Cheng Hui looked up, staring straight at Su Xiao. “Xiao Xiao, do you really have no money to pay me back?
“Look at me. It’s the dead of winter, forty degrees below zero outside, yet I’m wearing a thin cotton-padded jacket. My original thick one is on you right now!
“And my thick cotton-padded shoes are on your feet.
“And my washbasin, my thermos, my snow cream… you said the Gao family couldn’t be trusted, so I listened to you and didn’t take them with me. I left them all for you to use!
“I lent you all my money! Now I don’t have a single cent. I don’t even know where my next meal is coming from. Are you really not going to pay me back?”
The crowd looked at Cheng Hui as if she were a fool…
So she had been that good to Su Xiao! So the things Su Xiao was using all belonged to Cheng Hui!
Su Xiao’s face was beet red, yet her expression was even more aggrieved than Cheng Hui’s.
“Xiao Hui, I really don’t have any money. You know I only brought 10 yuan with me from home. When I got the letter that my mom was sick, I mailed it all to her. I didn’t keep a single cent!”
“You really don’t? Not a single cent?” Cheng Hui asked.
Su Xiao shook her head. “I really don’t.”
Cheng Hui immediately shot an embarrassed glance at Gao Zhi.
Gao Zhi’s eyes instantly widened. “Well, what do you know! So you don’t have any money! You lied to me!
“I don’t care if you have to borrow it or beg for it, you have to give me 50 cents right now! If not, if not, you can forget about your bedding!”
She immediately lunged for the bedding.
Cheng Hui also stood up to fight her for it, crying as she struggled. “This is the last thing I have! I’ll freeze to death without it… You, you, go check Su Xiao’s clothes. She likes to sew money into her underwear pocket.”
Using her body to block the view, she gave Gao Zhi a look, held up one finger, and mouthed, “1 yuan.”
Gao Zhi froze for a second… then turned and pounced on Su Xiao.
She ripped open the buttons of her cotton jacket, yanked up her sweater, and grabbed her undergarment. Her eyes lit up at once, and she exclaimed:
“I feel it! A whole wad of cash!”
“Whoa~~” The few female Educated Youths in the room were dumbfounded.
Su Xiao had sounded so certain just now, they had all believed her! But she really had money?
Su Xiao struggled with all her might.
But she was just another young lady from Jingcheng. In the year she had been here, she had never done for herself what she could get others to do, so she was no match for Gao Zhi, who had been doing heavy labor since she was a child.
In just a few moves, Gao Zhi ripped off the small pocket sewn onto her underwear and opened it in front of everyone.
It was a colorful mix of bills and coins, some small and some large—18 yuan and 35 cents.
She looked at Su Xiao with contempt. “This? Is this ‘really don’t have any’? ‘Not a single cent’? Is this paper money? Then give it all to me!”
Su Xiao tried to snatch it back, but Gao Zhi slapped her hand away, pulled out 1 yuan from the pile, and stuffed the rest into Cheng Hui’s hands.
The corners of Cheng Hui’s mouth curled up, then quickly drooped again. She looked at Su Xiao, her eyes filled with disappointment. “I never thought you were this kind of person…”
“I’m not, I didn’t, this money…”
Cheng Hui cut her off. “Are you going to say you just borrowed this money? For your mom’s medical treatment? Who did you borrow it from? We can go confront them right now.”
A few names flashed through Su Xiao’s mind… two of them were quite suitable. Which one to choose?
Cheng Hui added, “In this world, besides me, who else would be so good to you as to lend you so much money without an IOU? A man or a woman? What’s your relationship?”
All her potential alibis were instantly useless!
18 yuan was no small sum.
If it was a woman… who else was as foolish as Cheng Hui? She didn’t have a second “sister” who would cover for her lie.
If it was a man, then it would imply an improper relationship!
Su Xiao didn’t want to be tied to any improper relationships. The man she loved was in Jingcheng; she absolutely could not ruin her reputation.
Cheng Hui pocketed the money, then asked strangely, as if she had just thought of something, “Since you still had so much money left, does that mean your mom wasn’t sick? Or did you hold the money back?”
This was another no-win question!
Had Su Xiao lied? Or was she unfilial? Her own mother was dying, and she withheld the life-saving money?
Su Xiao let out a wail, covered her face, and ran out.
The room fell silent.
Cheng Hui sighed again to the others. “I really never thought she was this kind of person… I was so good to her before…”
The others quickly comforted her and offered her the spot at the head of the kang bed.
She was pregnant and a big fool whose feelings had been betrayed by a close friend… everyone sympathized with her.
Cheng Hui found a moment to walk Gao Zhi to the door and whispered, “Come find me tomorrow morning. Go somewhere with me, and I’ll give you another yuan.”
Gao Zhi immediately nodded like a chicken pecking at grain.
…
An hour later, unable to bear the cold outside, Su Xiao swallowed her pride and returned.
She was an eloquent person. Although she loved to take petty advantages, she wouldn’t be as ruthless with others as she was with Cheng Hui.
She was smart and knew how to tailor her approach to different people; the others wouldn’t indulge her!
So, she used to have a decent relationship with the female Educated Youths in this room. While they weren’t as close as sisters, they were still friendly and would chat and laugh together.
Now, things were different.
When they saw her return, some snorted coldly, some sneered, and some pretended not to see her.
And her spot had been moved from the middle to the very end of the kang.
Su Xiao’s face burned with shame. Pretending not to hear anything, she crawled into her quilt, pulled it over her head, and refused to come out.
…
Cheng Hui slept fitfully that night. She was afraid Su Xiao might get up in the middle of the night and harm her baby, so she woke up at dawn.
Just as she woke, she heard Gao Zhi knocking on the door.
Looking at the vibrant, beautiful young woman before her, brimming with life, Cheng Hui suddenly recalled how she had looked when she died in her previous life.
In her past life, Gao Zhi had ambitions as high as the sky but a fate as thin as paper.
While visiting a distant relative in the city, she had taken a liking to their youngest son.
She brazenly snuck into his room, and the next day, she claimed he had slept with her and had to marry her, or she would report him for hooliganism.
Just like that, she broke up the man’s original engagement and married him.
How could they possibly treat her well?
It was said that she was either beaten or cursed, and the entire family looked down on her.
She endured it for a few years before she couldn’t take it anymore and ran off with a “rich man” to the south.
It turned out the “rich man” was a fake, and he sold her to a “special establishment” as soon as he could.
Gao Zhi was a ruthless person herself. She managed to make a name for herself in that line of work and later became the woman of a “Big Brother,” earning the title “Big Sister-in-law.”
In the end, she and her “Big Brother” both ate a bullet.
It was Cheng Hui who had collected her body.
It was a way of thanking them for helping her find the daughter she had lost for over a decade.
“Where are we going today?” Gao Zhi asked as soon as she saw Cheng Hui.
Cheng Hui said, “You’ll know in a bit.”
She turned, went to the end of the kang, and pulled out the thick cotton jacket that Su Xiao had taken off and placed under her pillow. She put it on, then put on the cotton shoes.
She said to the feigning-sleep Su Xiao, “You can have the cotton pants. Consider it a final gesture for our many years of sisterhood. From now on, we have nothing to do with each other!”
In reality, she was disgusted by the thought of wearing pants someone else had worn.
Gao Zhi immediately piped up, “Don’t do that, Sister-in-law! I’m your sister too! Better to give them to me than her!”
Cheng Hui was taken aback. This was the first time in two lifetimes combined that Gao Zhi had called her “Sister-in-law.”
She immediately smiled. “Alright, then they’re yours.”