Xu Wantang was thrown off by Lu Yunzheng's abrupt remark.
Ruining a military marriage? Jail time?
What did that have to do with her?
Xu Wantang's almond eyes suddenly widened as she finally understood what Lu Yunzheng meant.
He suspected she had someone on the side?
What kind of person did he take her for?!
Xu Wantang said coldly, "You can go ahead and buy the ticket to the island. Let me know in advance once the time is set."
With that, she picked up the large bag she carried with her and headed for the door.
"It's already this late. Where are you going?"
Lu Yunzheng's voice came from behind her.
Xu Wantang didn't stop walking, replying with icy sarcasm, "Where else? Off to run to my lover, of course."
She was still angry over Lu Yunzheng's suspicion just now.
In her past life, she had devoted herself entirely to Lu Yunzheng. Never mind having someone on the side—she'd never even spoken more than three sentences to another man at a time.
After Lu Yunzheng's death, she had run herself ragged trying to create better conditions for her adopted daughter, with no time and no inclination for any contact with men beyond what was proper.
Counting her past life and this one, she had lived a lifetime and a bit with Lu Yunzheng as her only man—and a cold-hearted man who could never be warmed no matter what. The more Xu Wantang thought about it, the more she felt it hadn't been worth it.
And even after all that, Lu Yunzheng still insinuated that she had someone on the side.
The more Xu Wantang dwelled on it, the more aggrieved she felt, and she made up her mind—
Once she got her divorce certificate, she was going to see what other men had to offer. Hanging herself from the iron tree that was Lu Yunzheng was far too great a loss.
Before she could even leave the study, Lu Yunzheng grabbed her wrist.
His tall frame completely enveloped her, and behind her came his somewhat flustered explanation, "I didn't mean to accuse you of anything."
Xu Wantang scoffed inwardly and made no reply, only hearing Lu Yunzheng continue,
"It's dark out. It's not safe for you to go out and find a place to stay alone. I'll buy the tickets tomorrow. Make do here for another couple of days—you take the bedroom, I'll sleep in the study."
Xu Wantang looked out the window. It was indeed dark.
It had still been light when she was about to leave. She hadn't expected Lu Yunzheng's return to hold things up for so long.
She wanted to get away from the Lu family, but at the same time, she wasn't going to gamble with her own safety.
Public order wasn't great in this era. Many people lived in poverty, and with weak legal awareness, plenty of troublemakers roamed the streets at night.
For safety's sake, Xu Wantang decided to stay at the Lu household for the night and head to the guesthouse first thing in the morning.
Xu Wantang didn't spare Lu Yunzheng so much as a glance. She went into the bedroom early, washed up quickly, and stayed holed up inside.
Except for Xu Wantang, no one in the Lu family had eaten. From outside the door came Zhang Xiuju's intermittent muttering and Zhao Youyou's discontented whining.
Then came the sound of the front door opening and closing—Lu Yunzheng had taken Zhang Xiuju and Zhao Youyou out to eat, leaving Xu Wantang in peace.
Lying on the bed, Xu Wantang began calculating what she had to her name.
Besides a dozen or so yuan in cash and a few IOUs written by her family, there was nothing left in Xu Wantang's pockets. She carefully examined those IOUs—some were for tens of yuan, some for hundreds, and the largest was for a thousand yuan. As Xu Wantang ran her fingers over that IOU, the events of her past life finally came into clear focus in her mind.
Xu Wantang's parents had secretly asked Lu Yunzheng for a one-thousand-yuan bride price, and she didn't find out until he came to her house to deliver the money, just before they registered their marriage.
A thousand yuan was no small sum. And although Lu Yunzheng was a cold man, he was remarkably generous. When they got married, he provided everything the Xu parents asked for: the "36 legs" of furniture and the "three rounds and a sound" (bicycle, watch, sewing machine, and transistor radio), missing nothing. What's more, at Mother Xu's request, he even bought a rare luxury item: a television set.
In the early 1980s, televisions had only recently entered the country, and hardly any of the neighbors in the surrounding area owned one. Buying all this for the wedding was already a major financial hemorrhage—Xu Wantang never imagined her parents would demand a thousand yuan on top of it!
Not only that, but as soon as the money arrived, her brother secretly took it away to buy a house, at their mother's instruction, and gave her a perfunctory IOU. After that, her brother never mentioned repaying it again.
At the time, she felt her parents and brother had handled the matter in a thoroughly dishonorable way, but she soon gave in under their relentless brainwashing. They said that the higher the bride price a woman fetched, the more her husband would cherish her. They said that no matter what, her natal family would always be her closest kin, the ones who treated her best—and that she ought to treat them well in return.
Looking back now, how was any of that treating her well? They had clearly been using her as a blood bank, coming to drain a little whenever anyone ran dry.
This time, she was determined to take back the money that belonged to her.
She had been planning to seize the moment and buy a few courtyard houses here in the capital, hold onto them until they appreciated in value, and become a wealthy woman. Once she got this money back, it could go straight into her house-buying fund.
If she remembered correctly, a courtyard house in a decent location these days cost nearly ten thousand yuan—she was still far from her goal.
At this thought, Xu Wantang felt a flicker of discouragement.
But the next second, she sat bolt upright, struck by a realization: she could sell her job!
After all these years, she had almost forgotten about her iron rice bowl. She was currently a radio announcer. Back when she graduated from high school, the radio station happened to be recruiting, and she had muddled along to the interview just to accompany her sister-in-law. To everyone's surprise, her sister-in-law failed and she was the one who got selected—for which she endured days of cold looks from her family.
Now that she was about to follow the army to an island, she would certainly have to give up her job. This was the perfect opportunity to sell it and save up the capital for buying a house!
In her previous life, after Lu Yunzheng died in the line of duty, her fixed salary couldn't cover the family's expenses. She had planned to sell her job back then too, but she was too easily swayed—she followed her mother's "advice" and gave the job to her sister-in-law instead, while she herself rode the wave of Reform and Opening-Up and went into small business.
At the thought of how her natal family had behaved afterward, a chill flashed through Xu Wantang's eyes.
The reason her previous life had been so miserable was inseparable from her bloodsucking, selfish, greedy natal family.
Her business had done quite well back then, and her income was several times what she'd earned at her job. Once her natal family found out, they came asking for money all the time.
Because she considered them family, Xu Wantang helped wherever she could: she paid a substantial sum when her eldest brother's family bought a car, when her second brother took a wife, and when her second sister-in-law needed a job arranged.
But once that money left her hands, it never came back.
Xu Wantang felt uncomfortable about it, but didn't pay it much mind. From childhood, her parents had "taught" her that anything good should go to her older and younger brothers first. Giving and sacrificing had long since become second nature to her.
But how had her natal family repaid her wholehearted devotion?
Once, she ran into a small problem with her business and asked her family to return some money to help her through it. They clearly had spare cash, yet they all turned hostile at once—completely different from the fawning faces they'd worn when borrowing from her. In the end, she had to grit her teeth and weather the crisis alone.
On the day she was driven to her death, her soul drifted beside her body for days, and not a single person came to claim her remains. Her natal family was too busy fighting over the little property she'd left behind, quarreling fiercely over her money. It was only when the police followed procedure and sent her body to the crematorium that she was finally allowed to rest in peace.
So in this life, she would let no one take advantage of her. Her job, her money—she wouldn't let anyone profit from them by a single cent!
Once she had finished sorting out her plans, Xu Wantang burrowed into her blankets and went to sleep.
The next day.
Xu Wantang was woken by a burst of knocking at the door.
She opened her eyes groggily, still dazed, and stared at her own delicate hands for a long while before remembering that she had been reborn.
Listening to the deafening pounding, Xu Wantang could almost certainly guess who was knocking: Zhang Xiuju.
Sure enough, the next second came Zhang Xiuju's shrill, shrewish command. "What time is it? Get up and make breakfast! You're not divorced from my son yet! Every extra day you're my daughter-in-law is another day you wait on me! Hurry up!"