In the Lin family’s main room, Song Lanfang was using her sewing machine to make hair accessories, while her daughter lay at the dining table reading. After reading for a while, she turned to her mother and suggested, “I’ve read quite a bit now; I want to buy some practice papers to test my level. Can I accompany Dad to the market tomorrow?”
As long as it concerned learning, Song Lanfang was never stingy with money. She agreed immediately, “Sure. If they don’t have them in town, Mom will take you to the Xinhua Bookstore in the county; the study materials there are more complete.”
Lin Qionghua was delighted, “Great!”
Just as they were talking, Lin Weishen returned, staggering and drunk.
Yang Yugang also looked a bit embarrassed, “He drank too much. Let him sleep for a while.”
“Okay, thank you for bringing him back.” Song Lanfang saw him out of the courtyard and returned to take care of her husband.
Lin Qionghua leaned by the bedside, hearing her father muttering about “investment.” Her heart skipped a beat, and she became immediately vigilant. What investment?
When Song Lanfang returned to the room, Lin Qionghua stood up and told her, “Mom, Dad keeps talking about investment. You should ask him carefully later what kind of investment it is.”
Song Lanfang agreed, “Alright, I’ll take care of him; you go back to your studying.”
Lin Qionghua felt anxious, but since she couldn’t get any information out of a drunkard, she left with lingering glances back.
After Lin Weishen got drunk, he wasn’t rowdy; he just lay on the bed and slept soundly.
Song Lanfang placed an enamel basin by the bed and went out.
Lin Weishen slept for half an hour. When he woke up thirsty, Song Lanfang gave him a cup of plain water. After he finished it, he was more than half sober.
Lin Qionghua sat by the bed and asked anxiously, “Dad, did someone ask you to invest?”
After being drunk, Lin Weishen’s brain was a bit slow. It took him a long time to remember, “Yes, that’s right. The man Dong Liang brought in his car today is the boss…”
He spoke in a jumble, and it took Lin Qionghua a long time to figure out who he was talking about.
“But I can’t invest.” Lin Weishen cried by the edge of the bed, “That old rascal is not a good person; he will definitely cause trouble. I can’t invest.”
Having missed such a great opportunity to make a fortune, he was truly heartbroken.
Lin Qionghua, however, couldn’t share her father’s feelings at all. She felt relieved—he couldn’t invest? That was fantastic.
She let out a “Ha!” and went back to the main room to continue reading.
Lin Weishen was a bit bewildered by his daughter’s laugh. He rolled over and sat up, looking at his daughter’s back in disbelief, “Was she laughing at me?”
Song Lanfang patted his back, “She’s afraid that you’ll get tangled up with Dong Liang again. If that happens, our family will fall apart.”
Lin Weishen leaned against the headboard, “How is that possible? Am I that muddle-headed?”
Song Lanfang chuckled, “You’re not. But it’s a pity to miss such a good opportunity.”
Lin Weishen didn’t deny it, “It is a pity. Especially since I work myself to the bone running a stall, which doesn’t earn as much as their construction work.”
Song Lanfang took his hand, “Don’t think about it anymore; the money is already in a fixed deposit. Let’s just live our own lives well. Regardless of how much money he made, just looking at the wife he married, I don’t think he’ll ever be happy in this life.”
Lin Weishen didn’t understand, “What’s wrong with his wife? I heard she’s quite virtuous.”
Song Lanfang didn’t like to gossip, but this was actually what Auntie Huang had told her, “His wife is very spendthrift. You saw it on the wedding day—that large gold chain was thicker than mine. The gold bracelets were even thicker.”
Lin Weishen didn’t take it to heart, “You have them too; I bought you a set. She’s a new bride, so it’s normal for Dong Liang to be willing to buy them for her.”
“No. She bought several more gold bracelets later. I heard that whenever she’s unhappy, she goes and buys one.” Song Lanfang spread her hands, “If that were you, would you be happy? Buying them one after another. Those are just jewelry; one set is enough. How can she keep buying one every now and then?”
Lin Weishen clicked his tongue, “Doesn’t Dong Liang manage her?”
Song Lanfang didn’t know, “I think he’s very happy to buy them for her.”
Lin Weishen frowned, “Those are the affairs of a married couple; how did Auntie Huang find out?”
“A while ago, Dong Liang invited several strong laborers from the village to dinner, asking them to invest in the project together. When they went to his house to eat, Auntie Huang was worried about Old Huang and didn’t want him to be led astray by Dong Liang, so she insisted on going to help. She saw it—the pattern on those gold bracelets was different from the one she wore on the wedding day. She asked about it.” Song Lanfang shrugged.
Lin Weishen didn’t take it seriously, “Buying gold jewelry isn’t a big deal; it keeps its value. If you don’t like it one day, you can sell it and get your money back.”
“She doesn’t just buy gold; she also buys piles of clothes. I heard she has two closets full of clothes.” Song Lanfang looked at him, “Do you still think it’s worth it?”
Lin Weishen could understand buying gold, but he couldn’t understand buying piles of clothes. He suddenly laughed again, “Marrying this wife is great! Dong Liang earns money in the front, and she dismantles the house in the back. I’m happy about it.”
Song Lanfang shook her head with a smile and said nothing more.
While Lin Weishen and Song Lanfang were chatting, the banquet at Dong Liang’s house was finally coming to an end.
A group of men were all drunk, stumbling out of the courtyard while holding onto the walls. Dong Liang waved at them with a thick tongue, “Be careful, don’t fall.”
“Understood!”
After seeing all the villagers back to their homes, Yu Feifei asked her younger sister to go back to the room to rest first while she cleaned up the dishes. Seeing her husband return, she pointed with her chin at Zeng Chengyi, who was slumped on the table fast asleep, “Boss Zeng, what should we do?”
Dong Liang slumped into a chair. With his eyes blurred by drunkenness, he hiccuped and smiled at her, “You help him to a room to sleep; I’ll just sleep on the sofa.”
“And me?”
“You and your sister just make do for one night.” Dong Liang’s head was spinning, so he just collapsed and slept, “My head hurts too much; I can’t drive him back.”
Yu Feifei sighed and had to comply.
She took the dishes to the well, finished washing up, and returned to the main room to help Zeng Chengyi, but the drunk man put all his weight on her, and she almost fell.
She called for Dong Liang to come help, but he was sleeping like a log.
She tried to shake the person off, but he woke up in a muddle and stopped putting his full weight on her. He even thanked her politely, “Many thanks, sister-in-law.”
Seeing him awake, Yu Feifei tried to push him away so he could walk on his own.
Zeng Chengyi, however, leaned his body halfway against her, “Sister-in-law, please help me into the room.”
Yu Feifei was half-dragged and half-pushed into the room by him.
She helped him onto the bed with great difficulty and collapsed onto the bed herself, panting heavily.
After catching her breath, Yu Feifei was just about to roll over and sit up when she discovered her clothes were pinned under him. She tried to pull them out but couldn’t. She was so anxious that tears welled up in her eyes. Just as she was in a panic, her arm was suddenly grabbed, and the next second, the drunken man pressed her down beneath him…
Zeng Chengyi had long heard from the workers in Dalin Village that Dong Liang had married a beautiful young wife who was not only young and pretty but also gentle and domestic.
He had developed ideas. Seeing Yu Feifei at the dinner table earlier, she was indeed as young and beautiful as everyone said.
He ran construction projects out of town, and his own wife stayed home to raise the children, so he had to find someone to satisfy his physiological needs.
He had money, so he was never short of women. But he thought “call girls” were unclean and never looked for them.
He didn’t keep a mistress either; he was a businessman who thought keeping mistresses was not cost-effective—you had to rent them a place and give them money every month, which was too expensive.
He felt that finding a “decent” married woman was the safest route; you didn’t need to spend money on rent, and you wouldn’t catch diseases. Moreover, such women had their own homes and careers, so if he got tired of her, she wouldn’t bother him. Since her husband was working for him and earning money, the husband wouldn’t dare to make a scene either.
So, upon learning that Dong Liang had a beautiful young wife, Zeng Chengyi had instigated the visit to his home to “taste the new sister-in-law’s cooking.”
Yu Feifei struggled to push the man off her, but found she couldn’t move him at all. She opened her mouth to scream, but the next second, he blocked her lips. His large hands fumbled all over her body. She struggled desperately, but she couldn’t push him away…
Neither knew how much time had passed when Zeng Chengyi, exhausted, fell into a deep sleep. Yu Feifei curled up, sitting on the edge of the bed and sobbing quietly.
Zeng Chengyi was awakened by the crying. He propped himself up with a weary body and looked at the mess on the bed, then at her biting her lower lip, her eyes looking at him as pitifully as a lost little deer. His heart seemed to drown in her gaze.
He actually felt a surge of self-reproach. He held her hands and began slapping himself repeatedly, begging for mercy, “Sister-in-law, sister-in-law, I was truly muddled. I had a bit of cat-pee (liquor) and didn’t know who I was. I didn’t mean it. You must not tell A-Liang, or our cooperation will be over, I…”
He hurriedly turned out his pockets and shoved all the money he had into her hands, “This is compensation. Use it to buy yourself something to eat.”
Yu Feifei looked at the money in her hands, and her sobbing gradually stopped, “You shouldn’t have done this to me.”
“Yes, yes, I’m a jerk! It’s all my fault.” Zeng Chengyi admitted his wrongdoings quickly. These women were all the same—afraid of their husbands finding out.
From outside came Dong Liang’s drunken shouts, “Wife! Wife!”
Yu Feifei’s body shook in fear. She moved quickly to shove the money into her pocket, wiped the tears from her face, straightened her clothes, rolled the bed sheet into a ball, and walked out of the room as if nothing had happened.
In the main room, Dong Liang was sleeping on the sofa, completely muddled and unable to open his eyes, yet he kept calling, “Thirsty!”
Yu Feifei answered, put the bed sheet into the laundry tub by the well, grabbed a thermos from the kitchen, poured a glass of water, and handed it to Dong Liang, her heart pounding.
Dong Liang gulped it down, glanced at the sky outside, and collapsed back onto the sofa to sleep soundly.
Yu Feifei went to the courtyard to scrub the bed sheet clean, hung it back out to dry, and then started making breakfast.
It was hard to say how much time had passed when the sky broke, and sunlight sprinkled onto their faces through the cracks in the window.
When breakfast was served on the table, Dong Liang and Zeng Chengyi both woke up.
Dong Liang looked at Zeng Chengyi, who had grown stubble overnight, “Did you sleep well? Do you want to use my razor?”
Zeng Chengyi saw Yu Feifei moving in and out with food, her thin summer clothes failing to conceal her charming body. His throat felt itchy. He declined Dong Liang’s offer, “It’s bright out; I’ll go back to the construction site first; I have my toiletries there. You come over early after breakfast.”
How could Dong Liang let him leave just like that? He pulled him to sit down, “Breakfast is already made; how can you not eat?”
Zeng Chengyi took another look at Yu Feifei. Seeing that she had no expression, but had still prepared a portion of breakfast for him, he couldn’t help but exhale in relief and smiled at Dong Liang, “Alright, I’ll eat before I go.”
Yu Feifei called her sister out to eat together.
The three of them ate first; Yu Feifei didn’t join them at the table.
When they finished eating, Yu Fangfang called her sister to eat.
Yu Feifei wiped the water droplets from her hands and sat down at the table. Yu Fangfang asked excitedly, “Sister, how did it go? Is it done?”