The events of recent days had left Su Jincheng mentally and physically exhausted. He detested seeing outsiders, loathed their scrutinizing gazes, and despised their whispered conversations whenever they looked at him.
“Are your parents not home?” Cai Xiaolan asked softly after collecting herself.
Su Jincheng nodded. “Yeah, my mother came back briefly but went to the factory again.”
Hearing this, Cai Xiaolan grew bolder. She threw herself into Su Jincheng’s arms and began sobbing.
While crying, she rubbed against his body. “Wuwu… Brother Jincheng, I like you. Can you please not marry Ruan Tang?”
With her warm, soft body in his arms, Su Jincheng felt his thoughts wandering, but he still maintained some rationality. “Xiaolan, I like you too, but my mother won’t listen to me at all. She insists that I marry Ruan Tang.”
When he tried to plead his case, his mother called him useless and said he couldn’t control the urges in his pants.
Cai Xiaolan cursed inwardly while continuing to press against Su Jincheng.
“What should we do then, Jincheng? I don’t want to be separated from you.”
Su Jincheng pinched the soft flesh at Cai Xiaolan’s waist and tentatively suggested, “Xiaolan, what if we go to the countryside?”
He truly couldn’t stand his mother anymore – she controlled everything, leaving him no autonomy.
After being fired from the factory, he didn’t want to find another job either. He just wanted to go somewhere nobody knew him and start over.
But Cai Xiaolan didn’t share this sentiment. Her reason for getting close to Su Jincheng was to marry into a wealthy family and enjoy a comfortable life.
Going to the countryside would mean not just losing comfort, but struggling to survive.
Nevertheless, she said, “But what if we get assigned to different places? What should I do when I miss you?”
As she spoke, her hands climbed up to Su Jincheng’s shoulders.
Her warm breath sprayed near his ear, making his whole body tingle.
The suppressed desire in his heart resurfaced.
And grew increasingly intense.
“Jincheng, what should we do?” Cai Xiaolan deliberately spoke in a coquettish tone.
Su Jincheng’s breathing grew heavier, his entire body burning with heat.
A man who had tasted intimacy couldn’t withstand such provocation. Without further hesitation, he picked up Cai Xiaolan and carried her into his room.
Cai Xiaolan let out a surprised gasp, a flash of triumph in her eyes.
She needed to get pregnant with Su Jincheng’s child as soon as possible.
To secure her position as the Su family’s daughter-in-law.
Soon after…
Sounds evoking imagination emerged from the room.
Perhaps the collisions were too loud, stimulating the cicadas in the trees to chirp even louder.
…………
The Ruan Household.
Ruan Tang prepared lunch – noodle soup with a side of cold cucumber salad.
Since graduating from high school, she had been doing almost all the household chores.
In the Ruan family, because both Ruan Fu and Ruan Mu had to work during earlier years, Ruan Tang learned to cook when she was in second grade.
But given the Ruan family’s living conditions, they never cared whether food tasted good – as long as it was cooked through. So over the years, Ruan Tang’s culinary skills hadn’t improved much.
She served all the food and brought it to the dining table before calling her parents to eat.
“Dad, Mom, food’s ready.”
Ruan Fu came in from outside upon hearing her call, while Ruan Mu remained seated at the sewing machine without moving. “You eat first. I’ll join after mending this piece of clothing.”
As she spoke, her hands and feet continued working without pause.
The “click-clack” sound echoed as the blue work uniform moved along with Ruan Mu’s hands across the sewing machine.
The blue garment had been washed until faded, with the hem fraying into fine threads, yet Ruan Mu still couldn’t bear to throw it away.
Because one work uniform simply wasn’t enough, especially in summer when she had to change and wash it frequently. She had patched the worn-out areas by adding an extra layer of cloth inside, allowing her to make do for a while longer.
“Mom, just leave the clothes there for now. I’ll help you with them this afternoon. Come eat first, or the noodles will get soggy soon.”
Ruan Mu didn’t even look up. “It’s fine, you all eat first. I’ll be done in a moment.”
Ruan Tang had just sat down to eat when Big Brother Ruan returned home.
Ruan Fu glanced at him. “Why are you back now? Isn’t the factory busy today?”
Big Brother Ruan washed his face first, wiping his hands as he smiled. “Aren’t the Jiang family coming to propose today? I came back to check.”
As soon as he finished speaking, the clattering of the sewing machine stopped.
Ruan Fu lowered his head without responding, continuously stirring the noodles in his bowl. Ruan Mu withdrew her gaze and resumed pedaling the sewing machine.
Ruan Tang, however, remained calm. “It didn’t work out.”
“Brother, have you eaten? There aren’t many noodles left in the pot. Is steamed bun okay?”
Upon hearing this, Big Brother Ruan’s smile froze on his face. Ignoring his empty stomach, he anxiously asked, “Why didn’t it work out? Did they back out? Does that mean Tangtang still has to go to the countryside?”
Ruan Tang first went to serve Big Brother Ruan a meal before explaining what had happened that morning.
Big Brother Ruan looked at Ruan Fu in disbelief. “Su Jincheng has already been involved with someone else like that, and you still want Tangtang to marry him?”
“What were you thinking?”
“What kind of parents in this world would push their daughter into a pit of fire!”
He shouted the last sentence.
He trembled from the force of his outburst.
“Slap!”
A sharp slap rang out.
Ruan Mu had somehow appeared before him and slapped him across the face.
At over forty years old, her eye sockets were sunken, tears welling in her eyes, filled with restrained emotion.
“You have no right to say that.”
“Why do you think we agreed? It’s because their bride price was high. Your job cost the family most of our savings, and now you’re about to get married. Doesn’t the bride price require money? Or does the wedding not need money?”
“Our home is so crowded. Don’t you need to find a place to live when you get married? Don’t you need to buy furniture?”
“Your sister lives in a room barely over a meter wide. Do you think I don’t feel heartbroken?”
Ruan Mu wiped the tears from her face.
“I think it’s good for her to marry into the Su family. She’ll live in a grand two-courtyard house, have in-laws who earn well, no complicated relationships with sisters-in-law, and a ready-made job.”
“With such good conditions, why shouldn’t we agree? How is that pushing her into a pit of fire?”
“If she doesn’t agree, fine, but you don’t agree either. Do you two want to anger us old folks to death?”
After speaking, Ruan Mu plopped down on a chair, her chest heaving heavily, clearly very upset.
Ruan Tang felt conflicted; she had never realized her parents were under so much pressure.
Hearing Ruan Mu’s words, the anger in Big Brother Ruan’s heart had already extinguished.
His demeanor softened.
The family had indeed gone through a lot of trouble for his job.
Because his job was as a driver, but he needed training first, his salary was only a little over ten yuan—enough to support himself.
But saving up to marry? Currently, he couldn’t manage it at all.
So he didn’t dare to confidently promise that he could support the family without needing his sister’s bride price.
Big Brother Ruan helplessly squatted on the ground. After thinking for a moment, he said, “Mom, my marriage isn’t urgent. We can wait a bit longer.”
“Su Jincheng really isn’t marriage material. He’s already fooling around before they’re even married. What if he keeps messing around after they tie the knot? What will happen to our little sister then!”
Ruan Mu didn’t see this as a problem. “Once they’re married and he has a wife at home, why would he still go fooling around?”
“Besides, he’s not stupid. Having affairs after marriage is illegal. If he gets caught, he’ll be arrested. So you don’t need to worry about that.”