“Mom, what happened to you?” Shen Zhixia asked, barely suppressing her laughter as she put on a concerned expression and helped Li Yuelan up.
“Where did you run off to? Were you planning to sneak away while I wasn’t paying attention? I knew this little bitch of mine was up to no good.”
Li Yuelan had taken a fall, which only made her angrier. She tried to strike Shen Zhixia again, but the moment she raised her hand, a searing pain shot through her arm, so she had no choice but to give up.
The people nearby all came over when they heard the commotion, whispering as they watched the two of them.
Shen Zhixia’s inner actress took over. With tears brimming in her eyes, she handed the basket in her hands to Li Yuelan.
“Mom, I wasn’t trying to sneak away. I just noticed that you and Dad haven’t had meat in a long time. Since I’m about to get married, I thought I’d buy some meat for you and Dad. I even bought you some cloth to make clothes.”
An older woman who had been watching the spectacle from the side couldn’t stand it anymore. She stepped forward and advised, “Sister, your daughter is so filial. She’s about to get married, yet she’s still thinking about you. Unlike my daughter—she only thinks about moving things to her husband’s family.”
Looking at the things in the basket, Li Yuelan asked suspiciously, “Are you telling the truth? You really weren’t planning to run away?”
Shen Zhixia nodded. “Really. Besides, my household registration booklet is still at home. Even if I wanted to run, I couldn’t.”
“At least you know what’s good for you.”
Li Yuelan took the basket and examined the cloth inside. There were a full eight or nine chi of it—if she used it sparingly, it would be enough to make herself an entire new outfit.
Then she remembered that Shen Zhixia’s household registration was still in the Shen family’s hands. As long as she did not hand over the booklet, there was no way this fool could pull anything off.
“Let’s go. We’re going to the Lin family’s.”
Shen Zhixia nodded and followed behind Li Yuelan. After walking two steps, she grabbed Li Yuelan and whispered, “Mom, I just remembered something. When I was buying the meat, I heard someone say that Director Lin’s mother has arrived. Apparently, that old woman really likes taking advantage of people. If we rush over there now, she’ll definitely use the opportunity to make our family provide more dowry. Why don’t we go tomorrow instead?”
After saying that, she quietly watched Li Yuelan.
She knew that with Li Yuelan’s temperament, she definitely would not go to the Lin family. Taking money out of Li Yuelan’s hands was like cutting flesh from her body.
Sure enough, the next second, Li Yuelan said, “Let’s go home. We’ll go tomorrow.”
Shen Zhixia curved her lips into a smile. Going home was good. Once they were home, she would have enough time to put everything in the house into her portable space. She would not leave them even a single hair.
When they returned home, Shen Jianguo was already sitting on the sofa, humming as he drank tea. He merely raised his eyelids when he saw them return.
But just by looking at him, Shen Zhixia knew that he had once again taken advantage of her marriage to extract no small amount of benefits from Director Lin.
At mealtime, she saw that, besides fish and meat, there was even alcohol on the table. She was even happier.
“The eldest’s job has already been arranged. It’s a permanent position at the machinery factory. As soon as he returns to the city, he can take the letter of introduction and proof of employment there to report for duty.”
At the table, Shen Jianguo took a sip of alcohol, then placed the letter of introduction bearing Director Lin’s name on the table and instructed Li Yuelan, who had the same smile on her face, “After we finish eating, go call the eldest. Tell him to have the village chief issue him a certificate and buy the earliest ticket back to the city.”
“I’ll go call Jiming right now.”
Li Yuelan wiped away the tears at the corners of her eyes, went back to her room to take some money, and quickly left.
Shen Jiming had already been sent down to the countryside for nearly five years. During all those years, they had tried every connection they could find but had still been unable to bring him back to the city. This time, he could finally return.
Because of Shen Jiming’s being sent to the countryside, Shen Jianguo and his wife had also complained about Shen Zhixia frequently. Originally, they had planned to send Shen Zhixia to the countryside, but because she was not old enough, they had ultimately been forced to send Shen Jiming instead.
Watching Li Yuelan’s departing back, Shen Zhixia sneered inwardly. Wanting that job was simply a pipe dream.
While Shen Jianguo was drinking, she quickly put the letter of introduction and proof of employment into her portable space. She would go sell the job later.
When Li Yuelan returned, her eyes were still red. It was obvious she had been crying. Seeing that Shen Jianguo had already drunk himself to sleep and that only the light in Shen Zhixia’s room was still on, she must have thought of her son’s imminent return and therefore did not go looking for trouble with Shen Zhixia. After washing up briefly, she returned to her room as well.
Shen Zhixia waited in her room until she was certain they were both asleep before opening the door.
She first went to the kitchen and wandered around, putting every pot, bowl, and utensil that could be taken into her portable space. She did not even spare the seasonings.
The furniture in the living room had all been newly bought with Fu Siyu’s money when she got married. She took all of it.
She gently opened the door to Shen Jianguo and Li Yuelan’s room. Snores were already coming from inside.
The bed they slept on had also been newly made at the time by someone Fu Siyu had found. She took it too.
The wardrobe, including all the clothes inside, was taken away.
The television had been part of Fu Siyu’s betrothal gifts to her. She absolutely had to take it with her.
After all that activity, Shen Zhixia looked with satisfaction at the empty room, then turned and left. She did not forget to add a lock to the front door, and she casually put the key into her portable space as well.
That way, even if Shen Jianguo and the others woke up in the middle of the night, they still would not be able to get out.
After leaving the residential compound, Shen Zhixia went to Granny Du’s house on the neighboring street. When the door opened, she walked inside.
Granny Du had always treated her well since she was little. Whenever Li Yuelan beat and scolded her and she hid outside, afraid to go home, it was always Granny Du who brought her back to her house.
Granny Du had an eldest grandson who had just graduated from high school and was preparing to be sent to the countryside. This was precisely the time when they were most anxious.
In the end, Shen Zhixia sold the job to Granny Du for eight hundred yuan.
She then went to the Revolutionary Committee and slipped a letter of denunciation that she had prepared long ago into the mailbox.
Only after confirming that everything she needed to deal with had been taken care of did Shen Zhixia pick up her suitcase and hurry toward the train station.
By tomorrow morning, when Shen Jianguo and the others discovered that their house had been emptied and that she had run away, it would be too late for them to give chase.
Even after boarding the train and finding her seat, Shen Zhixia still felt a sense of unreality.
Only when she looked at the scenery flashing past outside the train window did she finally feel the unfamiliarity of having arrived in this era.
She wondered whether Fu Siyu had received her telegram.
On the night the original Shen Zhixia had married him, Fu Siyu had returned to his unit because of a mission. The number of times the two of them had met could be counted on one hand. Later, apart from the allowance he regularly mailed back each month, they had no other communication.
They could be said to be familiar strangers.
The Fu Siyu in the novel was quite masculine-looking and handsome. She wondered whether he would look different in real life from how he had been described in the novel.
What she did not know was that at the 365th Regiment in a certain military region in the northwest, Fu Siyu had just returned from a mission when the communications unit delivered a telegram to him.
When he saw that the telegram said Shen Zhixia would arrive at the train station the day after tomorrow and wanted him to pick her up on time, he thought his eyes were playing tricks on him.
He read it carefully, word by word. Though it was only a dozen or so words, he went over it several times before finally confirming that his not-very-familiar wife was coming to join him in the military.
He glanced at the single-person rest room that belonged to him and frowned slightly.
He and Shen Zhixia had no feelings for each other, and he had assumed that she would not come to join him in the military, so he had never applied for family quarters. She would be arriving the day after tomorrow. He could not possibly make his wife share this place with him, could he?
He himself would not have minded, but in his impression, Shen Zhixia was delicate and soft. She definitely would not be able to endure such a hardship.
Thinking of this, he grabbed his cap and went upstairs.
The train clattered along with a “clang, clatter, clang, clatter.” When it reached An County, a woman carrying a child sat down.
Shen Zhixia glanced at her.
The woman’s clothes were covered in patches, but the child was clean and tidy. The shoes on the child’s feet were even the canvas sneakers currently in fashion.
She had seen those shoes today as well. A single pair cost twenty or thirty yuan.
Perhaps noticing Shen Zhixia’s gaze, the woman pulled the child closer, glared at Shen Zhixia, then turned around and headed toward another carriage with the child in her arms.
Following the principle that it was better to avoid trouble whenever possible, Shen Zhixia did not follow her.
In this unfamiliar world, she was really nothing more than a newcomer—a rookie.
Even if she knew that the woman just now might be a human trafficker, she was only a weak woman without the strength to truss a chicken, while the other party could not possibly be alone. She might even have a whole gang. If she followed her directly, it would be no different from delivering herself to them.
Who would have thought that before long, the woman who had left earlier would return? This time, however, she was not carrying the child.
Shen Zhixia guessed that the child must have been handed over to an accomplice.
Then why was she coming up to Shen Zhixia again? Was she planning to abduct and sell her?