Although all the evidence was right there, Liu Cuihua still refused to believe it in her heart. She wanted to go see for herself.
If Mingxi really had a salary, she would go make a scene and ruin her job!
However, the brigade leader absolutely refused to issue her the required certificate. “What are you going there for? You can’t read and don’t know the way. If you get lost on the road, wouldn’t that just cause trouble for Jianguo?”
Liu Cuihua planted her hands on her hips, lifted her chin, and shouted, “I may not know how to read, but my daughter does! The two of us will go together!”
The brigade leader sneered coldly, not wanting to deal with them.
These two had been to town so few times they could count the visits on their fingers, and now they wanted to take a train to find Mingxi? They must be dreaming.
Since the brigade leader wouldn’t issue the certificate, Liu Cuihua started making a scene right there, and more and more people gathered to watch the spectacle.
Liu Cuihua had already heard plenty of gossip from the villagers anyway. Let them talk—she was determined to go.
The brigade leader had actual work to do, but with this mother and daughter blocking the doorway, he couldn’t even leave. After they’d been causing a commotion for a while, he said helplessly, “You’re not even Mingxi’s mother-in-law anymore. You have no connection to her. What are you going there for?”
Liu Cuihua shrilled bitterly, “I’m going to see if that little hussy is deceiving people! I’m going to uphold justice!”
The brigade leader rolled his eyes. Uphold justice, indeed. If only someone would “uphold justice” by getting rid of you—that would be a good thing.
“I think you’ve lost your mind. What does Mingxi have to do with you? Why do you need to ‘uphold justice’? Mingxi is a doctor at the hospital now—she’s, what’s the word, right, colleagues with your Jianguo. If you go there and make a scene, not only will Mingxi be embarrassed, but your Jianguo will lose face too.”
Mention of her son brought a sliver of reason back to Liu Cuihua, but only a sliver.
Lin Hongmei added fuel to the fire from the side, “We haven’t done anything wrong. How would we make Jianguo lose face?”
Liu Cuihua: “That’s right, the one in the wrong is that little hussy, not us.”
The brigade leader watched them silently, his face full of speechless exasperation.
How could these two say such things? They truly had no conscience. Why did the world have to have such shameless people?
When that Lin family man was still alive, Liu Cuihua hadn’t been like this. Was it that after her husband died, she decided to throw her face away along with him?
“Just calm down. What’s the use of making a scene here? Can I just issue certificates randomly? What reason do you have for going out?”
Lin Hongmei: “We’re going to visit family, to see my brother. Other families can go visit relatives, so why can’t ours?”
Liu Cuihua: “Yes, we’re going to visit family!”
The brigade leader really wanted to slap them both, especially Lin Hongmei.
It was bad enough that Liu Cuihua had no sense, but this young person had no sense either, constantly adding fuel to the fire and stirring up trouble. Visiting family? What family? Lin Jianguo hadn’t come back for years. After he made something of himself, he never once thought to bring his mother and sister to live with him.
Still, the reason was valid enough. The brigade leader couldn’t be bothered to argue with them anymore and said bluntly, “I’ll ask Jianguo first. If you really want to go see him, I have to notify him in advance.”
He could only hope Jianguo had some sense left.
After this was settled, the mother and daughter were finally sent away.
The brigade leader wiped the sweat from his forehead and first notified Mingxi. The message for Lin Jianguo was secondary, since his mother and sister cared about him, but those two were mainly coming to harass Mingxi, so Mingxi had to be notified first.
When someone came to call her for her first-ever phone call, Mingxi found it quite novel.
“Brigade leader, you’re saying Liu Cuihua and her daughter are coming here to make trouble for me?”
Mingxi hadn’t expected these two women to still have a role to play at this point. She and Lin Jianguo were already divorced – how could they still come harass her? Were they out of their minds?
The brigade leader sighed and said, “They really are unreasonable. Just be prepared. After you finish this call, please have someone bring Lin Jianguo over. I need to notify him first.”
Mingxi had someone else go call him – she certainly wasn’t going to do it herself.
By the time Lin Jianguo arrived, Mingxi had already left.
Learning that his mother and sister were coming, Lin Jianguo’s voice cracked with shock, “What are they coming here for? Isn’t my life chaotic enough already?”
He had been extremely stressed lately, with all kinds of problems piling up at once. He hadn’t handled work matters properly, nor had he sorted out his personal affairs. How could he possibly have time to deal with them?
The brigade leader said, “There’s nothing more I can do. I’ve tried reasoning with them and talking to them, but if I didn’t agree, they’d just block my doorway.”
“Besides, you really haven’t returned for two years. Since you’re not coming back, you can’t educate them. Maybe it’s good that they’re going – find some time to discipline and educate them properly. I don’t mean to be harsh, but your mother and sister really do have some issues with their thinking.”
Lin Jianguo hadn’t expected the brigade leader to speak so bluntly. When he left back then, his family had maintained good relationships in the village.
The brigade leader continued, “It’s not that I want to speak so harshly, but your mother and sister have offended too many people. When Mingxi was here, they bullied her daily. Anyone who spoke up for Mingxi would get shouted at like they were setting off firecrackers.”
“After Mingxi went to divorce you, their temperaments became even stranger. If you don’t control them, they’ll eventually cause major trouble, and that will affect you too.”
Having said what needed to be said, the brigade leader hung up after Lin Jianguo agreed.
How could things have come to this? How was it exactly as Mingxi had said – that they’d offended so many people? What exactly had his mother and sister been doing back home?
After notifying Lin Jianguo, the brigade leader prepared the necessary documents for them.
This was Liu Cuihua and Lin Hongmei’s first long trip, and they were so excited they couldn’t sleep all night.
They packed this and that, unwilling to leave anything behind, eventually ending up with two enormous bundles.
One had to wonder if their slight frames could even carry such loads.
When the brigade leader came to see them off and saw their two massive bundles, he was speechless. “Have you packed your entire house? Nobody travels like this.”
Liu Cuihua retorted, “This is how we travel. What if someone steals our valuable belongings while we’re away?”
The brigade leader fell silent: Fine, do whatever you want.
Too concerned to leave them alone, the brigade leader personally accompanied them to the station and saw them onto the train.
Lin Jianguo would meet them at their destination station – they just needed to sit quietly on the train until then.
But they couldn’t even manage to behave properly. On the very day they arrived, the brigade leader received news of their disappearance.
“Everything was arranged for them, yet they still managed to vanish. What kind of mischief are they up to!”
Lin Jianguo was also going crazy with anxiety. Even Mingxi had received the news.
Yue Kai came to deliver a meal and asked curiously upon hearing the news: “The two people who came to cause you trouble have gone missing?”
Mingxi nodded and sighed: “They’ve brought this upon themselves.”