When Ning Xin saw Zhu Chunhong approaching, her face, which had just been defending her moments ago, turned deathly pale.
Startled and panicked like a little rabbit, she instantly burrowed back into Wang Jinying’s arms.
She clutched Wang Jinying tightly, buried her face in the woman’s chest, and couldn’t help but sob aloud.
Seeing the child so terrified, the onlookers were absolutely outraged!
One after another, people stepped forward to stand in front of Ning Xin and Wang Jinying, blocking Zhu Chunhong from getting through.
“What do you think you’re doing?” someone shouted harshly at Zhu Chunhong.
“Move aside! Don’t get in the way of me teaching this little brat a lesson!”
Zhu Chunhong shoved and cursed, pushing her way through the crowd.
She brandished her rolling pin menacingly above people’s heads, as if to say, “Anyone who gets in my way gets a taste of this first.”
It wasn’t that Zhu Chunhong couldn’t read the room, she was simply out of her mind with rage.
On top of that, in her mind, this was nothing more than disciplining her own child, which had nothing to do with anyone else.
If people wanted to gawk, let them, she actually wanted someone to judge who was right! This little brat had stolen her family’s job and hit her. Didn’t she deserve to be put in her place?
Blinded by fury, she completely failed to notice the angry expressions on the faces around her.
Even after Officer Xiao Li grabbed her arm and snatched away her rolling pin, she kept hurling insults, her words so filthy they were unbearable to hear.
Having provoked the wrath of the crowd, Zhu Chunhong was taken to the police station. Several people from the onlookers stepped forward and volunteered to testify as witnesses.
Meanwhile, Ning Xin was taken by Wang Jinying to the neighborhood clinic to have her wounds bandaged.
At the time, Ning Xin had smeared the blood from her nose all over her face, hoping it would make her injuries look more severe. But she had no idea that Zhu Chunhong had struck her with brutal force, and when she fell, the back of her head had slammed against the concrete floor.
She had managed to keep her composure until then, but the moment she relaxed at the clinic, she passed out.
When she woke up again, the first thing Ning Xin heard was Wang Jinying shouting from outside the ward.
“What kind of brother are you, letting your sister get bullied like that? I don’t care if she’s an aunt or not, even a real mother has no right to beat a child like that! How deep could the grudge be to give a child a concussion?!”
Ning Yi, let me tell you something. You go back to your hometown right now and bring your grandmother here. If you’re too embarrassed to ask her, I’ll have the police ask her! Ask her if she taught her daughter-in-law to do something like this! Ask her if the Ning family only knows how to raise such a vicious wife who beats her own niece half to death?!”
“Auntie, it’s my fault. I shouldn’t have left Xiao Xin at home alone,” a man’s voice said in a low, muffled tone.
“That’s what you think you did wrong?” Wang Jinying suddenly raised her voice.
Then came a sharp smack, the dull sound of a palm striking flesh.
It was loud, and Ning Xin winced at the sound, as if she could feel the pain herself.
She knew that Auntie Wang was disciplining her so-called “good-for-nothing brother” on her behalf.
Sure enough, Wang Jinying’s voice followed right after.
“Ning Yi, your father and my Old Liu were like brothers. By rights, this slap should have come from him. But since he’s not here, I’ll do it for him! I’m hitting you because you’re now the head of the Ning family, the one who holds the household together, and you don’t even know what you did wrong!
You and Xiao Xin both grew up under me and your Uncle Liu’s watch. Now that your father is gone, let me tell you, your mistake wasn’t leaving Xiao Xin at home. It’s that you haven’t established your family’s authority! You’ve let people think that just because your father is no longer here, your family is an easy target!”
Wang Jinying continued in a tone full of frustration, like a blacksmith disappointed in the steel. “If your father were still alive, would your Third Aunt dare to beat Ning Xin like that? It’s only been a few days since he passed, and your sister has already been beaten to this state… Ning Yi, aren’t you afraid your father won’t be able to rest in peace?”
“I was wrong, Auntie. I was so wrong!” The man outside suddenly broke into sobs, his voice filled with endless self-blame and regret.
Hearing this, Ning Xin felt as if she were the one dying.
She couldn’t bear to listen any longer. Summoning her strength, she called out, “Brother!”
“Xiao Xin’s awake! Xiao Xin’s awake!”
With an excited shout from the man outside, the ward door was pushed open forcefully, and two faces instantly appeared before Ning Xin’s eyes.
One was Wang Jinying’s. The other belonged to her so-called brother, Ning Yi.
Ning Yi was about twenty-five or twenty-six, tall and lean. Having given up the job inheritance opportunity to his sister, he now worked as a temporary laborer at a coal yard.
At that moment, he was wearing a sleeveless vest, covered in grime, clearly dragged straight from work. His face was streaked with coal dust, smeared black and gray from him wiping away tears with his dirty hands. On his shoulder, the red mark from Wang Jinying’s slap was still visible.
All in all, he looked utterly wretched.
Seeing his sister looking so listless, just staring at him without saying a word, Ning Yi’s heart ached for her.
He reached out to touch Ning Xin’s face, but perhaps feeling that he was too dirty, his hand stopped in midair.
His eyes were full of worry, and he kept asking, “Xiao Xin, does it still hurt? Are you feeling dizzy? Is there anywhere else that feels uncomfortable?”
Although it was clear that Ning Yi’s concern was sincere, Ning Xin still felt a little uneasy.
After all, to her, the man before her was still essentially a stranger.
She didn’t answer Ning Yi’s questions. Instead, she got straight to the point. “Brother, I don’t want to give that job to Third Aunt.”
“Don’t give it. Don’t give it. That job is yours, Xiao Xin. We won’t give it to anyone!”
Ning Yi didn’t expect his sister’s first words upon waking up to be about this. His heart ached for her even more, and he made the promise without a moment’s hesitation.
Ning Xin paused for a moment. “I also don’t want you to go bail Third Aunt out of the police station. She… hit me!”
As she spoke, she pouted her lips in grievance.
“Not bailing her out! We won’t bail her out!” Ning Yi’s answer was even more resolute.
Seeing his sister like this, and thinking back to what Auntie Wang had said to him outside the door, Ning Yi straightened his chest and said loudly, “Even if Grandma comes, I won’t agree to bail her out. Even if Third Uncle asks, it won’t work. You can rest assured.”
Receiving such support from her brother made Ning Xin feel much better inside, and she also felt a little closer to him.
Although the person Zhu Chunhong had initially hit wasn’t her, now she was the one in pain!
She was in pain, she felt nauseous, and her face was swollen like a pig’s head.
In neither of her two lives had Ning Xin ever suffered such humiliation. How could she just swallow her anger?!
No matter what, she couldn’t give up this job and let that woman take advantage of her!
Instead of letting an outsider benefit from the job, why not give it to her own brother?
Ning Xin looked at Ning Yi and said, “Brother, I don’t want this job anymore. You go work at the factory. After all, that job was originally meant to be yours.”
“Huh? No way! Once it’s given to you, it’s yours!” This time, Ning Yi refused to agree.
Their father had died the day before Ning Yi was set to return to the city from the countryside, due to a machinery accident.
He wasn’t supposed to be on shift that day, but in order to free up time the next day to pick up his son, he had specifically swapped shifts with a colleague, and then the accident happened.
Because of this, Ning Xin placed all the blame for their father’s death on her brother, believing that if it weren’t for him, their father wouldn’t have died.
From the day Ning Chengwen passed away until the funeral, apart from the time when the unit leaders came to visit their home and she firmly demanded the job inheritance quota, she didn’t say a single word to Ning Yi.
She made her aversion to her brother perfectly clear.
Ning Yi was deeply self-blame about it as well.
So when his sister asked to take over the job, he didn’t hesitate for a moment and agreed.
The very next day, he went to the coal yard and found a temporary job hauling coal.
This was 1980, a time when large numbers of returning educated youth were stuck at home, unable to find work.
Even temporary jobs weren’t easy to come by.
The only reason Ning Yi had managed to find work so easily was that the job of a coal hauler was exhausting, bitter, low-paying, and offered no future prospects.
Even those who had been idle at home for years looked down on it.
Ning Yi had no complaints about this. He was willing to give the job to his sister.
But now, after being beaten and wronged, his sister had woken up and said to him, “I don’t want this job anymore. You take it…”
This feeling made Ning Yi feel utterly powerless, like he couldn’t even hold onto a single job.
He had frightened his sister so much that she didn’t even dare go to work anymore.
His heart ached terribly.
Ning Yi took a deep breath and said with difficulty, “Xiao Xin, you should still take the job. Trust your brother, I can protect you. I will never let anyone bully you again!”
“How will you protect me?” Ning Xin gave a helpless expression.
“You have to deliver coal every day. You can’t stay by my side all the time. I’ve completely offended Third Aunt this time. Who knows if they might show up at the factory to cause trouble? What if they do? Will you stop working and follow me around every day? This job was originally yours anyway. If you take over, no one can say a thing. Brother, I’m serious, this isn’t me being stubborn or throwing a tantrum. I really don’t want this job anymore. You go to work there.”
Ning Yi didn’t expect his sister to be so obstinate.
He was so anxious that it took him a long time to finally blurt out a single sentence: “That won’t happen. Third Aunt and the others wouldn’t dare! Grandma won’t let them cause trouble either. Xiao Xin, this job was left behind by Dad. There’s no such thing as who it was originally meant for. Since we agreed to give it to you, I will never take it back!”
Ning Xin didn’t expect her brother to be so stubborn. Why was it so hard to get through to him with perfectly reasonable words?
She really didn’t want to take this job.
The job the original owner had snatched from her brother was as an apprentice at an enamelware factory. The monthly wage was twenty-two yuan and eighty cents, which would increase to thirty-five yuan and sixty cents after a year when she became a regular employee.
Everyone thought it was a great opportunity, stable work, easy, and not too tiring.
But Ning Xin didn’t see it that way.
This kind of job had no technical skill requirements and could be replaced by machines at any moment. It had no future at all.
Moreover, in Ning Xin’s mind, the enamelware factory was practically a [1]“Sunset industry” refers to an industry that is in long-term decline—its market demand is shrinking, growth prospects are limited, and it’s gradually being replaced by newer technologies or … Continue reading jQuery('#footnote_plugin_tooltip_2220168_1_1').tooltip({ tip: '#footnote_plugin_tooltip_text_2220168_1_1', tipClass: 'footnote_tooltip', effect: 'fade', predelay: 0, fadeInSpeed: 200, delay: 400, fadeOutSpeed: 200, position: 'top center', relative: true, offset: [-7, 0], });sunset industry. There was no way its good profits would last more than a few years.
With the time she would spend grinding away for seniority in a factory like that, wouldn’t it be better to do something else?
It was 1980, the early days of reform and opening up. You couldn’t say gold was lying all over the ground, but opportunities were everywhere.
She had the memories of two lifetimes. She understood the importance of seizing the initiative, and she also had a marketable skill.
Ning Xin felt that even if she just set up a stall by the roadside selling steamed buns, she could support herself.
She could even make money.
But Ning Yi was different.
The coal yard job was grueling and miserable. Compared to that, the enamelware factory job was infinitely better.
Let him go to work there first. If she did well for herself in the future, even if he quit to come help her, at least he would have an option.
What was the point of shoving the opportunity back and forth like this?
Seeing Ning Yi stiffen his neck with an expression that screamed, “I absolutely cannot take your job and let you be disadvantaged,” Ning Xin grew anxious.
She decided to play her trump card. “Brother, I suggest you’d better go to work. If you insist on arguing with me over this, then I’ll sell the job. Don’t come crying to me later.”
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