With a goal in life, Ren Chaomei was full of energy early the next morning. After breakfast, she eagerly prepared to go home.
“You’re leaving already? I just called your Lihua Commune and asked someone heading in your direction to deliver a message to your family. They probably haven’t even received it yet,” the police officer said, trying to persuade her to stay. “Why don’t you have lunch at the commune before you leave?”
“No need. I can go back by myself.”
She had no money on her. She had spent all of it buying the new clothes she was wearing. People were so poor nowadays that even when visiting someone’s home, they had to bring their own food. She felt embarrassed about staying for another free meal.
If she wanted to eat, she could go home and eat her own family’s food. Why go hungry when there was food waiting for her?
It was broad daylight, and she would be traveling along the main road, where there were plenty of people coming and going. It was perfectly safe for her to go back alone.
This wasn’t some remote mountainous region. Cases of women being abducted and deceived into marriage were rare here, which was precisely why the original owner had been so unprepared and easily tricked into marriage.
Still, after thinking it over, the police officer remained worried.
“The two communes are quite far apart. How about you wait a while? I’ll ask the driver delivering bricks by tractor to give you a ride. He can take you to your commune, and once you get there, you should be able to find someone to accompany you home.”
Since she could get a ride, Ren Chaomei had no reason to refuse.
After riding on the tractor with its constant putt-putt-putt for the entire journey and then walking more than ten li, Ren Chaomei finally arrived home.
Just as she expected, she had already returned, yet Ren Dahe still hadn’t gone out to meet her. The whole family was sitting around the table, grumbling and complaining as they ate lunch.
As soon as she reached the doorway, Ren Chaomei heard Ren Dahe’s complaints.
“She insisted on getting married, and now she blames them for tricking her. Where does she get the nerve? No woman from our Ren family has ever been driven back by her husband’s family. She’s the first.”
“What an embarrassment. She’s made the entire family a laughingstock.”
“And she expects me to go pick her up? How shameless! If she never came back, I’d be thanking Heaven. I must have been cursed for eight lifetimes to end up with a niece like her.”
Ren Dahe was deliberately avoiding going out.
He had finally managed to get rid of his troublesome niece, and now Ren Chaomei was coming back. He was already seething with anger and secretly wished she would die on the road so she would never return.
Ren Ganying worriedly tried to persuade him.
“Dad, why don’t you go pick Chaomei up anyway? The person who came to deliver the message only said that the Wang family had deceived her into marriage and had been arrested and sent to prison. When I asked anything else, he didn’t know. Why don’t you go find out what actually happened? I’m a little worried.”
She was afraid the matter might somehow implicate her and the rest of the family. After all, the Wang family had originally approached her.
“What do you have to worry about? It has nothing to do with you. Your sister was the one who insisted on taking the man you rejected. She brought it upon herself.”
Speaking of it, Ren Dahe was also somewhat relieved.
“Your mother and I thought there was something strange about that Wang Ergou from the beginning. We knew there had to be something wrong. I thought maybe his family was in debt, or perhaps there was something wrong with the man himself. I never expected it to be a fraudulent marriage. Thank goodness it was Ren Chaomei who fell into their trap, not you. You really are the smarter one.”
Standing at the doorway, Ren Chaomei clenched her fists in anger.
She thought that if the original owner’s parents were still alive, they probably would have noticed something was wrong too and warned their daughter.
After living several decades longer, even if they hadn’t accomplished anything extraordinary, they would at least have accumulated plenty of life experience.
Ren Dahe and his wife had clearly noticed something was wrong. They had even warned their own daughter, yet they never said a word to their niece, Ren Chaomei.
Not only had they watched helplessly as Ren Chaomei walked into a pit of fire, they had even given her a push.
Ren Chaomei kicked the half-open door, making a loud bang.
She announced arrogantly, “Uncle! I’m back.”
Ren Dahe’s brow twitched.
“Why are you back?”
“Why can’t I come back? This is my home. My father built this house.”
After the exhausting journey home, Ren Chaomei was already starving. She walked straight past the people at the dining table, grabbed her own bowl, and dumped all the dishes on the table into it.
“Ren Chaomei, you’re doing this again! What are we supposed to eat?” Ren Ganying complained angrily.
“Who told you not to save any food for me? The 500 yuan my dad left your family—not only could it have supported me, it would have been more than enough to support your entire family. Why can’t I even eat my fill?”
Ren Chaomei glared at her.
“Big Sis, when you were starving to death back then, it was my dad who managed to get two cans of malted milk powder for you. Otherwise, you’d have died already.”
The production team now distributed grain according to work points and household headcount. Ren Chaomei had not only had her own grain allocation, she also earned work points herself.
When she was little, she collected fallen wheat grains. As she grew older, she gathered pigweed. Now she also had to harvest wheat, pick cotton, and do other farm work.
During her earliest years, it had been somewhat difficult for her to earn enough work points to support herself. But once she got older, she was basically self-sufficient.
She could guarantee that she hadn’t even spent 50 yuan of the 500 yuan her father had left for her upbringing.
The rest had all been spent by her uncle.
The Ren family had only one able-bodied male worker. After working all year, once the grain was distributed at the end of the year, the remaining work points could only be exchanged for a dozen or so yuan. In bad years, they might even end up owing the production team money after receiving their grain.
Their family’s work-point earnings were among the lowest in the entire production team, yet their standard of living was among the best.
Whose money they were living off was obvious.
Ren Ganying couldn’t help arguing back.
“Here you go again. Can’t you come up with something new? It was such a tiny matter, and you’re going to talk about it for the rest of your life? I’ve heard it so many times I’m practically growing calluses on my ears.”
“Why shouldn’t I talk about it?”
When someone’s suffering received no response, of course they would keep bringing it up.
Ren Dahe glared at her.
“You only dare act tough at home! Look at what you’ve done outside. After making such a scene, who’s going to marry you in the future?”
“I’m not getting married.”
“Impossible! I’ve done my duty by raising you until you’re eighteen. Do you expect me to support you for the rest of your life?”
Being unable to assert his authority as an elder in front of his niece and constantly feeling as though he was beneath her was unpleasant.
Only after Ren Chaomei married and left would no one keep bringing up this house or the 500 yuan he had received as her living expenses…
“You raised me? Heh.”
Ren Chaomei sneered. She quickly finished the food in her bowl, put down her chopsticks, and stood up.
“I’m done eating. I’m going back to my room to sleep.”
She left decisively, but the four people remaining at the table couldn’t help exchanging bewildered looks.
“Did Second Sis suddenly change? Why didn’t she make a scene today?” Ren Guodong, the younger brother, had barely dared to speak earlier, afraid that provoking Ren Chaomei would cause him to get caught in the crossfire.
His mother, Wang Xiaoqin, wore a bitter expression and frowned as she scolded him.
“Enough. Just eat your food. Isn’t it better that she isn’t making a fuss?”
Arguing over food at the dinner table and using the house and money to provoke them were merely the original owner’s most basic, everyday routines.
The scene they had expected today was for Ren Chaomei to curse them loudly enough that the neighbors would come over to watch the spectacle and break up the fight, while Ren Dahe would awkwardly apologize and say that the child had grown up and was difficult to control.
Honestly, everyone was relieved that Ren Chaomei had let the matter go so easily today.
Ren Chaomei didn’t even want to argue with them anymore.
The original owner had spent years arguing with them like Xianglin’s Wife, only to end up stewing in her own anger afterward. None of it had ever accomplished anything.
The only thing that could truly solve a problem was taking action.
So the moment Ren Chaomei returned to her room, she dropped the small bundle she was carrying and immediately began rummaging through everything, searching for the purse Ren Ganying had hidden.
It was spring and summer, and everyone wore thin clothing. Since Ren Ganying always kept things inside the purse, it was constantly bulging. Whether she put it in a jacket pocket or trouser pocket, it would be very conspicuous.
That was why Ren Ganying always kept the purse hidden in their room.
There were only two girls in the family, so they shared a room. That made things much more convenient for Ren Chaomei.
She shook out the quilts repeatedly and even removed the pillowcases to check inside. As for the clothes in the wardrobe, she took them out one by one and felt through every piece.
“Ren Chaomei! What are you doing?!”
After finishing her meal and washing her face and hands, Ren Ganying returned to the room only to find everything in complete disarray.
Her face immediately flushed with anger.
Ren Chaomei’s hands paused. She tossed the piece of clothing she had been checking onto the floor and declared arrogantly, “I’m making you angry. I’m getting revenge on you. Didn’t you figure that out?”
“Immature!”
Ren Chaomei shrugged and shamelessly replied, “Yeah, I’m immature. Whatever you say.”