“Uncle, Auntie, the whole village saw what happened. How do you expect me to pretend it never happened? Our family talked it over last night. This engagement… let’s just call it off!”
The young man in front of them wore a white shirt. He looked handsome and well-featured, the type most popular with female comrades these days, but the words out of his mouth made the Yan family’s faces change.
Out in the courtyard the heavy rain pattered down along the eaves. Inside the house you could hear a pin drop.
Once the shock passed, Yan Zhengguo pointed at the young man. “Zhou Ze’an, your engagement to Ruizhi was settled more than two years ago. If nothing went wrong, you would be married at the end of the year. What do you mean, saying this now? What happened yesterday… was only an accident. Besides, this is a new era. Zhou Ze’an, you’re an educated man too. How can you, how can you be so…”
“But so many people saw them holding each other. How am I supposed to think about it? My parents said that since things have come to this, then… let’s just drop it. You don’t have to return the things we gave at the engagement. Just give us back the bride price!”
“You, you…” Yan Zhengguo was so angry he could not get a word out.
Yan Ruizhi’s face was calm as she quietly watched everything happening in front of her. She had only been reborn yesterday, and it had taken her a whole night to pull herself out of that shock of joy. The same thing had happened in her last life. She and Zhou Ze’an had grown up together as childhood sweethearts, and the year she turned eighteen the two families settled the engagement, with the wedding agreed for the twelfth lunar month of this year.
But just yesterday, she had almost been hit by a speeding truck in town, and it happened to be Zhou Ze’an’s uncle, Zhou Mu, who pulled her aside. In that situation Zhou Mu had held her tightly in his arms, and only just dodged the truck. His arm was scraped because of it.
Yesterday happened to be market day in their town, and quite a few people from the same village saw the scene. They came back and told Zhou Ze’an, and that led to Zhou Ze’an coming to break off the engagement just now.
Yan Ruizhi’s mother, Huo Shufen, was breathing hard. “Zhou Ze’an, are you even human? What do you mean, holding each other? If it hadn’t been for your uncle yesterday, Ruizhi would be dead! How do you have the face to say something like that?”
Yan Ruizhi gave Huo Shufen’s sleeve a light tug, took a step forward, kept her face calm, nodded slightly, and said one word. “Fine!”
Yan Ruizhi’s voice was very soft, but the room went quiet at once. Zhou Ze’an looked at Yan Ruizhi as if he hardly dared believe it, then was wild with joy. “Ruizhi, since you agree, then let’s call it off. The bride price was six hundred and sixty-six yuan, you remember? Hurry and give it back to my family!”
With that, Zhou Ze’an hurried for the door. Huo Shufen gave a sharp shout, then turned and looked at Yan Ruizhi, not understanding. “Ruizhi, are you crazy? Which household for miles around doesn’t know about your engagement to him? If the engagement is broken just like that, you, do you still want a reputation or not?”
When Zhou Ze’an’s eyes fell on Yan Ruizhi, a flicker of guilt passed through them, but then he thought of something and said urgently, “Our family doesn’t want it anyway. It’s no use stopping me. My parents said your Yan Ruizhi has been carrying on with another man, and a person like that can’t come through the Zhou family’s door!”
Yan Ruizhi rushed forward in a few strides and slapped Zhou Ze’an hard across the face. The memories of her last life rose in front of her. The reason Zhou Ze’an could not wait to come and break off the engagement was simply that he had a better choice, and to clear a place for the one in his heart he had waited a long time for a chance like yesterday’s. And there it was, first thing in the morning he came to break it off!
But she had already agreed, and Zhou Ze’an still wanted to throw dirt on her!
Zhou Ze’an covered his face. “Yan Ruizhi! You dare hit me?”
Yan Ruizhi looked at Zhou Ze’an coldly. “Zhou Ze’an, you want to break off the engagement, and I’ve already agreed. Please keep your mouth clean! You and that woman worker at the paper mill, did you really think I didn’t know?”
Under Yan Ruizhi’s stare Zhou Ze’an did not dare look her in the eye. He threw out one line, “Hmph! The bride price, hurry up and return it to my family!” and ran out.
The moment Zhou Ze’an ran out the door, Huo Shufen could not help starting on Yan Ruizhi. “Ruizhi, how could you, how could you agree? Once the engagement is broken, whether it’s your fault or not, everyone is going to point fingers at you. You don’t care about yourself, but don’t you care about your younger brother and sister either?”
Looking at her mother, so anxious and worked up, Yan Ruizhi felt a sting in her nose and almost cried. What had she done in her last life? She had refused no matter what, had even threatened to kill herself, and seeing her so frantic, her family had gone along with her and pressed the Zhou family until Zhou Ze’an was forced to marry her.
But that was exactly the beginning of her fall into the abyss. The one Zhou Ze’an loved was a woman worker at the paper mill. Zhou Ze’an believed he had found the love of his life, and then he was forced to marry her, and from the day of the wedding he hated her!
Not only did he stand by coldly when his parents-in-law made things hard for her and she did not get along with her sisters-in-law. Later, through her endless quarrelling, the affection of all those years as childhood sweethearts wore away, and he began to raise his hand against Yan Ruizhi. He even pushed her over while she was carrying a child, when she was making a scene about going to find that woman, and she miscarried…
After that she was pregnant again and again and lost each one. It was not until the middle of the nineties that she finally managed to conceive, and after eight months in bed to save the pregnancy she gave birth to a daughter, only for the whole family to look down on the girl. She raised her daughter alone until the child was four. Then one day her daughter’s fever would not come down. Zhou Ze’an was outside carrying on with that woman, and when Yan Ruizhi wanted to take the child to the hospital, his parents blocked her too…
There were far too many things like that. In her last life she had even paid for it with her own life and her daughter’s. Thinking of all this, Yan Ruizhi only felt her chest clench with pain, and the tears fell in big drops. She choked out, “Mom, which is more important, my reputation or my life? I don’t want to marry Zhou Ze’an. Isn’t that allowed?”
Huo Shufen was completely stunned. Yan Ruizhi was her first daughter, and it would be a lie to say she did not ache for her. Hearing those words now, she stopped caring about anything else, pulled her into her arms and patted her back gently. “All right, don’t marry him, don’t marry him!”
Huo Shufen thought Yan Ruizhi’s grief was about giving up the marriage with Zhou Ze’an. She held Yan Ruizhi tightly, aching for her, and in her heart she hated Zhou Ze’an’s family even more.
Yan Zhengguo took out his homegrown tobacco, lit it, drew on it hard, and only then said, “Your mother is right. If you’re not marrying him, you’re not marrying him! It’s just this bride price money…”
The Zhou family was one of the two best-off households in their village. A few hundred yuan was not much to them, but to the Yan family it was no small sum. Yan Zhengguo knocked his pipe and said to Huo Shufen, “There isn’t enough money at home. I’ll go out and borrow some.”
Huo Shufen called Yan Zhengguo back. She thought for a while, then said, “This… let’s talk it over again when our eldest and his wife get back.”
Yan Ruizhi and Zhou Ze’an had been engaged two years ago, and that six hundred and some yuan of bride price had long gone to her eldest brother’s wedding. Where would the family find that much money all at once now?
But before they had a chance to talk it over, Yan Ruizhi’s eldest sister-in-law pushed the door open that evening and said, “Mom, what’s going on? Why is everyone outside saying that Ruizhi has been carrying on with someone and that the engagement with the Zhou family is off?”