Su Lili couldn’t come up with that much money, so she had no choice but to discuss it with her parents. When Li Xiaomei saw her daughter come home covered in blood, she was nearly scared to death. “Lili, my heavens! Su Dajun, come quick! Your daughter is about to die! Hurry and borrow the Twenty‑Eight bicycle and take her to the hospital! She’s about to get married—she can’t die now!”
Su Lili: “……”
Facing her parents’ frantic reaction, Su Lili didn’t want to become a laughingstock. She shut the door and motioned for them to keep their voices down, saying she had accidentally fallen and her face was cut by reed leaves. Li Xiaomei looked closely at the many fine cuts; they did look like injuries from reed leaves. Furious at her daughter’s carelessness, she scolded, “You’re about to get married and you still fall like this—what are your eyes for?”
Su Lili had苦难言 and could only endure the scolding. After her mother finished venting, she finally spoke: “Dad, Mom, I’m afraid I won’t be able to marry into the city.”
Li Xiaomei panicked. “What?”
It hadn’t been easy for her daughter to snag a city man—son of a deputy factory director. Second marriage or not didn’t matter; the ex‑wife hadn’t left any children. Once her daughter married in, she’d get a job arranged and five hundred yuan in bride price—unheard of in Sujiawan. And now she was saying she couldn’t marry?
Su Lili knew her parents were unwilling to give up this match, just like she was. To get them to pay off the debt, she could only half‑truthfully sob, “I want to marry too, but Chen Xiaojun won’t let me. He wants to ruin my marriage.”
Li Xiaomei’s face darkened. “He dares?”
“He dares. He threatened me—if I don’t give him a thousand yuan, he’ll tell Brother Zhiwei that I had an affair with him.”
Crying pitifully under her parents’ furious gazes, Su Lili confessed the truth: “I… I was ignorant before and gave myself to him…”
The next second, a slap landed. Her face, already swollen from Su Tian’s beating, swelled even more.
Li Xiaomei pointed at the shameless Su Lili, nearly dying of anger. “You… you have no shame!”
Su Dajun didn’t know what to say. With a black face, he lifted his foot and headed out, intent on beating Chen Xiaojun. Taking advantage of his daughter was one thing—blackmailing her was another. He would beat him to death.
Seeing her father’s intent, Su Lili hurriedly stopped him. “Dad, don’t go! If you beat Chen Xiaojun, won’t that make things bigger? Then everyone within ten miles will know about me and him. How would I get married then?”
Caught between a rock and a hard place, Su Dajun cursed angrily, “If you hadn’t messed around, would this shameful thing have happened?”
Su Lili admitted her mistake with grievances. “Dad, I was wrong. Please help me. Lend me a thousand yuan. After I get a job, I’ll pay you back fifty yuan a month—two years and I’ll repay it all. I’ll even add another fifty for my brother’s marriage, okay?”
“No. It has to be five hundred at least,” Li Xiaomei said.
Biased toward sons, Li Xiaomei had two sons at home. Fifty yuan wasn’t enough. Anyway, once Su Lili married, she’d belong to someone else’s family. Fifty a month was six hundred a year—what was another five hundred? Su Lili choked, but since she was asking for help, she could only nod. “Fine, five hundred it is.”
Once she married and got pregnant with a Guo family child, what would another five hundred matter? Guo Zhiwei earned one hundred twenty a month—one thousand four hundred forty a year. One year’s wages would cover the debt. As for Chen Xiaojun and Su Tian, even if she gave them a thousand, so what? Once she got pregnant, she’d find a chance to get the money back. Once the rice was cooked, even if her affair with Chen Xiaojun was exposed, Guo Zhiwei wouldn’t divorce her for the child’s sake. At worst, she’d admit fault and coax him a little. Last life, she’d seen how Su Tian could sweet‑talk him into happiness with just a few words. He liked sweet talk—words were free. What did it matter to say a few more?
The next day, Su Tian and her mother were at home pickling salted duck eggs. There were only forty‑five eggs in the house—too few in Su Tian’s opinion—so she went around the village and bought a sack of duck eggs. Five mao for three; villagers were happy to sell to her. Counting them, there were 137 eggs. After washing and drying them, she coated them in yellow mud mixed with salt and high‑proof liquor, rolled them in wood ash, sealed them in a jar, and stored them in a cool place. They’d be ready to eat in a month.
Huang Guihua paid the cost of the eggs. Su Tian planned to sell them later and make the price difference. Afraid they wouldn’t sell if there were too many, Su Tian patted her chest and guaranteed she could sell them for three mao each.
After making a round of the village, Su Lili didn’t come looking for trouble. Su Tian knew—five hundred yuan was secured.
At the agreed time that night, when Su Tian arrived, Su Lili was already waiting. Seeing her face full of scars—small cuts already healing—Su Lili angrily and unwillingly flung a wad of bills at her feet, all ten‑yuan notes. “Here. If you dare ruin my marriage, I’ll fight you to the death.”
“That’s your attitude?” Su Tian raised an eyebrow, her gaze sharp. “Pick them up.”
For some reason, Su Lili felt she didn’t recognize the Su Tian in front of her. She seemed different from the one in her memories. Wasn’t she always gentle and soft? Now she was aggressive and domineering, clearly not someone to mess with. Could it be… she had also been reborn?
Her heart skipped a beat. Su Lili couldn’t help confirming, “Su Tian, what’s your WeChat name?”
Su Tian didn’t expect Su Lili to notice so quickly. She absolutely wouldn’t admit it—playing dumb would be more fun. If she admitted it, how would she watch Su Lili jump around like a clown? Su Tian feigned ignorance. “What?”
Seeing Su Tian’s blank, clueless expression, Su Lili secretly breathed a sigh of relief. Of course. If Su Tian had been reborn and knew she was engaged to Guo Zhiwei, how could she be so indifferent? After all, she had stolen Su Tian’s marriage. Thankfully, she hadn’t been reborn. This life, the rich madam would be her.
“Nothing. The money’s for you. You can’t ruin my marriage with Brother Zhiwei anymore.” Su Lili obediently picked up the money from the ground and handed it to Su Tian. “From now on, he’s your brother‑in‑law.”
Taking the money, Su Tian smiled with satisfaction. “Fine. Since you know what’s good for you, I wish you a happy wedding, marital harmony, and early children!”
As if.
Su Lili smugly stroked her flat abdomen and sneered, “Don’t worry. I’ll definitely give the Guo family children—unlike some people, barren hens who can’t lay eggs.”
Su Lili thought Su Tian would get angry. Instead, she didn’t, as if the pointed words weren’t meant for her. This made Su Lili even more certain Su Tian hadn’t been reborn. In her last life, whenever the topic of children came up, Su Tian would break down, believing her infertility was a sin, that she had cut off Guo Zhiwei’s lineage—leading to his sarcasm, orders barked at her, and even keeping a mistress without her daring to say a word.
This life, let Su Lili taste what it was like to be called a barren hen.
With five hundred yuan tucked away, Su Tian headed home and proactively called the system. “Xiao Ba, I extorted five hundred yuan from Su Lili. Does that count as changing my life trajectory? Has my livestream level increased?”
System Xiao Ba replied: “Extortion and blackmail are illegal and cannot be used as a basis for leveling up.”
“……” Su Tian nearly cursed out loud.
She hadn’t expected this to be a law‑abiding system.