Before this, Ning An had seen the male lead once at the post office. That time, she had nothing to do during her lunch break, so she went to the post office to buy stamps. She wasn’t picky—she bought one of everything she could get. Stamps came in 4-fen and 8-fen denominations. Though not expensive, Ning An went through the post office’s entire stock, spending several yuan in the process.
Far more than the 5 yuan the male lead had just withdrawn from the post office.
It was the first time since he arrived in Erdaogou that he had received money from his younger sister, and it would probably be the last.
Come to think of it, Li Changling was actually quite devoted to her family. Out of her 20-yuan monthly salary, she sent 5 yuan to her brother, gave 10 yuan to her parents and grandparents, and kept only 5 yuan for herself. For a 17-year-old girl, that kind of self-discipline was quite impressive.
Keep in mind, coarse grain cost 9 fen per jin and rice 13 fen per jin. Even with ration coupons, she still had to pay for her food. Keeping only 5 yuan for herself meant she could basically eat nothing but cornbread and pickled vegetables all month, rarely getting a few meals of refined grain.
Li Changling could do this because she had deep feelings for her family and was willing to do her utmost to make everyone’s life a little better. Being able to stay in the city was itself an expression of her family’s love for her, and she was willing to share both the joys and hardships with them, all in the same boat.
However, her feelings for Zhang Yujie were nowhere near as deep. Although they had known each other since childhood and got along well enough, that was all there was to it—it wasn’t enough to make her willing to suffer hardship for Zhang Yujie’s sake.
Since the money sent to Li Changwei went unspent anyway, she would rather send everything to her grandparents and parents than send her brother another cent.
That day, Li Changwei had stolen several subtle glances at Ning An, his eyes filled with envy and jealousy, along with a more deeply hidden resentment.
Perhaps he simply couldn’t accept that someone from a small backwater could live so well—dress so nicely, be so well cared for, spend money so freely and extravagantly, and chat and laugh with the post office staff.
While he, despite coming from a family of scholars, had to work in the fields alongside a bunch of country bumpkins, getting himself covered in dirt every day, so exhausted he couldn’t straighten his back. Not only was the food bad, he couldn’t even eat his fill.
Ning An was completely immune to such looks. In fact, the more frustrated and resentful the male lead felt inside, the happier she was. Li Changwei had to suffer through every bit of the hardship of these years in the countryside.
The male lead left before she did. As he walked out the door, who knows which foot misstepped—he tripped and crashed to the ground with a “thud” that made your knees ache just hearing it.
Wang Qiuju, the young post office clerk who had been looking at stamps together with Ning An, covered her mouth with her hand to keep from laughing out loud. This male educated youth simply couldn’t read the situation. Even after being sent down to the countryside, his eyes still carried that proud air of looking down on rural people, as if he were nobler than the peasants. He was truly insufferable.
Normally, she wouldn’t give someone like that a single friendly face. Plenty of educated youths came down to the countryside, and quite a few of them were good people. Some were especially good at fitting in—upon arrival, they would integrate into the environment, get along with everyone, and their words and actions put people at ease. For educated youths like that, Miss Wang Qiuju was warmer and more accommodating.
Ning An exchanged a smile with her. Although she hadn’t turned around, she knew exactly what had happened.
“Ju-bao, was that you?”
“Hmph! Who told him to look at An’an like that? Tripping him was going easy!”
“Good job. But bao-bao, we need to make him suffer slowly over time—don’t go and break him all at once.”
“I know, An’an, I have a sense of proportion. At most he’ll hurt for a few days—it won’t stop him from working.”
“You’re the best, Xiao Juza!”
After finishing picking out her stamps, Ning An stuffed two milk candies into Wang Qiuju’s hand. “Thanks, sis, sorry to trouble you all this time.”
“What’s there to thank? I got to read through them myself and familiarize myself with the work. Come visit me when you have time, okay?”
“Sure thing!”
That day, when Ning An was heading back from the storefront to the office, she ran into the male lead again—he was at the Gongxiaoshe, carefully calculating his purchases. Li Changwei had no ration coupons, so he could only buy goods that didn’t require them. Li Changling turned all the welfare coupons she received each month into goods and mailed them to the elders, with nothing left over for her brother.
Besides, apart from military-issued coupons and certain special tickets that were valid nationwide, most coupons were regional—a coupon from one city couldn’t be used in another.
Ning An chatted with the saleswoman as she watched the male lead spend one yuan fifty on a jin of White Rabbit milk candies, plus fifty fruit candies at one cent apiece, for a total of two yuan.
With these things in hand, Li Changwei turned and headed to the post office.
Xiao Juza told her, “The packages aren’t sent directly to Zhang Yujie—they’re sent to Wang Genzhu. An’an, Wang Genzhu is Zhang Yujie’s husband in the original plot.”
“They got together that early?”
“They’re not together yet. Zhang Yujie is just using him. The Zhang family were sent-down personnel in the village, which made everything inconvenient. The things the male lead initially mailed to Zhang Yujie never even reached the Zhang family. Later, Zhang Yujie hooked up with Wang Genzhu. She wrote to the male lead and told him to send everything to Wang Genzhu instead, who would then pass the items along to her.”
“Then do the things the male lead sends to his own parents and grandparents reach them?”
“The village the Li family was sent down to had better atmosphere than where the Zhangs ended up. The brigade leader never made things difficult for them. Any packages sent over were inspected by the brigade leader, and as long as nothing was wrong, they were handed over in full.”
“Goes to show how important a good leader is.”
“Yes. When the rule of law is underdeveloped, human nature and morality matter all the more. The leader of the Zhangs’ village wasn’t a bad person either—just extremely rigid.”
“And the male lead knows about Wang Genzhu’s existence and doesn’t mind at all?”
“Zhang Yujie explained the situation to him. He understood and sympathized with her difficulties, and trusted that she would never really get involved with some country bumpkin.”
All these details had been gathered by Xiao Juza after arriving in this Small World. The plot summary simply didn’t cover things this thoroughly.
Ning An puffed up her cheeks, not knowing what to say. From Zhang Yujie’s standpoint—she was a helpless woman who, in order to survive, sacrificed a little bit of morality and conscience, which was perhaps understandable… my foot.
You used the man—couldn’t you at least treat him well afterward? Use him and toss him aside, seriously?
Sinking her consciousness into the Xitong Kongjian, Ning An and Xiao Juza paged through the plot together. Both master and cat were the kind to cram at the last minute—before coming to the Small World, they’d only skimmed the story outline.
“The plot says Zhang Yujie never intended to marry Wang Genzhu in the first place—she just wanted to string him along. Once she returned to the city, the whole thing would fizzle out on its own; after all, Wang Genzhu could hardly chase her all the way to the capital. But later, when Li Changwei got married, Zhang Yujie was heartbroken, and also a bit angry and resentful. So she decided to marry Wang Genzhu, which would also make her own life much easier.”
“Even though Li Changwei could send her money and goods, she still had to do plenty of work. Marrying this village man would help her fit into the production team better and improve the Zhang family’s situation.”
“Besides, if Li Changwei could marry, why couldn’t she? They were both just trying to make their own lives a little easier. She didn’t blame Changwei, and Changwei shouldn’t blame her either!”
Well, well—Ning An and Xiao Juza both exclaimed, ‘Well, well!’
Ning An concluded, “So, as long as Li Changwei doesn’t get married, Zhang Yujie should be able to hold off on marrying too?”
“That seems to be the case.”
After thinking it over, Ning An felt, “Not necessarily, though. If Li Changwei later can’t provide her with any more support, then to improve the Zhang family’s situation, she might marry even earlier than in the original plot.”
In the original plot, Li Changwei not only gave her the money Li Changling sent, but later even scraped together money and goods from the original owner to send her—and even then, she still felt it was a hard life and went and got married anyway.
“That’s also possible.”
Man and cat continued working through the plot.
“When the Zhang family was rehabilitated and returned to the city, Zhang Yujie immediately filed for divorce. But unlike Li Changwei’s humble, kneeling, deceitful approach to divorce, Zhang Yujie’s conduct was far more ‘upright.’ She stated outright that marrying in the countryside back then had been a last resort, and now that she was returning to the city, their statuses no longer matched and they couldn’t live together long-term.”
“Wang Genzhu begged her to stay, but Zhang Yujie was unmoved. In the end, the two divorced anyway. The Wang parents cursed Zhang Yujie as an ungrateful ingrate, but she had already left the village and returned to the capital. No matter how much the Wang family cursed her, she couldn’t hear a word of it.”
“Zhang Yujie didn’t take her daughter with her. That child hadn’t been born from anything she’d hoped for. You could say the child was a witness to the lowest point of her life, evidence of the dignity she’d sold away to survive—she never wanted to see her again. And the Wang family didn’t care much for the child either. They even took their resentment of Zhang Yujie out on her, never letting her attend school, giving her endless chores every day. She never had a single good day in her life.”
Reading this far, man and cat exchanged glances. The male lead and female lead really were well matched.
Ning An made the call: “Let’s give Wang Genzhu a prophetic dream. If, after learning about his past life, he still decides to help Zhang Yujie, then we won’t interfere. We’ll just give a casual hand and won’t need to pay too much attention over there. The root of the original owner’s tragedy was still Li Changwei—Zhang Yujie was only the trigger. Oh, right—just let him know about Zhang Yujie’s exploitation of him and her cold-heartedness. The way the world turns doesn’t need to be explained to him.”
Xiao Juza immediately went to act. It knew Ning An was soft-hearted—the “unnecessary extra step” was purely for the sake of that girl who had not yet been born. That child surely wouldn’t want to be brought into the world by such a pair of parents.
As for the original owner’s child, the original owner herself hadn’t even wanted it.