Worried that Lu Jiaxin might say something even more shocking, Ding Jing turned to the crowd, who were only too happy to keep watching the show, and said, “It’s almost dinnertime, everyone should hurry back and start cooking!”
Auntie Xue said she wasn’t hungry and cooking a little later wouldn’t hurt. The others didn’t want to leave either, all standing there wanting to keep watching the drama unfold.
Ding Jing naturally wasn’t going to let her inside, but she also couldn’t force everyone to leave, so she shot Auntie Zhao a look.
Seeing this, Auntie Zhao immediately said to the crowd, “Come on, let’s go, let’s go. Manager Lu will be back any minute, no need for us to stand around here.”
Lu Jiaxin felt a pang of pity for the original owner. That poor girl had always thought Auntie Zhao was a good person, never imagining that this old woman was in league with Ding Jing.
The crowd only wanted their entertainment, but they didn’t dare offend the manager, so after hearing Auntie Zhao’s words they all headed downstairs. Still, as she went down, Auntie Xue couldn’t help calling back up, “Jiaxin, if you need anything just call for me!”
Ding Jing’s face turned dark.
Once everyone had left, Ding Jing shut the door and her expression changed completely. “Jiaxin, who is this person? You’re a grown young woman now, don’t just bring any random riffraff home.”
Xue Mao was furious, what did she mean by “riffraff”? This stepmother was truly vicious.
Lu Jiaxin ignored her completely and said to Xue Mao, “Help me pack up our things.”
Although everything of value in the room had been taken, the winter and summer bedding was still there. She was planning to move into the apartment her mother had bought, and packing these things up to take along would save quite a bit of money.
Seeing her only packing the bedding and a few small ornaments, Xue Mao asked, puzzled, “Sister Xin, aren’t we taking these books?”
If there was one thing this room had the most of, it was books, naturally. The desk, the drawers, the cabinets, all of it was stuffed full of books.
“Too heavy. I’ll come back for them later.”
Xue Mao asked, quite surprised, “Sister Xin, aren’t you planning to retake your exams and get into university?”
Every second counted when it came to the college entrance exam. Losing her memory before had been unavoidable, but now that she was preparing to retake it, surely the first thing she should do was take these books with her. He was a little worried, could it be that Sister Xin wasn’t planning to retake the exam after all? Otherwise there was no explaining this behavior.
Lu Jiaxin glanced at Xue Mao and said with a smile, “What, do you want to study? If you want to study, once we’ve settled down I’ll find someone to send you to night school.”
She wasn’t an especially brilliant person, in her past life she’d ground through practice problems endlessly just to get into the university she wanted, so much so that even after graduating with a master’s degree she still often dreamed of turning in a blank exam paper for the college entrance exam or the graduate entrance exam. There was no helping it, the scars ran too deep.
According to Lu Jiaxin’s own wishes, she had no desire to ever set foot in a classroom again. But this was her mother’s and the original owner’s hope, and since she’d taken over this body, she felt obligated to help fulfill that wish. So she’d still take the exam eventually, just not right now.
The moment Xue Mao heard this, he waved his hands to refuse. He was already grown, there was no need to waste money going to school.
Lu Jiaxin knew exactly where his weak spot was. “Xue Mao, if you don’t want to be poor your whole life, you need an education. Otherwise you won’t even be able to ask someone for directions when you’re out, and when you’re doing business with people later, they’ll cheat you with tricks buried in the contract and you won’t even know it.”
Xue Mao fell silent.
Lu Jiaxin stuffed the bedding into a woven bag and rolled up the bamboo mat, and seeing him still standing there dumbly, called out, “Xue Mao, why are you standing there like a block of wood? Hurry up and pack.”
“Oh, right, okay.”
They’d just finished packing the bedding when a flurry of rapid footsteps sounded outside. Soon, whoever it was reached her bedroom door.
Lu Jiaxin turned to look at the person standing in the doorway. He was tall, roughly one meter eighty by her estimate, wearing a gray Zhongshan suit, with a square face, deep-set eyes, hair gone half gray, and more wrinkles on his face than she remembered.
Lu Hongjun stood in the doorway, studying Lu Jiaxin carefully, and after a long moment said, eyes reddening, “You’ve gotten thin. And darker.”
Lu Jiaxin’s expression stayed cold. If he hadn’t married that venomous woman Ding Jing, the original owner wouldn’t have been schemed against to the point of losing her life.
Seeing her expression, Lu Hongjun felt a flicker of panic.
At this point Ding Jing spoke up. “Jiaxin, it’s fine if you misunderstand me and Siyi, but you shouldn’t take it out on your father. This past month while you were gone, your father couldn’t eat or sleep, out looking for you every single day. When he heard you’d been taken by traffickers, he fainted from shock and spent three days in the hospital…”
“Jiaxin, your father has treasured you in the palm of his hand all these years, you should think of his health a little more and stop being so willful.”
On the surface it sounded like concern for Lu Hongjun’s health, but in reality every word was an accusation of unfilial behavior. A child as young as the original owner would surely have flown into a rage hearing this. The two of them weren’t even playing the same game, no wonder the original owner’s reputation had ended up so ruined.
Lu Hongjun grabbed her arm and said, “The child just got back, why are you bringing this up now?”
Lu Jiaxin felt a dull ache in her chest, this was the original owner’s emotion bleeding through. She laughed coldly. “Everyone in the housing complex already knows I’m bad-tempered and unreasonable, let her say it, the louder the better.”
Ding Jing found this tricky to handle. In the past, if she’d said something like this, Lu Jiaxin would have been unable to argue back and would have retreated to her room. But now the girl had an air of having nothing left to lose, and Ding Jing felt she was losing control of the situation.
Lu Hongjun hurried to smooth things over. “Jiaxin, don’t be angry, your Auntie Ding is just worried about me…”
Every time a conflict arose, Lu Hongjun would try to paper over it, which only ever made the original owner angrier. But the one standing here now wasn’t the original owner, it was her.
Lu Jiaxin asked, “My bankbook and everything valuable in my room are gone. She says you put it all away.”
Lu Hongjun was startled for a moment, but quickly recovered. “Yes, I put it away.”
“Now that I’m back, give me back the bankbook and everything else.”
Before Lu Hongjun could respond, Ding Jing spoke up. “Jiaxin, you’re still young, it’s better for your father to keep holding onto the bankbook. If you need money, just ask him.”
She’d seen that bankbook, it held fifty-four hundred yuan. She’d already been planning to use that money to buy her own daughter an apartment, so the girl could hold her head high in the future.
Lu Jiaxin ignored her completely and looked at Lu Hongjun instead. “And what do you think?”
Lu Hongjun said, “I can give you the bankbook, but you can’t touch the money inside. Before your mother passed, she said this money was meant as your dowry.”
He knew perfectly well that even if he didn’t hand it over now, once his two nephews arrived he’d have to give it to her eventually anyway.
The 1980s were the golden window of China’s economic boom, anyone bold enough to take that first step during this period mostly ended up making money. So Lu Jiaxin was planning to go into business, and consider university again in a couple of years. Starting a business required capital, and with only a couple hundred yuan in her pocket right now, she planned to use the money her mother had left behind as her starting capital.
Lu Jiaxin had no intention of getting into a war of words with Lu Hongjun. “The withdrawal stamp is with you anyway, even if I wanted that money, I couldn’t withdraw it.”
Get the bankbook back first, then transfer her household registration over to the new apartment. Once that was done, she could take her household registration booklet to the bank, report the passbook lost, and withdraw everything inside.