Lu Yuanyuan was startled by her brother’s serious expression.
Although her brother was usually quiet and seemed stern to outsiders, he had always been gentle with her.
He had never spoken to her like this before.
Not knowing where his sudden anger came from, she said:
“Brother, Qingyun has been waiting for you all this time. Why are you being so distant? It’s fine if you don’t take the initiative, but now I’m helping you, and you still won’t accept it. Haven’t you seen how anxious Mom is to have a grandson? Wouldn’t it be better if you got married soon and let her have one?”
A grandson?
A trace of bitterness surged in Lu Heng’s heart.
He thought of Jiang Mian’s protruding belly.
His child—the grandson his mother longed for—was in Jiang Mian’s womb.
At that thought, Lu Heng grew even more irritable, his expression darkening further.
“I’ll say this one more time. I have nothing to do with Song Qingyun. Don’t spread rumors.”
“But Mom and Dad both approve of her. She’s also my classmate, and they’ve already treated you as their future son-in-law. If you hadn’t been sent down back then, your child might already be old enough to buy soy sauce!”
“But I was sent down.”
“But now you’re back, aren’t you?”
Lu Heng fell silent.
Seeing the gloom in her brother’s eyes, Lu Yuanyuan suddenly thought of something.
“Brother… don’t tell me you’re still thinking about that country wife of yours?”
At the mention of that “country wife,” Lu Yuanyuan’s face filled with disdain.
Although she had never met the rural wife her brother married on the farm,
she had heard about her—a completely illiterate woman!
Just somewhat pretty, that’s all.
Lu Yuanyuan simply couldn’t understand how her brother—a highly educated intellectual, a professor, a scientist—could have fallen for an illiterate woman.
“Brother, what were you thinking, getting married in the countryside? It’s a good thing you divorced her. If you had brought her back home, Mom and Dad would’ve been furious. Our relatives and friends would laugh themselves to death. And Uncle and Aunt? If they found out you married an illiterate woman, they’d probably come over three times a day just to watch the spectacle.”
Lu Heng couldn’t be bothered to argue with his sister’s sarcasm.
But he could not tolerate others speaking about Jiang Mian like that:
“Let me correct that—not illiterate. Primary school graduate.”
“Pfft—hahahahaha!”
Lu Yuanyuan was practically laughing herself to death:
“Brother, stop fooling yourself. In other families, a primary school diploma might barely count as an education, but in our family, it’s basically illiteracy!
Both our parents went to university, and Dad even studied in the Soviet Union.
You’re a professor at Huaqing University.
And me, the least educated in the family, am still a student at Peking University.
Our whole family is made up of intellectuals, and yet you married someone with only a primary school education—doesn’t that drag down our family’s academic level?
Good thing you divorced her before returning to the city. Otherwise, our family would’ve been laughed at to death!”
Lu Heng knew that his family had always been dissatisfied with his marriage at the farm.
He also knew that, in their eyes, the perfect daughter-in-law was someone like Song Qingyun.
He knew Jiang Mian didn’t meet the Lu family’s standards.
But no one had ever mocked him like this to his face.
Mocked his marriage like this.
A sense of bitterness rose in Lu Heng’s heart.
And yet, he also felt like laughing.
He was beginning to understand why Jiang Mian had insisted on divorcing him and refused to return to the city with him.
Had she already foreseen all of this?
“Yuanyuan, how can you talk to your brother like that?”
Cheng Jin, hearing her daughter speak so bluntly from inside the house, quickly threw on a coat and came out, scolding her gently.
“Mom, I’m just stating the truth!”
“That’s enough. Go back to your room and sleep.”
Lu Yuanyuan turned to leave.
Just then, Lu Heng suddenly spoke—