Her hope!
Her life!
“Ah!! My space! My money!!”
Xie Silin hurriedly jumped down from the railing, squatting on the floor, staring at the jade bracelet shattered into three or four pieces.
It’s over!
Her only hope was gone!
Xie Silin plopped down on the floor and rubbed her legs.
“It’s all your fault! All your fault! Xie Li, you bitch! It’s all your fault!!”
She went completely mad, her eyes bloodshot, blaming all her misfortune on Xie Li.
“Blame me, or blame yourself?”
Xie Li spread her hands.
“That doesn’t matter anymore. Either way, the rest of your life will be spent suffering in the labor reform farm you might even die young.”
She was reaping what she had sown. She deserved it.
“Xie Li, I won’t let you go! I curse you! I curse you to capsize at sea, get beaten to death on the street, get run over by a train!!”
Xie Silin had gone completely insane.
Xie Li tilted her mouth in a smirk.
“I curse you to get hit with a few more rotten eggs while being paraded through town!”
Hardly harmful, but extremely insulting!
“Xie Li!!!”
Xie Li walked away.
Xie Silin went mad.
Truly mad.
Instead of being sent to the labor farm, she ended up in a mental hospital.
Meanwhile, Xie Qingsong and Wu Fengrao were sent to the labor farm to carry heavy loads, be publicly criticized, and receive “education.”
Their later lives were wasted.
Xie Li was in a good mood. She used the introduction letter to buy a ticket for a ship to Liaoning Province.
In the novels she’d read about this era, taking the train always meant encountering kidnappers or enemy agents. She didn’t want to create unnecessary trouble for herself.
After buying the ticket, she went shopping on Nanjing Road in Shanghai and at Youyi Department Store, buying a few clothes.
Previously, due to work, she rarely wore the cute dresses and small heels girls liked. This time, she bought five skirts, three pairs of soft leather heels, and two hair clips.
The styles were conservative enough to satisfy her desire to wear skirts but not enough to be labeled a spoiled little bourgeois.
Her natural looks were excellent beautiful, fair-skinned, tall almost identical to Xie Li before she arrived.
Now, with this outfit, she stood out even more in the crowd.
She finished packing. Three hours remained before the ship departed.
Xie Li went to a state-run restaurant for a meal and borrowed a phone to call Shen Huainian.
“Hello, hi!”
The same clear-voiced man answered.
Xie Li remembered his name was Xiao Qi.
She had a photographic memory; anything she heard or saw, she could remember, including every person her gaze passed on the streets!
Before arriving here, she had been one of the most powerful brains that many countries wanted to recruit.
“Hello Xiao Qi, this is Xie Li. I’m looking for Shen Huainian.”
There was a pause on the other end, then an overly enthusiastic response:
“Sister-in-law! Our commander is on a mission and hasn’t returned yet, but he should be back in a few days. If it’s urgent, you can tell me, and I’ll relay the message!”
Xiao Qi carefully chose his words, afraid that too much enthusiasm would scare her into hanging up.
Xie Li thought for a moment and said:
“Nothing urgent. When he returns in the next few days, please tell him I’m coming. I’ll arrive in four days.”
And that was “nothing urgent”?
This was a huge matter!
Besides national affairs, nothing could be more important than the lonely commander finally finding a wife!
Xiao Qi hurriedly replied:
“Understood, Sister-in-law. How you’re getting here if it’s inconvenient, I can request someone from the unit to pick you up.”
“No need, thank you!”
Xie Li hung up.
That afternoon, she boarded the ship to Liaoning Province.
The cabin was extremely crowded, filled with voices, crying children, and the broadcast, a cacophony that made her scalp tingle.
Xie Li carried her suitcase to find her berth.
The cabin was filled with a mixture of smells: sweat, smoke, damp sea air, the stench of rotten egg yolk, and various foods.
She had purchased a fourth-class cabin, which was relatively decent.
These cabins weren’t easy to get; only some officials or civil servants on business trips could buy them using an introduction letter from their workplace.
Xie Li had used Shen Huainian’s letter to secure hers.
Fourth-class cabins had fixed berths in enclosed spaces, two beds per compartment.
Traveling light, Xie Li found her berth.
The bunk beds, two levels, had slightly yellowed white sheets and a dark green wool blanket. Xie Li had the lower bunk.
She hadn’t even sat down when someone took the upper bunk a visibly pregnant woman, at least six or seven months along.
Xie Li considered whether she should exercise rare generosity and offer the woman her lower bunk.
Before she could speak, the pregnant woman climbed up herself with a swift movement.
Xie Li: “…”
The woman wasn’t talkative, and Xie Li didn’t want to talk either. She lay down and closed her eyes.
Clang!
The cabin door opened, and a man carrying a mesh bag barged in.
Plainly dressed, unremarkable someone you’d forget in a crowd.
“Hey! Comrade! You’re in the wrong spot that’s my berth!”
The man spoke in a slightly off Beijing accent and reached to pull Xie Li.
Xie Li: “…”
She really wanted to complain she had tried to avoid trouble, yet it found her.
She desperately wanted to tell the man: “Bro, your disguise is terrible! Your Beijing accent is fake, and who travels far by ship with just a mesh bag? Besides, your eyes are glued to the pregnant woman above me!”
Sighing, she decided to cooperate.
“Oh, my mistake! I’ll pack up and give you the spot right away.”
The man looked surprised; he had been reaching for his pocket to show her his papers so she’d cooperate.
But she did it willingly.
Xie Li packed up her suitcase and moved.
Professional instincts kicking in, she analyzed the situation:
The pregnant woman was suspicious and not in a small way.
Just as she left the cabin, a tall, burly man blocked her path.
Without a word, he pressed a dagger to her waist, lowering his voice to threaten:
“Don’t move!”
Xie Li: “…”
Twist, twist…
The man froze, anger creeping into his voice:
“Don’t move, or I’ll stab you!!”
Xie Li stayed silent, just wriggling…
She felt something dirty on the bed a flea had crawled onto her.
Man: “!!!”
Twist your damn self, you little pest! I really want to stab you!!