besides, Shen Fuyao is gone too. If you don’t believe it, go and see for yourself,” Wang Daren said urgently, his tone sharp. He was afraid that any delay would let Shen Fuyao reach the army first.
“Captain Wang, calm down. Gangpao didn’t mean it that way,” Secretary Li stepped in to smooth things over. “Your house isn’t livable anymore—what are you planning to do?”
Wang Daren hurriedly said they planned to go to the provincial capital to find their son in the army, and, pressed for time, asked Li Gangpao to drive them to the county seat by tractor so they could catch a train.
Secretary Li agreed and told Li Gangpao to send them off right away.
He was Li Gangpao’s uncle. Even if Li Gangpao wanted to find Shen Fuyao and ask what had really happened, out of respect for his uncle, he could only send the Wang family to the county first.
Once they arrived in the county, the Wang family went straight to the county committee to find the director and ask him to arrange a vehicle. That man had also been involved in the “Cave Flower Maiden” affair in the past. Afraid that Wang Daren might expose everything—and unable to openly use a government vehicle—he arranged for a freight truck heading to the provincial capital instead, having the family of five squeeze into the cargo compartment.
In the dark truck, Wang Chaomei asked, “Do you think Shen Fuyao will go to the army?”
“Definitely. And with her decisive personality, she’ll go today,” Wang Zhuo’er said with certainty.
After all, in his previous life, Wang Zhuo’er had been Shen Fuyao’s son for twenty-two years. He knew her fairly well.
Sure enough, just before ten o’clock, Shen Fuyao appeared at the train station and quickly bought two train tickets. With her was a dignified woman in her forties, plainly dressed yet possessing an unmistakable elegance.
“Auntie, we’re lucky. There aren’t many people going to the provincial capital at this time—we even got seats,” Shen Fuyao said, handing one ticket to Dongfang Huaiyu.
“Yes, being with you always brings good luck,” Dongfang Huaiyu smiled. “I haven’t seen Yunqi in a long time. Last month he wrote saying he’d been transferred to the provincial capital. I happened to want to visit him, but my legs aren’t very convenient.”
“I’ll be troubling you the whole way,” Dongfang Huaiyu said apologetically.
“Auntie, please don’t say that. If you hadn’t asked the brigade leader to have the tractor bring us here today, I wouldn’t have caught this train,” Shen Fuyao waved it off. Hearing the boarding announcement, she slung the two bags over her shoulder and helped Dongfang Huaiyu onto the train.
It was already four or five in the morning when Shen Fuyao returned to Phoenix Brigade. Not wanting her grandmother to worry—and with a stepmother at home who had an affair with Wang Daren—she was afraid Chen Hongxia might cause trouble and delay her train trip. So she didn’t go home. Instead, she went straight to Brigade Leader Wu’s house to ask him to issue a letter of introduction.
Wu Shouyi seemed to be at odds with Wang Daren. When he heard that Shen Fuyao was going to the army to lodge a complaint, he immediately issued the letter.
Coincidentally, Wu Shouyi’s wife, Dongfang Huaiyu, missed her eldest son, Dongfang Yunqi. Her leg had been injured years ago and often ached, making long trips difficult. The family didn’t feel safe letting her travel alone. Since Shen Fuyao was going to the army anyway, she asked if they could go together as companions.
Shen Fuyao thought it over. Wang Zhuo’er had been reborn too—he would definitely rush to the army to find his real parents. That ungrateful little wretch was clever enough that he might come up with a scheme to have the Wang family frame her. Dongfang Huaiyu was fair-minded and also had a son who was a division commander. Shen Fuyao agreed without hesitation.
The train would take two days to reach the provincial capital. Shen Fuyao planned to use that time to tell Dongfang Huaiyu everything about the disgraceful deeds of Wang Chaoying and the Wang family, and have her testify on her behalf. After all, as the mother of a division commander, her words carried weight.
There was another reason: Dongfang Huaiyu had once been very wealthy. Shen Fuyao guessed she had probably been born into a prominent family, and that something had happened to her clan, leading her to marry Wu Shouyi, who had been working as a hired laborer at the time. To be precise, Wu Shouyi had married into her family. Their children all took the mother’s surname, Dongfang.
Dongfang Huaiyu had a good relationship with Shen Fuyao’s grandmother. When Shen Fuyao was little, she had eaten many pastries and candies given by her, and Dongfang Huaiyu had even taught her to write. Even the name “Fuyao” had been chosen by her.
Unfortunately, during those difficult years, Dongfang Huaiyu had voluntarily handed over all of her family property for the sake of her descendants’ future. Otherwise, when Shen Fuyao’s grandmother fell ill, she would surely have taken out money to help, and Shen Fuyao would never have married Wang Chaoying for just five hundred yuan. On the day Shen Fuyao married, Dongfang Huaiyu scraped together twenty yuan for her as money to keep at the bottom of her trunk—that was already the best she could do.
Thinking of this, Shen Fuyao made an excuse to go to the restroom. Carrying a military-style canteen, she found a secluded spot and poured a little spiritual spring water into it, then brought it back and let Dongfang Huaiyu drink.
Those who had harmed her—Shen Fuyao would surely make them suffer a fate worse than death, with no burial place.
But those who had been kind to her—she would repay with the water of the spiritual spring.