“Ah!” This time, Tang Zhenzhen was in so much pain that tears welled up in her eyes. She raised her hand and roughly shoved Ning Yuan away.
Ning Yuan had been hit on the back of the head with a stick and was already weak and dizzy. With such a push, she nearly fell off the wooden plank bed.
Rong Zhaonan, with his quick eyes and hands, darted forward. He steadied Ning Yuan and also helped her hold onto the tattered bedding that was about to slip from her grasp.
Tang Zhenzhen looked at her bleeding wound, then at Ning Yuan leaning against Rong Zhaonan, feeling both pain and fury.
That hussy, Ning Yuan, actually dared to bite her!
She immediately turned to the young man who had just kicked the door open. “Educated Youth Wang, what are you standing there gawking for!”
Wang Jianhua watched as Ning Yuan leaned weakly against Rong Zhaonan.
Although he had personally knocked Ning Yuan unconscious and sent her into Rong Zhaonan’s room to secure a spot to return to the city, seeing this scene still ignited a wicked flame of jealousy in his heart.
Wang Jianhua pointed his hoe at Rong Zhaonan and cursed angrily, “You beast in human clothing! How dare you defile our female comrade! Beat him to death!”
Following him were not only the furious Educated Youth from the Educated Youth Spot but also many villagers.
They were already prejudiced against “bad elements” like Rong Zhaonan, who had been sent down to the Cowshed for re-education.
The commune had instructed them to properly discipline these “bad elements” and make them engage in active labor to reform their thinking.
And now, a bad guy like this, sent here for re-education, dared to defile a female Educated Youth!
Beating him to death wouldn’t be going too far!
Like a disturbed hornet’s nest, the villagers, filled with righteous indignation, raised their hoes and shovels and charged viciously at Rong Zhaonan!
A chilling murderous intent flashed in Rong Zhaonan’s cool eyes, and he clenched his fists, veins bulging.
But as he looked at the group of Educated Youth and villagers rushing toward him, he suddenly relaxed his clenched fists.
The man closed his eyes in forbearance and gave a self-deprecating sneer—ha.
After being discharged from the military and sent down here, he should be used to such scenes, shouldn’t he? It wasn’t the first or second time.
But the next moment, he suddenly felt himself being forcefully pulled back.
The girl who had been half-leaning against him now stood in front of him, shouting at the charging crowd—
“Stop! He didn’t defile me! We’re in a relationship!”
This shout was like a clap of thunder, striking the heads of the righteously indignant people in the room.
The crowd froze, their raised hoes and shovels stuck in mid-air.
A look of astonishment flashed in Tang Zhenzhen’s eyes. Then, her mind raced, and she put on a look of disbelief.
“Ning Yuan, what are you saying? You and this bad element are in a relationship… The clothes you’re wearing… they’re his!”
Ha, that idiot Ning Yuan was actually soft-hearted enough to protect Rong Zhaonan.
That was for the best. The spot for the factory job to return to the city would never be hers!
Ning Yuan looked at her coldly. “Yes, Rong Zhaonan and I are in a relationship.”
“Are you crazy?!” Wang Jianhua stared at Ning Yuan, his eyes wide with disbelief.
He had pursued Ning Yuan for so long, but she had looked down on him, even flirting with the youngest deputy secretary in the brigade.
The spots for the factory job to return to the city were so rare this time—only two—and Ning Yuan had secured one. Was it just because she had hooked up with that deputy secretary?
In a fit of anger, he had conspired with Tang Zhenzhen to knock Ning Yuan out, strip her, and put her in the room of Rong Zhaonan, this bad element who swept the Cowshed, before staging this whole drama.
With her reputation ruined, Ning Yuan wouldn’t be able to pass the assessment for the job.
But in eight or ten years, when everyone had forgotten about this, Ning Yuan might still have a chance to return to the city.
But now, this stupid woman was actually sympathizing with Rong Zhaonan, claiming to be in a relationship with this bad element. Had she gone mad?
If she married and settled down in the countryside, she would never be able to return to the city in her lifetime!
But Wang Jianhua opened his mouth and, in the end, said nothing.
Instead, a sharp-featured, middle-aged woman who had followed them in was the first to sneer.
“Well, well, so you couldn’t stand the loneliness and decided to be a hussy! How shameless, getting hot and bothered all the way to a bad element’s bed!”
She was Tang Zhenzhen’s second aunt and, of course, knew what Tang Zhenzhen was up to. She immediately kicked Ning Yuan while she was down.
The villagers’ gazes toward Ning Yuan instantly filled with contempt and disgust.
If this were their own daughter sleeping with a man before marriage, she would have been drowned in a pig cage before Liberation! What a disgrace!
Ning Yuan gritted her teeth and stared at the middle-aged woman. “First, Rong Zhaonan and I are in a relationship. He’s an unmarried man, and I’m an unmarried woman. That’s not being a hussy! Your daughter, Xiaohua, is also in a relationship with Heizi from the next village. Is she also a hussy? Is she also shameless?!”
The middle-aged woman’s hackles were instantly raised, and she jumped up. “What nonsense are you spouting!”
Ning Yuan ignored her and looked at the village party secretary, who was standing at the door with a frown. “Old Secretary, I don’t know what Tang Zhenzhen saw, but I was cutting pigweed by the stream, accidentally fell into the river, and he saved me. He just brought me back to change my clothes!”
Everyone knew there was a small stream right next to the Cowshed.
“We’ve already decided to apply for marriage. I’ll go to the brigade tomorrow to get the letter of introduction!” Ning Yuan declared again, crisply and decisively.
Her straightforward words left the villagers and Educated Youth somewhat dazed.
Anyone could see that she was protecting Rong Zhaonan.
“Ning Yuan, your ideological awareness is too low! How could you get mixed up with a bad element who sweeps the Cowshed!” Wang Jianhua’s face turned green with anger.
Ning Yuan had consistently rejected his pursuit, a newly acclaimed Five-Good Youth of the brigade, yet she was so protective of a man she had barely met twice, a man everyone else avoided like the plague?!
The old secretary finally tapped the doorway with his pipe and spoke with a frown.
“Since it’s a misunderstanding, and Educated Youth Ning has said she’s getting a marriage certificate with Doctor Rong—and no one ever said people sent down for re-education can’t get married—everyone, disperse!”
He didn’t want any trouble breaking out between the Educated Youth sent to the countryside and the re-education elements.
If word got to the Educated Youth Office and the commune, their advanced brigade would lose its red flag, and their collective work points would be docked.
Seeing that the old secretary had spoken, the other villagers felt awkward about staying any longer.
They cast a disdainful glance at Ning Yuan by the bed and turned to leave one by one.
Tang Zhenzhen was ecstatic. She and her second aunt decisively pulled the indignant Wang Jianhua away as well.
She couldn’t let Wang Jianhua’s jealousy make him do something foolish and ruin the “fated marriage” between Ning Yuan and that bad element, Rong Zhaonan.
Rong Zhaonan closed the drafty main door and turned to look at Ning Yuan. He saw her forehead covered in a nervous sweat as she sat on the wooden plank bed, clutching the blanket.
Behind his thick, black-framed glasses, an inscrutable light flickered in his narrow eyes. “Why did you help me?”
To offer help for no reason is to be either a traitor or a thief.
Ning Yuan heard the coldness and vigilance in his words and remained silent for a moment. “Because helping you is helping myself.”
Rong Zhaonan pushed up the glasses on the bridge of his nose, his gaze as cold and sharp as an interrogator’s. “Is that so? Explain.”
Ning Yuan didn’t know when he had come to stand before her, but the man was extremely close.
So close that she could smell the cold, crisp scent on him.
Flustered, Ning Yuan tried to shrink back. “Get away from me.”
Seeing her “guilty” look, Rong Zhaonan subconsciously reached out and pressed down on her shoulder, his voice cold. “What are you hiding from?”
Ning Yuan flinched as a large, masculine hand gripped her collarbone and shoulder beneath her collar.
The strange, unfamiliar touch made her face flush, and she couldn’t help but struggle. “What… are you doing!”
In the struggle, the blanket suddenly fell to the floor.
…