By the time Jiang Li returned to the Grain Station family compound, night had already settled in. Lights slowly flickered inside the small flats, and smoke curled upward from every household’s chimney.
Inside the Jiang family home, everyone was gathered around the dinner table eating.
Seeing that there wasn’t much food left, Ye Suqin prepared to get up and grab a bowl. Jiang Qingfeng, seated beside her, reached out to stop her.
“Where are you going?”
“To save some dishes for Little Sister.” Ye Suqin wiped her wet hands on her apron and glanced at the wall clock. “It’s almost seven already. Why isn’t she back yet?”
The moment Jiang Xiaoxiao heard they were saving food for Jiang Li, she bit down hard on her chopsticks. She secretly glanced around the table, not daring to openly complain, but when she reached for food again, clear teeth marks were already visible on the wooden chopsticks.
“Save what save!”
The speaker was the Jiang family matriarch sitting in the seat of honor with one leg crossed over the other. She had just arrived from the countryside that day carrying a bundle on her back to visit her eldest son in the provincial capital. Short in stature and dressed in a dark gray sweater, her wrinkled little eyes gleamed sharply.
“If that money-losing girl can’t come home on time, then she doesn’t deserve dinner.”
As she spoke, Yang Zaohua continuously piled braised pork into Jiang Qingfeng’s bowl.
“My grandson doesn’t even have enough meat himself. Why save food for an outsider?”
In her eyes, daughters would eventually marry out. Only grandsons remained part of the family forever. Girls were outsiders; grandsons were the real family.
Ye Suqin looked toward Father Jiang and Mother Jiang seated above them, but seeing neither speak up, she could only sit back down.
In the past, even if the old lady objected, Jiang Li’s adoptive parents would still insist on saving her food.
The family continued eating and chatting happily.
Then Jiang Li pushed open the door.
The lively laughter instantly died, like an old radio suddenly losing signal.
Jiang Yumin glared at the late-returning girl standing at the entrance, his expression darkening.
“Huili said you left in the afternoon. What have you been doing all day? Who allowed you to come home this late?”
Recently, the child-swapping scandal had already driven Jiang Yumin nearly mad. Now, after Jiang Li’s hunger strike and attempted hanging, she was apparently pulling the “coming home late” stunt too, making the anger bottled inside him flare even harder.
Jiang Xiaoxiao’s heart immediately leapt into her throat, terrified Jiang Li would reveal what happened at the hospital. She desperately shot Jiang Li warning looks.
Jiang Li pretended not to notice.
“I went to the hospital.”
Jiang Xiaoxiao’s face instantly turned pale.
“To the hospital?” Jiang Yumin’s expression sank further. “What business did you have there?”
Previously, everything about Jiang Li had pleased him.
She was beautiful and academically gifted. Whenever colleagues at the bureau expressed envy, he would proudly straighten his back with satisfaction.
Until Jiang Xiaoxiao returned.
Dressed in rags, dark as a lump of coal!
The flower he had painstakingly cultivated had actually belonged to someone else all along. No one would willingly let that flower end up in another family’s hands.
“That’s something you should ask Comrade Jiang Xiaoxiao.”
Jiang Li turned her gaze toward Jiang Xiaoxiao, who was shrinking into the corner, mercilessly dragging her into the spotlight.
“M-Me? Why ask me…” Jiang Xiaoxiao lowered her head guiltily, her eyes darting nervously.
“Of course it’s to ask…” Jiang Li lowered her eyes and smiled lightly, “how you ended up together with my ex-boyfriend only one day after we broke up.”
Bang!
It was like a landmine had exploded in the room.
The entire Jiang family froze.
Xu Huili immediately panicked and grabbed Jiang Xiaoxiao’s arm.
“What’s going on? Didn’t you say you went to the department store with classmates? Why did you go to the hospital? And…”
And get tangled up with her adopted daughter’s ex-boyfriend?
What Jiang Li implied was obvious—Jiang Xiaoxiao was trying to steal her boyfriend.
Of everyone present, only Ye Suqin calmly continued eating, glancing disdainfully at the flustered Jiang Xiaoxiao between bites.
“Mom, let me explain.” Jiang Xiaoxiao’s brain spun like a bicycle chain turning furiously. “There’s nothing between me and Comrade Xiang Zhou! Right, there’s really nothing. Jiang Li misunderstood. The school I was assigned to happens to be Xiang Zhou’s alma mater, so I only went to ask him about the school situation.”
“Yes, that’s all.”
After explaining, Jiang Xiaoxiao was drenched in cold sweat. She had already decided to deny everything. After all, Jiang Li hadn’t caught them red-handed.
Jiang Li shrugged.
“Say whatever you want. As long as the money gets returned.”
“Money? What money?” Xu Huili sensed something wrong and anxiously turned toward Xiaoxiao. “Don’t tell me you did something foolish!”
If her biological daughter stealing her adopted daughter’s boyfriend became public gossip, the entire residential compound would laugh her to death.
“N-Nothing…” Jiang Xiaoxiao avoided eye contact.
Jiang Li had no interest in participating in the Jiang family’s fake “deep family affection.” She turned and headed straight back to her room, waving away the faint moldy smell lingering in the air before sprawling across the bed in a starfish position.
Meanwhile, Jiang Yumin’s furious yelling still echoed from the living room.
“Look at her! No manners at all! Is she trying to rebel?!”
Veins bulged on Jiang Yumin’s forehead as he repeatedly slammed the dining table with enough force that flakes of old red paint rained onto the floor.
“Yumin, calm down.” Yang Zaohua hurried over to restrain him, her shrewd little eyes spinning thoughtfully. “Now that Xiaoxiao’s back, why keep Jiang Li around making everyone upset? Better to marry her off quickly.”
At least the girl was beautiful. It was hard to find such a pretty young woman in all of Beicheng.
“Doesn’t Qingfeng work in procurement? Their department head seems pretty good. She’d have a fine life marrying him!”
For years, everyone envied the Jiang family. They all praised them for raising such an outstanding daughter, saying they were destined to live like royalty in old age.
Yang Zaohua had always been calculating.
After raising Jiang Li for nineteen years, rather than let her freely marry for love and gain the family nothing, it was better to marry her off early and trade her for benefits for her precious grandson.
“Bang!”
Ye Suqin suddenly slammed her chopsticks onto the table.
Everyone stopped eating.
Xu Huili coldly tossed her own chopsticks down, her drooping eyes full of irritation, her voice icy enough to freeze over.
“After marrying into this family for so many years, you still haven’t learned basic manners?”
Ye Suqin’s expression stiffened.
She came from the countryside. Back when she’d fallen in love with Jiang Qingfeng during one of his grain-purchasing trips, the entire Jiang family had opposed the relationship. Only because Jiang Qingfeng went on a hunger strike insisting he would marry no one else did she finally manage to enter the Jiang family.
Knowing her in-laws despised her, she had always lived cautiously in the Jiang household. Especially after five years of infertility, and only now finally becoming pregnant, she had become even more careful.
Unable to fight back against her mother-in-law, Ye Suqin had long directed her resentment toward Jiang Li. Why did she have to do all the chores while her little sister-in-law never touched housework?
But now, she no longer thought that way.
After all… when it came to conscience, her sister-in-law had truly treated her well.
“Mom.” Ye Suqin stroked her stomach carefully. “Department Head Zhou only divorced two months ago, and he already has two children. Also, Little Sister just turned nineteen, while Director Zhou is already in his thirties. Isn’t the age gap a little inappropriate?”
“Our little sister is so pretty. It’s hard to find a girl this beautiful in all of Beicheng. Wouldn’t it be such a waste for her to marry him?”
Xu Huili frowned in distress.
Even though Jiang Li wasn’t biologically hers, she had still raised her for nineteen years. Even raising a dog for that long would create attachment, let alone a daughter she had cherished and spoiled.
“What’s wrong with thirty? What’s wrong with divorce?” Yang Zaohua barked. “As long as people sincerely want to live together, plenty of second marriages turn out even better than first marriages.”
“And what good is beauty anyway? Can it fill your stomach? A seductive fox-face like hers—what respectable family would want that?”
Stretching her legs comfortably, she continued persuading them.
“Director Zhou is capable and earns well. He only has two half-grown sons to raise. Once Jiang Li marries in and has her own child, she’ll control his money. Those two boys can easily be manipulated.”
Yang Zaohua had always favored boys over girls. Since childhood she had resented Xu Huili for doting on Jiang Li. Every time she visited, she would secretly steam eggs for Jiang Qingfeng behind Jiang Li’s back.
Now that such a good opportunity had appeared to secure benefits for her grandson’s future, she was determined to wear her lips thin convincing everyone.
After talking so much, she finally waited for Jiang Yumin to make the final decision.
He only thought briefly before nodding.
“I know the man. His character is decent enough. Jiang Li would still remain a city resident after marrying him, which is better than being sent to the countryside. I think it’ll work.”
Truthfully, Jiang Yumin had long wanted to build ties with Director Zhou. The man’s uncle was the director of the Grain Administration Bureau. If Jiang Li married into that family, not only could they help Qingfeng’s career, they could help his too.
No matter how he calculated it, the Jiang family wouldn’t lose out.
Everyone finished dinner with different thoughts occupying their minds.
Jiang Yumin called Xu Huili into the bedroom and handed her his blue work uniform after taking it off.
“You go tell Jiang Li about this.”
Xu Huili absentmindedly hung the uniform into the mahogany wardrobe.
If this had happened before, if someone suggested marrying Jiang Li to a divorced man, she would have chased them out immediately.
But now, news that Jiang Li wasn’t their biological daughter had already spread. The good marriage prospects once interested in Jiang Li had all quietly withdrawn.
“Yumin… is Director Zhou really a good person?” Xu Huili’s eyes reddened slightly. “Will he treat Xiao Li well? He only divorced two months ago.”
“Then who else do you think Jiang Li can marry?” Jiang Yumin poured himself tea from the kettle on the table. “Let me remind you—the Li family’s daughter from this compound was sent to the countryside and ended up marrying a poor farmer there.”
“Jiang Li has no job now. If she doesn’t marry soon, she’ll be sent down to the countryside too. The neighborhood office already came looking for me yesterday.”
Xu Huili jumped in alarm and sat down weakly on the bed.
“Yumin… was it really right for us to let Xiaoxiao take Xiao Li’s job and student quota?”
Jiang Yumin placed one hand on her shoulder and squeezed reassuringly.
“Xiaoxiao suffered outside for nineteen years. The name ‘Jiang Li,’ including everything that name represents, should have belonged to Xiaoxiao from the beginning.”
“Think about it. If the children had never been switched, Xiaoxiao would have grown up smoothly in our family. She would have attended grain school and received a job assignment.”
“But the school… Xiao Li earned her way in herself.” Xu Huili still looked lost. “And the worker-peasant-soldier university quota too—she got that through her own hard work and excellent performance…”
“Huili.” Jiang Yumin’s grip tightened. “We raised Jiang Li for nineteen years. Everything she has already belongs to us. Back then, the whole family unanimously agreed to transfer her work record, honors, and university quota to Xiaoxiao.”
“Or are you saying you want to give the quota back to Jiang Li?”
“I’ll remind you—Xiaoxiao is our real flesh and blood. It’s only been nineteen years. We still have time to set things right.”
Xu Huili finally fell silent.
He was right.
Back then, when Jiang Yumin proposed transferring everything Jiang Li had to Jiang Xiaoxiao, everyone in the family except Ye Suqin voted in agreement.
They could only… apologize to Jiang Li.
Their biological daughter had suffered for nineteen years. At least Jiang Li could still marry a department head.
“Fine. Tomorrow I’ll have Mom arrange the blind date.”
Seeing that he had finally persuaded Xu Huili, Jiang Yumin let out a relieved breath.
“Go to sleep early.”