“Ningning, you saw it yourself just now. That man is dangerous. I’m worried he might hurt you.
“How about this? I’ll take you home right now, help you pack your things, and send you back to your hometown!”
After leaving that suffocating place, Lin Meijia hurriedly dragged Jiang Wan’ning to the bus stop, bought their tickets, and boarded the bus, eager to get as far away as possible.
If she waited any longer, she was afraid that man would stubbornly come after them!
If that happened, Jiang Wan’ning would soar into the heavens, transforming from an ugly duckling into a golden phoenix, and Lin Meijia’s second chance at life would become nothing but a joke!
“All right. I’ll do whatever you say, Cousin.”
Jiang Wan’ning’s breathtaking face showed a look of panic and complete trust in her cousin. The people around them couldn’t help staring in amazement.
How could there be such a beautiful girl?
Lin Meijia dug her fingernails into her palm.
Not this again!
Ever since they were children, whenever she stood beside Jiang Wan’ning, she was always made to look like a servant by comparison!
Her own parents had respectable jobs, and she had an urban household registration.
Jiang Wan’ning was merely a country girl with a rural household registration!
Damn it!
If only she had been reborn a few days earlier, she would have packed Jiang Wan’ning’s things herself and sent her straight back to the countryside!
Now she had gained nothing and lost everything.
She had actually given Jiang Wan’ning an opportunity to catch the attention of someone like Lu Xiaolin…
“Cousin, we left in such a hurry just now. Auntie’s outfit is still upstairs on the second floor…”
Jiang Wan’ning blinked innocently.
Inside, she was secretly delighted.
She loved watching her cousin desperately want to kill her while having to pretend to be the loving older sister who was protecting her.
“It’s fine. That outfit is already dirty anyway. When I get paid, I’ll buy my mom another one.”
Hearing this made Lin Meijia even more furious.
That outfit was her mother’s favorite—and also the most garishly vulgar one she owned!
Originally, Lin Meijia had planned to dress Jiang Wan’ning as unattractively as possible so that Lu Jinchao wouldn’t become obsessed with her the way he had in her previous life.
Who could have expected things to backfire?
Instead, Jiang Wan’ning had somehow stumbled into attracting the attention of an even more formidable figure!
The most important thing now was to get Jiang Wan’ning out of the city as quickly as possible.
As long as she sent her back to the countryside and had her mother arrange a marriage for her—preferably to someone far, far away—perhaps everything could still be put back on track!
“That’s good.”
Jiang Wan’ning breathed a sigh of relief.
Her raven-black eyelashes were long and thick, fluttering with every slight change in her expression and making her look even more delicate and lovable.
In the presence of such extraordinary beauty, even the bus—which had seemed somewhat gloomy beneath the overcast sky—appeared to brighten…
Fortunately, people in this era were relatively reserved.
Although many passengers were stunned by the girl’s beauty, they merely admired her from a distance.
Not a single person dared approach her to strike up a conversation or behave improperly.
The bus stopped and started as it passed each station. People continued getting on, yet none of the young men ever seemed willing to get off.
The entire bus was filled with the astonishment, distraction, and shy averted gazes of young men seeing such a beautiful girl for the first time.
This made Lin Meijia’s already gloomy mood even darker.
The two cousins each had their own thoughts.
Half an hour later, they got off the bus. After walking only a short distance, they arrived at the residential compound for the employees of the meat-processing plant.
“Meijia’s back! Is this Xiao Jiang? Now that is how a girl her age should dress! Meijia, you really treat your cousin well.”
Inside the security booth, the security guard uncle looked Jiang Wan’ning over with keen eyes, a meaningful glint in his gaze.
“Hello, Uncle You.”
Jiang Wan’ning politely nodded and greeted him before retreating behind her cousin.
At first glance, she seemed much the same as before. Nothing appeared to have changed.
“What are you saying, Uncle You? Ningning is my cousin. Of course I should treat her well.”
After saying that, Lin Meijia led Jiang Wan’ning briskly toward home.
It was here that Lin Meijia regained her confidence.
Her father was a workshop supervisor at the meat-processing plant.
Her mother was a team leader on the production line at a textile factory.
Her older brother was a food-factory worker, and her sister-in-law was the only daughter of the director of the railway bureau!
Lin Meijia herself was studying at a nursing college. In another two years, she would graduate and, at the very least, be able to get a position as a head nurse in a hospital!
By comparison, so what if Jiang Wan’ning was beautiful?
Her biological father was a peasant who would spend his entire life registered as a rural resident, working the fields from dawn to dusk.
Her biological mother was an uneducated country woman, fit only for raising chickens and pigs in the countryside.
As for Jiang Wan’ning herself, she hadn’t even graduated high school yet. Once she took the college entrance examination, there was an eighty percent chance she wouldn’t pass.
The best thing she could do was marry some country bumpkin.
And her younger brother?
He was nothing more than a little boy who hadn’t even finished elementary school. Having grown up in the countryside, he would never amount to anything.
Yet in her previous life, this Jiang Wan’ning—whose family background was inferior to hers and who had worn her hand-me-down clothes since childhood—had relied on nothing but her beauty to make Lin Meijia’s blind-date partner fall in love with her at first sight!
Afterward, once they married, Jiang Wan’ning had made her suffer, leaving her husband alone for years and forcing her to endure the cold eyes of everyone in the Lu family!
If only she could destroy that face.
The thought had barely surfaced before it began screaming inside her.
Destroy her face.
Yes.
Only if she were disfigured would it be safe.
This was the first time Jiang Wan’ning had ever dressed so cleanly and elegantly, and she attracted countless astonished looks along the way.
In the past, she had always worn the old clothes Lin Meijia no longer wanted. That was common enough in the countryside, but in the relatively well-off residential compound of the meat-processing plant, it made her stand out in all the wrong ways.
Besides, Lin Meijia had never wanted her beautiful cousin stealing the spotlight.
So whenever she helped Jiang Wan’ning put together an outfit, she would deliberately put some “thought” into it—making the colors clash, choosing unflattering combinations, and doing everything possible to diminish her beauty.
Over time, the residents of the compound came to think of Jiang Wan’ning as the rural relative from the Lin family who had come to mooch off them.
She was supposedly greedy and overly fond of dressing up.
The impression people had of her was terrible.
Especially over the past two years, as Jiang Wan’ning had grown into a young woman, the parents in the compound would repeatedly warn their sons:
“You are absolutely not allowed to associate with that distant relative of the Lin family!”
“Do you understand what matching social status means?”
“She’s a rural girl. Her entire family is from the countryside, and she even has a younger brother who will become a huge financial burden in the future!”
“We’re all dual-income families. We receive state-issued grain, and our children can inherit our jobs. These are iron rice bowls!”
“If some rural girl managed to marry into one of our families, wouldn’t we be the ones getting the short end of the stick?”
As Jiang Wan’ning walked beneath all those regretful and wary gazes, she kept her eyes lowered and behaved as though she had already accepted her fate.
It was the weekend, so when she followed her cousin home, her aunt, uncle, older cousin, and sister-in-law were all sitting in the living room chatting.
Especially her aunt.
The moment she saw Jiang Wan’ning, her eyes flickered.
It seemed as though she was avoiding something.
She didn’t dare meet Jiang Wan’ning’s eyes.
“Oh, Meijia, did you buy Ningning new clothes? They look so pretty!”
The young woman who spoke was Bai Qingqing.
She had registered her marriage with Lin Meijia’s older brother, Lin Jiabao, the previous year.
The two had been high school classmates. After graduating, they were both assigned to work at the food factory. As they spent more and more time together, they naturally fell in love.
The moment Lin Meijia heard her sister-in-law’s tone, she understood the hint.
Although she was extremely reluctant, she had to endure the pain and make a promise in order not to disrupt her plans.
“Sis-in-law, Ningning’s clothes got dirty, so I bought her this one. Are you jealous?
“When I get my allowance from school, I’ll take you shopping myself and pick out two outfits for you as an apology.”
“How could I possibly accept that?”
Bai Qingqing said she was embarrassed, but the expression in her eyes softened considerably.
In her mind, Lin Meijia should be trying to please her as her sister-in-law.
Why waste so much effort pleasing some rural cousin?
Whenever she thought about that rural cousin, her brows instinctively furrowed.
Too beautiful.
She was pure yet carried a hint of alluring charm, like a red lotus blooming in the rain.
Even though she hadn’t fully matured yet, her beauty was already impossible to conceal.
It was breathtaking.
If she fully blossomed, wouldn’t she be even more dangerous?
Bai Qingqing secretly cursed inwardly.
Little vixen!