Wang Xiulan’s legs went weak with fear. “Wan… Wanwan, put the knife down… Let’s talk this through…”
“There’s nothing to talk about.” Feng Wan kept the knife pointed downward but didn’t loosen her grip. “You old hag, did you think I didn’t know you’ve been scheming with this old turtle to transfer my household registration? Let me tell you, I’ll still go to the countryside, but who I marry and how I marry—that’s my decision. From today onward, whether I live or die, it has nothing to do with the Shen family.”
The room fell dead silent. No one thought she was joking. A few days earlier, when an auntie in the compound had mocked her with veiled sarcasm, Feng Wan had directly snapped the neck of the old hen the woman had raised for years. The entire courtyard had been terrified, and no one dared provoke her again.
The reason Shen Baoguo and Wang Xiulan dared to speak to her like this now was entirely because they had already transferred her household registration to the Jiang family in advance. They had even thoughtfully mailed fifty yuan as a dowry, urging her to get the marriage certificate as soon as possible!
Now, looking at Feng Wan… if things didn’t go her way, she really might dare to kill someone!
The door to the inner room cracked open slightly, and a pair of timid eyes peeked out. An eighteen-year-old girl with an oval face and almond-shaped eyes, thin, dark, and small, hunched over. The logistics director’s family had taken a liking to her precisely because she was obedient, sensible, and easy to control. Otherwise, what decent family would want to marry their daughter off to a fool?
Feng Wan caught sight of her from the corner of her eye and suddenly changed her mind.
“If we’re cutting ties, let’s make it clean.” She spoke slowly, word by word. “Give me a thousand yuan, and I’ll sign and fingerprint the agreement. From then on, we go our separate ways.”
“A thousand?!” Shen Baoguo shrieked. “Are you insane? Where am I supposed to get a thousand yuan?”
“Save your breath. My mother died suddenly. Who ended up with her salary, subsidies, clothes, jewelry, and property—I won’t say more.” Feng Wan paused. “If you won’t give it, that’s fine. Tomorrow, I’ll go to the factory office and ask the leaders who should handle the embezzlement of an employee’s orphan’s pension and the coercion of a biological daughter to replace an adopted daughter in going to the countryside.”
These words were like a bucket of ice water, drenching Shen Baoguo and Wang Xiulan to the bone.
Feng Wan’s biological mother, Shen Baoguo’s first wife, had passed away when Shen Mingzhu was two years old. Before her death, she had been a model worker at the textile factory for five consecutive years. After her death, the factory had issued a pension according to regulations and promised to arrange a job for Shen Mingzhu once she came of age.
After Shen Baoguo remarried Wang Xiulan, no one ever mentioned the matter again. Shen Mingzhu had lived with her grandmother in the countryside until she was ten, only returning after her grandmother passed away.
Not long after her return, Shen Baoguo claimed that job positions were tight and made her do household chores and odd jobs like pasting matchboxes at home. The job promised by the factory, under Wang Xiulan’s scheming, had gone to the eldest son she brought with her. Now, these two shameless creatures even wanted to sell Shen Mingzhu to exchange a job for their own younger son. Tch, utterly disgraceful.
“You…” Shen Baoguo’s lips trembled. “Who told you such nonsense…”
“If you don’t want others to know, don’t do it in the first place.” Feng Wan stabbed the knife into the table, the blade vibrating with a low hum. “Give me the money, and I’ll leave. If not, we’ll meet at the factory office.”
After a long silence, it was Wang Xiulan who compromised first.
She tugged at Shen Baoguo’s sleeve and whispered, “Just give it to her for now. We can coax her properly later… If this really blows up, your position as workshop supervisor…”
Anyway, this dead girl’s name has already been submitted to the Educated Youth Office, they’ve received the educated youth subsidy, and her household registration has been transferred to the Jiang family. Whether she agrees or not, the Jiang family has probably already gotten the marriage certificate sorted by now.
Shen Baoguo glared at her fiercely, panting heavily as he stormed into the inner room. The sound of rummaging through drawers and cabinets lasted a full ten minutes before he emerged, his face ashen, and slammed a stack of money onto the table.
“Count it clearly! Take the money and get out!”
Feng Wan actually counted it bill by bill—ten-yuan notes, a full hundred of them. After counting, she pulled out a piece of paper she had prepared earlier from her own stack of loose change and pushed it toward Shen Baoguo.
“Relationship Severance Document. Sign and fingerprint it.”
Shen Baoguo’s hand trembled as he signed his name and pressed his red-inked fingerprint. Feng Wan carefully put it away, tucked the thousand yuan close to her body, and only then picked up the knife from the table.
“I’ll take this old kitchen knife with me, as a keepsake.” She turned and walked toward the door, pausing as she passed the five-drawer cabinet. Suddenly, she pulled open the bottom few drawers.
“What are you doing?!” Wang Xiulan shrieked.
Feng Wan didn’t answer, her hands moving swiftly as she grabbed all the grain coupons, cloth coupons, oil coupons, and sugar coupons from the drawers and stuffed them into the canvas bag she had brought.
“These coupons were probably saved up by my mother back in the day. I’m taking them.” She then opened the rice jar nearby, scooped out half a bag of cornmeal, counted ten eggs from the basket in the corner, wrapped them in old newspaper, and finally didn’t even spare the string of dried red peppers on the windowsill.
“Feng Wan!” Shen Baoguo trembled with rage. “Put those things down!”
“Put them down?” Feng Wan turned back, a faint smirk curling at the corner of her mouth. “My mother’s things—it’s only right that I take them. I won’t let them fall into the hands of a shameless couple. As for this cornmeal and eggs, they’re to nourish my health. A thousand yuan for eighteen years of upbringing—I didn’t ask for more than I deserved, you old fool.”
She sneered, looking the two of them up and down as they fumed like toads. Hoisting her bulging cloth bag onto her back and carrying the kitchen knife, she walked to the door and suddenly stopped.
“Oh, right,” she said, glancing at Shen Mingzhu, who was still peeking through the crack in the door. “Do you want to leave?”