Lin Mingyuan followed exactly what Li Baoling had taught him…
Everyone was too afraid to make a sound; only Lin Guoqing asked again, “What did you say?”
Sun Zhaodi was also frantic. “You can’t just say things like that recklessly!”
“I’m not being reckless,” Lin Mingyuan repeated. “I said, I want to marry the female youth I saved—Li Baoling.”
Li Shufen and Wang Hongmei, the two sisters-in-law, stopped their bickering and exchanged a look. What was going on here?
Lin Guoqing stopped eating altogether. He snatched up the sole of his shoe and started swinging. “I was just thinking that our village couldn’t have a situation where a female youth is forced to marry just because she was rescued, and then, in the blink of an eye, you, you little brat, go and do exactly that! I swear, even beating you to death wouldn’t be enough.”
As if by muscle memory, Lin Mingyuan had set down his bowl the moment he saw his father fly into a rage. He immediately stood up and bolted; as expected, the old man really was coming for him.
“Can you let me finish!” Lin Mingyuan shouted as he ran circles around the yard.
“Finish? My foot!” Lin Guoqing didn’t even bother with his shoe anymore. He swapped it for the shoulder pole used to carry water in the yard. Not only was it long, but it was also a palm’s width wide.
Lin Mingyuan felt that if he got hit by that thing, he’d be sent straight to heaven.
“Mom! Mom! Save me!” At a time like this, he had to call for backup. However, no one except Sun Zhaodi dared to move.
The eldest and second brothers stood nervously at the entrance of the main house, looking ready to help at any moment, but neither dared to step forward.
The two sisters-in-law were even less inclined to help. Honestly, if “Little Four” got a beating, so be it.
“Old man, old man, listen to the boy first. Let him finish before you hit him,” Sun Zhaodi said. Although she also felt her son was unreliable, she knew he wouldn’t dare lie about something like this.
Lin Mingyuan didn’t dare run out of the yard. If others heard this and started spreading rumors, what would they do?
“Dad, Dad, really, listen to me! I’m absolutely not messing around. Stop! Stop! Let me finish!” Seeing that Lin Guoqing was about to catch up, Lin Mingyuan quickly hid behind his eldest brother, Lin Weidong.
“That’s right, Dad. Listen to what Little Four has to say first,” Lin Weidong added. He might have dared to intervene at other times, but he really didn’t dare get involved in this.
“Alright, listen to the child first. He only said one sentence and you started swinging. What if there’s more to it?” Finally, Sun Zhaodi managed to hold him back.
By now, several people were peering over the Lin family’s courtyard wall, watching the excitement.
“Lin Little Four, why aren’t you running outside?”
“If you only run inside the yard, we can’t see anything!”
“By the way, Captain, what did Lin Little Four do now? Didn’t he just do a good deed? Why are you hitting him again?”
“It’s nothing, everyone can go home now,” Sun Zhaodi began shooing the onlookers away.
By this time, Lin Guoqing had calmed down. Once the family was inside the house, he signaled the second son, Lin Weiguo, to close the door.
“Go ahead, speak. I want to see what kind of flowery words you can come up with!” Lin Guoqing was still holding the pole.
Lin Mingyuan glanced at his second brother. Now he knew how to close the door—just a moment ago he had stood by and watched him get beaten.
“Hurry up and tell Dad,” Lin Weiguo said, feeling a headache coming on as he looked at his younger brother, who seemed to get beaten every day.
Lin Mingyuan recalled the words Li Baoling had taught him and then said, “I like her. I’ve had my eye on her ever since she arrived in the countryside, so I’ve been secretly watching her. The reason I was able to save her so quickly when she fell into the river that day was because I was following her. But I didn’t do anything wrong! I wasn’t following her every day, just whenever I happened to run into her, I’d watch her for a bit.”
Worried his family wouldn’t believe him, Lin Mingyuan added some drama to his performance: “She’s so beautiful; I’ve never seen anyone so good-looking. She—she speaks so nicely, and she’s a good person. Anyway, I’ve set my heart on her.”
As Lin Mingyuan spoke, he pictured Li Baoling’s face. As he went on, he actually managed to make himself blush.
“Is she really that beautiful? I’ve only seen her once and didn’t look closely,” Li Shufen whispered to Wang Hongmei.
Wang Hongmei nodded. “Really beautiful. Almost on par with our youngest brother.”
Li Shufen understood immediately. Her father-in-law, Lin Guoqing, had bold features with thick eyebrows and large eyes. Her mother-in-law, Sun Zhaodi, was more petite; rumor had it she was very fair and pretty in her youth. Consequently, none of the Lin children were ugly. When she married into the family, it was halfway because she had taken a liking to Lin Weidong’s face.
But if you had to say who was the best-looking in the family, it was Lin Mingyuan. Li Shufen didn’t know how to describe it; from the first moment she saw her brother-in-law after marrying in, she thought: How can someone be this handsome? His eyes, his nose—everything was perfect. You couldn’t find someone like him in the surrounding ten miles and eight villages.
So, in the beginning, when her brother-in-law did something wrong and her father-in-law hit him, Li Shufen felt bad for him. But now? She could watch him get beaten without even blinking.
Listening to her two daughters-in-law gossiping, Sun Zhaodi also began to recall: What did that Youth Li actually look like?
“Hah! You like her? Would she like you back? She’s an educated youth from a big city; she’s seen all kinds of people. With looks like yours, the city is full of people like that!” Lin Guoqing threw cold water on him.
Lin Mingyuan curled his lip where his father couldn’t see. Full of people like me? It wasn’t like he hadn’t seen those “crooked melons and split dates” (ugly people) before.
However, he didn’t dare talk back. “She does like me. Why else would I dare come home and say this?”
That single sentence shocked the entire Lin family once again.
“Really!” Sun Zhaodi was the first to speak. She knew it—her son was so handsome, someone was bound to like him.
“Are you telling the truth?” Lin Guoqing also looked at him and asked.
“Really. I wouldn’t dare lie about this. If you don’t believe me, call her over and ask. Today I…” He couldn’t mention jumping into the river, so Lin Mingyuan had to keep making things up. “Today, I wanted to go to the youth hostel to see her again, but I ran into her on the road. Then she came over to thank me, and we… the two of us just clicked instantly.”
Seeing that everyone still looked skeptical, he added, “It’s what they call in books: liking someone the moment you see them—love at first sight!”
“Yes, yes, yes! I’ve heard of that too. Some people just fall in love the moment they meet. Love at first sight! That’s it!” Sun Zhaodi was his biggest supporter.
Lin Mingyuan glanced at his mother. At a time like this, he really had to rely on her.
Lin Guoqing, however, glanced at the mother and son pair. One had finished high school but was useless—a total waste—and the other was illiterate, yet here they were talking about “love at first sight.”
“And isn’t Mom always nagging me to find a wife? Well, I’ve found one for myself. I don’t like anyone else anyway, only her.”
“Have you thought this through?” Lin Guoqing asked him again.
“Mhm.” Lin Mingyuan nodded heavily, looking solemn and serious.
This left Lin Guoqing not knowing what to say. Regarding the children’s marriages, Sun Zhaodi usually took charge. She would do the research and arrange a blind date. If they liked each other, they’d get married. As long as the other family was honest and hardworking without major flaws, he would agree. He wasn’t the type to insist a child must marry a specific person.
So, with his youngest son suddenly bringing up this “free love” business, he really didn’t know what to do. If he agreed, he knew absolutely nothing about this youth—her family background wasn’t something he could just go and ask about. If he disagreed… well, even though this little rascal usually feared a beating, once he set his mind on something, no one could be more stubborn.
In the end, he’d have to let him have his way, or he’d never hear the end of it.
Sun Zhaodi also knew what Lin Guoqing was worried about, so she took the initiative. “Then I’ll find some time to go meet that youth and see what kind of person she is. I’ve lived a long life; I’m sure I have more sense than these young people. If she really is a good girl, we’ll agree to it. How’s that?”
“And you two, the wives of the eldest and second sons, if you run into her on the road, strike up a conversation. After all, if she joins the family, she’ll be your sister-in-law.”
Li Shufen and Wang Hongmei didn’t know how things had escalated to this point, but they weren’t the ones in charge, and it wasn’t them getting a new wife, so they could only nod obediently.
And so, while the Lin family spent the afternoon thinking about “accidentally” running into Li Baoling—and even the Captain, Lin Guoqing, was considering how to evaluate her when he saw her—Li Baoling took another leave of absence.
“Not coming to work again? Didn’t she say she was fine?” Lin Guoqing frowned.
Bai Xiujuan had no choice but to cover for Li Baoling. “She’s probably still a bit dizzy. After all, she choked on quite a bit of water. Besides, I heard her tossing and turning all night; she probably didn’t sleep well.”
Since she had suffered an ordeal, Lin Guoqing couldn’t say much. He was just a bit worried; these educated youths were already bad at farm work, especially the new arrivals—they were just there to make up the numbers.
But Lin Guoqing also knew his own son; he wasn’t exactly a saint either. He was the type to slack off whenever possible.
Therefore, his requirements for a future daughter-in-law weren’t that high, but she couldn’t be too delicate. City kids were fragile to begin with, not to mention he heard this girl named Li was from Beijing—that was the capital. Lin Guoqing originally believed that “children and grandchildren have their own destinies,” but now he couldn’t help but worry.
Seeing the Captain’s face remain dark, Bai Xiujuan’s heart started racing. He wouldn’t make me go back and fetch her, would he?
“Alright, go back to work,” Lin Guoqing waved her off.
Only then did Bai Xiujuan breathe a sigh of relief and walk away. On the other hand, Zhang Lihua, who had been watching the scene, was unhappy. Why didn’t the Captain let them go to the youth hostel and drag her out!
Li Baoling had no idea so many people were thinking about her. She was currently calculating her assets.
Calling it “assets” was really giving her too much credit. Based on the original owner’s “tireless efforts” and her own careful recollection, the current Li Baoling possessed: one thin quilt, a ragged little pillow filled with buckwheat husks, and a small chest. Inside the chest were a few sets of clothes, exactly three pairs of shoes, and two national grain coupons she had specifically exchanged before coming—only two were left. Everything else had been swindled away by that bastard Shen Xiangyang.
As for money, Li Baoling counted it: she had exactly eight yuan and nine cents left. She had brought nearly forty yuan with her when she came to the countryside—money she had saved penny by penny over two years by being reluctant to eat or drink. In the end, it had all been tricked out of her by Shen Xiangyang.
She would get it back sooner or later, or she’d die of anger.
The rest were just small trinkets. Actually, those things were easy to handle. What Li Baoling was most worried about right now was whether Lin Mingyuan was reliable and whether the Lin family had found out yet.
But what if they found out and didn’t agree? A female youth getting married to the Captain’s son shortly after arriving in the countryside—it sounded fishy to anyone’s ears.
Yes, it certainly was fishy.
Furthermore, she had missed one crucial link: even in this era, two people who liked each other should start by dating, rather than jumping straight to marriage. Wouldn’t that be a disaster!
Just as Li Baoling finished her nap, tidied up, and was lost in thought, she heard someone calling her from outside.
It was Sun Zhaodi.