Clear about what? Ren Dahe was absolutely certain he hadn’t done those things! He hadn’t!
But the people in the production team weren’t nearly perceptive enough to see through everything.
With Ren Chaomei making such an accusation, no matter how much he tried to explain himself, he couldn’t completely shake off the suspicion. His good reputation, which he had spent years building up!
He clutched his chest, pointing at Ren Chaomei with a trembling finger as he angrily said, “You… you really are going to anger me to death. How did I end up raising such an ungrateful wretch? I raised you all these years, and instead of showing respect to your elders, you actually turn around and bite me!”
Ren Gan-ying immediately wiped away her tears and chimed in, “You were the one who insisted on getting married in the first place. What does that have to do with us?”
Whoever spoke up, Ren Chaomei would immediately snap back at them.
“If you hadn’t been egging me on and acting like you were going to steal him from me, would I have been in such a hurry to get married?”
Stealing another woman’s man was hardly something respectable enough to discuss openly. Only Ren Chaomei would have the nerve to bring it up.
Wang Xiaoqin, who had remained silent until then, couldn’t help defending her daughter. “How could she possibly be trying to steal him from you? I was already arranging a match for her with a man from the city…”
She was still explaining when Ren Chaomei impatiently waved her hand.
“Ah, enough, enough! Whatever you say goes. Anyway, I don’t have any evidence against you, so think whatever you want and say whatever you want.”
This wasn’t a courtroom where both sides had to argue their cases and uncover the truth.
She only needed to say what she wanted to say. After that, she could simply walk away. She had no obligation to stick around until the very end.
“But our Gan-ying…” Wang Xiaoqin tried to explain how outstanding her daughter was and how many potential matches she had, insisting that she would never need to steal another woman’s man. But the moment she started, Ren Chaomei interrupted her again.
“Enough, enough! Can you stop talking? I’m already annoyed, and you’re still going on and on.”
With the words she wanted to say repeatedly blocked, Wang Xiaoqin felt terribly stifled. “You…”
“Yes, yes, yes. You’re absolutely right. It’s all my fault, okay?”
Weren’t they always saying that she was unreasonable and impossible to deal with?
Fine. She would act exactly the way they accused her of acting.
After sarcastically mocking them, Ren Chaomei turned around, pushed through the crowd, and walked out of the house.
The neighbors had come over to mediate, but now that one of the people involved had left, there was neither a fight nor an argument left to mediate. After offering Ren Dahe a few perfunctory words of concern, they carried their bowls home.
Even though Ren Dahe later explained that he hadn’t colluded with the Wang family to trick Ren Chaomei into marriage, everyone still had their doubts.
Their production team wasn’t wealthy. Ordinary families lived in mud houses, with walls made of packed earth. Better-off families had tiled roofs, while poorer ones covered their roofs with straw or wheat stalks.
But the Ren family’s house was made of brick. Ten years ago, such a brick house had been considered exceptionally impressive in their production team, and ten years later, it was still respectable.
After all, there hadn’t been many opportunities to suddenly get rich during those ten years. Everyone was still just as poor as they had been a decade ago.
Deliberately marrying a niece off somewhere far away—or making sure she could never come back—just to have a more secure claim on the house wasn’t entirely unimaginable.
After all, Ren Chaomei really was troublesome. Every time she caused a scene, she brought up the house. There could be several arguments a year over the house and the money.
Yet no matter how much Ren Chaomei complained, everyone had long assumed that the house now belonged to Ren Dahe.
In the countryside, resources like land and houses were generally considered the man’s domain.
Ren Erhe had no son, only a daughter, so the house and the daughter were both supposed to be under Ren Dahe’s care.
That was the consensus among everyone in the production team.
When they heard Ren Chaomei asking about the house, the team leader wore an utterly helpless expression.
“Chaomei, you’re going to get married eventually. Why are you fighting over this house? Don’t spend every day making trouble for your uncle.”
“Why do you call it fighting over it? The house was left to me by my father.” Ren Chaomei asked, “Wasn’t the homestead registered under my father’s name?”
“What are you talking about? You think this is before Liberation? All the land belongs to the collective now. How could anyone’s name be written on it?”
Land wasn’t individually divided; everyone farmed collectively. People applied to the production team for homesteads, and the team allocated them according to the requirements. There were no property certificates, and in fact, there weren’t even formal registrations.
Decades later, the law would become relatively well-developed, with legislation protecting women’s rights to rural homesteads and land. But putting those policies into practice—and actually winning such things back through a lawsuit—would still be incredibly difficult for women.
Ren Chaomei took a step back and asked, “What if I don’t get married? What if I find a man willing to marry into my family? Can you production team officials uphold justice and make my uncle return the house to me?”
“You were just tricked into a marriage, and now you’re talking about finding a husband to marry into your family again? Would you even want a man willing to do that?”
The team leader also thought Ren Chaomei was a troublesome thorn in his side. He brushed her off, saying, “We can’t interfere in this kind of family matter. If you really want a man to marry into your family, you’ll have to discuss it with your uncle yourself. Ask him to leave one room of the house for you.”
Even marrying a man into her family only gave her the right to keep one room?
And she still had to negotiate with Ren Dahe.
Ren Chaomei angrily pounded the table. “Feudal! Backward!”
“Ren Chaomei, don’t come here and make a scene!”
“Fine! I won’t!”
Ren Chaomei snorted and turned to leave.
The production team officials hadn’t done anything to offend her, so she wasn’t going to take her anger out on them.
Her suggestion about having a man marry into her family had only been something she threw out there. She wasn’t going to joke around with the rest of her life over a house.
She just hadn’t expected that even after making such a huge sacrifice, she still couldn’t get the house back.
A dull heaviness settled in her chest.
She sat down on the edge of the field, rubbed her chest, and muttered to herself, “Sorry. I can’t help you get the house back. If I burn it down instead, you shouldn’t mind, right? We can’t exactly let the people who hurt you benefit from it.”
After consulting the production team officials, Ren Chaomei completely abandoned the idea of reclaiming the house. Instead, she began plotting in her mind how she was going to burn it down.
She was spacing out when someone suddenly shoved her shoulder.
“Hey, Sister Chaomei, I heard you sent your man to prison?”
Ren Chaomei turned her head and saw that the person who had tapped her was Zhao Youfu. He was four years younger than her and used to follow her around begging her to let him play with her.
“What man? He was a scammer!”
“I told you that guy didn’t look like a good person. You wouldn’t listen. If we’d known this would happen, you might as well have married my brother back then. Too bad even my brother has gotten married now.”
Ren Chaomei replied bluntly, “I wouldn’t have wanted your brother anyway.”
“I know.” Zhao Youfu grinned. “You and your older sister both want to marry someone from the city. I want a city job too, then I’ll marry a city girl. Hehe.”
Young people really did have beautiful dreams.
In rural areas, boys and girls generally married quite young. Many men hadn’t even reached the legal marriage age when their families had already begun arranging marriages for them. So once a couple had gone through the wedding ceremony, everyone considered them married. Most people didn’t make a special trip to the city to register their marriage.
The sisters, Ren Chaomei and Ren Gan-ying, were considered relatively old for unmarried women in their production team.
But neither of them was unmarried because they were unattractive or because their families were a burden. Ren Gan-ying wanted to marry a man from the city, while Ren Chaomei wanted to compete with her, so both had delayed marriage.
After all, a woman had to be eighteen before she could legally register a marriage in the city. Once Ren Gan-ying turned eighteen, she began asking around for introductions to men from the city. But after searching for two years, she still hadn’t found a suitable match.
People with rural household registration didn’t have guaranteed grain allocations in the city, and children born after marriage would also have to follow their mother’s household registration.
Families willing to take on that additional grain burden were either wealthy enough not to care or had some kind of disadvantage that made it difficult for their sons to marry city girls, leaving them no choice but to marry a rural woman.
There weren’t that many romantic stories behind blind dates. The matchmakers introducing men to Ren Gan-ying were mostly the latter type.
So in most cases, the man liked Ren Gan-ying, while Ren Gan-ying didn’t like the man.
Zhao Youfu proudly shared the gossip. “Do you know that my mom introduced the man your older sister is meeting this time?”
“I really didn’t know that.” Ren Chaomei shook her head.
The original owner had been blinded by love recently and had been obsessed with her own marriage. She hadn’t thought about making things difficult for Ren Gan-ying, so she hadn’t bothered paying attention to her sister’s potential matches.
Seeing Zhao Youfu nodding his head smugly, Ren Chaomei lightly kicked him. “Stop keeping me in suspense. Spit it out.”
“The man’s surname is Ye. He’s the younger cousin of the granddaughter of my mom’s grandaunt.”
“That’s it?”
Seeing Ren Chaomei’s dissatisfied expression, Zhao Youfu hurriedly added, “Oh, there’s more! His family has a really heavy burden. His father isn’t around, and he’s the eldest son, so he’s responsible for raising several younger brothers and sisters. I heard his mother is pretty fierce too. But my mom said that once she marries into the family, she’ll only have to suffer for a few years. Things will get better afterward. Besides, even if life in the city is hard, it’s still better than working under the scorching sun and tilling the fields in the countryside.”
When Ren Chaomei continued looking at him with an eager, questioning expression, Zhao Youfu nervously swallowed and said sheepishly, “That’s all I know. I was eavesdropping. My mom said it’s an adult matter and wouldn’t let me ask too many questions.”
“Then go back and eavesdrop on some more for me. If you hear anything useful, once I have money, I’ll treat you to a meal at a restaurant in the city.”
Ren Chaomei didn’t have a single cent in her pocket, so all she could do was make him a grand promise.
Fortunately, her reputation with him was still pretty good. Zhao Youfu patted his chest and promised, “Just wait. I’ll go listen in on my parents’ conversation tonight.”