As for whether the man surnamed Ye was actually Ren Gan-ying’s future husband from the city, Ren Chaomei really wasn’t sure.
On her way home, she couldn’t help rubbing her chin and muttering, “Was his surname Ye? Why can’t I remember? It should be Ye, right? The name sounds familiar.”
Without some supernatural ability to remember everything she saw, Ren Chaomei was the kind of person who watched novels and dramas purely for entertainment, forgetting things as she went along.
After finishing a story, if someone asked her what happened in the first episode, she would scratch her head and ask, “Huh? What happened?”
She could barely remember the important plot points and key characters, but some minor character who was destined to die early and serve as a stepping stone on the female protagonist’s path to success? Ren Chaomei had a hard time remembering his name.
“Forget it. I’m not going to rack my brain over it. Whether this guy surnamed Ye is that person or not, I’m going to ruin the match anyway. It’s not like I can only sabotage one blind date.”
She was a stepping stone on her uncle’s family’s path to a better life, and that unknown blind-date candidate was one too.
Once she removed herself from that role and kicked away all the other stepping stones, she wanted to see how her uncle’s family was supposed to climb their way upward.
Ren Chaomei first went to ask the production team officials about the house, then wandered around outside for the entire afternoon. Only when it was time for dinner did she leisurely make her way home.
Her timing was perfect. Not only was dinner already prepared, but Ren Gan-ying had also finished cleaning up the disaster in their room.
If it weren’t for the old grudges between them, Ren Chaomei might actually have complimented Ren Gan-ying on being such a capable homemaker.
The moment she saw Ren Chaomei return, Ren Gan-ying immediately pulled a sour face and threw her attitude at her.
“Hmph!”
“Hmph~”
Ren Chaomei pursed her lips, made a face, and threw the same attitude right back at her.
There was no work to do in the evening, so dinner was simple: multigrain porridge with pickles.
The atmosphere at the dinner table was extremely tense. Not a single person spoke to Ren Chaomei while they ate.
But Ren Chaomei didn’t care about being collectively given the cold shoulder. She simply focused on eating her own food.
The grain rations allocated to her by the production team were collected by Ren Dahe and brought home. She was supposed to eat at home anyway.
Besides, she had neither money nor food. Other than going home, she had nowhere else to go.
At this point, she was practically stuck on this patch of land.
She certainly wanted to earn money through work, but many work units weren’t hiring, especially not workers with rural household registrations. Information was also extremely limited in the countryside, so even when job openings existed, she couldn’t receive the news in time.
In the production team, the only way to earn money was through work points. At the end of the year, after the grain was distributed, the remaining work points could be converted into cash.
Money and grain coupons were actually secondary. Even if she wanted to run away from home and wander around, without a letter of introduction, she couldn’t buy a train ticket or stay at a guesthouse. She wouldn’t get very far. And she had no desire to live that kind of miserable life anyway.
Ren Chaomei finished the watery porridge in three or four mouthfuls, washed her bowl, and silently returned to her room.
The moment she closed the door, she went straight to the small desk.
When she opened the box where the purse was hidden, her eyes lit up.
“Just as I thought. She really put it back in the same place.”
“Ren Chaomei!”
Rapid footsteps approached from outside, accompanied by Ren Gan-ying’s nervous voice.
Ren Chaomei quickly stuffed the purse into her sleeve, then turned around and sat down on the edge of the bed. Looking at Ren Gan-ying as she hurriedly pushed open the door, she mocked, “What? Afraid I’ll tear up your new clothes again?”
“I’ll warn you. If you make this room a mess again, you won’t have anywhere to sleep tonight.”
Ren Gan-ying hadn’t even finished eating dinner. She had chased after Ren Chaomei specifically to warn her, afraid that she would go crazy and wreck everything again.
“Oh.”
Ren Chaomei responded casually, not even sparing her a glance as she went about organizing her own things.
She had two sets of winter clothes and two sets for spring and summer, but every piece was old and patched. The only new clothes she owned were the ones she was wearing.
For the past two years, the family’s cloth coupons had all been reserved for Ren Gan-ying because Aunt Wang Xiaoqin always said that a girl had to dress nicely when she was being introduced to potential husbands. Once Ren Gan-ying got married, then it would be Ren Chaomei’s turn to have new clothes made for her when she started going on blind dates.
Ren Dahe’s family had managed to improve their lives by relying on the savings left by Ren Erhe, so they had an exaggerated admiration for steady monthly wages.
Their entire family could work all year and earn work points, only to receive perhaps a dozen yuan in cash at the end of the year after the grain had been distributed—barely enough to cover a year’s worth of miscellaneous expenses like cooking oil, salt, soy sauce, and vinegar.
But when his younger brother had returned from the army, he had received several dozen yuan in monthly subsidies. Even when he was seriously ill and on the verge of death, he had still managed to marry a beautiful wife and leave behind so much savings.
Ren Dahe was already too old to change his own fate, but his children were still young. He pinned his hopes on marrying his daughter into the city so she would have enough money to support him in the future. As for his son, he wanted to send him into the army so that he could make something of himself.
As for Ren Chaomei, his niece, Ren Dahe saw her as an unwanted burden that he could never get rid of. He wished he could marry her off as far away as possible and never have anything to do with her again.
And it wasn’t just Ren Dahe. Everyone in the main branch of the Ren family hoped that once Ren Chaomei married, she would never come back.
Who could have imagined that she would leave one day and return the very next with a whole heap of trouble?
Seeing how unconcerned Ren Chaomei looked, Ren Gan-ying couldn’t help saying, “You really made Dad angry this time.”
“Oh. So what?”
Ren Chaomei tilted her head and said smugly, “Uncle dares to beat you. He dares to scold you. He even dares to kick you out and leave you homeless. But tell me, does he dare to kick me out?”
The truth was, Ren Dahe didn’t dare.
Ren Dahe always put on an act in front of outsiders. After all, Ren Chaomei would eventually marry and leave after spending a few more years at home. He, on the other hand, still had to live in this place for the rest of his life, so he cared very much about his reputation in the village.
Although the production team officials wouldn’t help Ren Chaomei take the house back, if Ren Dahe refused to let her live there and kicked her out, the officials would certainly call him in for a talk.
Ren Chaomei’s defiance made Ren Gan-ying want to hit her. She couldn’t resist needling her with an air of superiority.
“Dad was even worried about you. With you acting like this, it’s no wonder you won’t be able to get married.”
“Can’t get married? Then I’ll just steal my brother-in-law. Big Sis, you’d better choose your man carefully. Ideally, pick someone I like too.”
“You… How can you say something like that? Shameless!”
The statement was too shocking and too embarrassing. Ren Gan-ying’s face turned bright red with anger. In the end, she stomped her foot and stormed out.
Ren Chaomei tilted her head.
Was that really such an outrageous thing to say? Her phone had been full of things far more explosive than that.
Still, getting her to leave was a good thing.
Ren Chaomei poked her head out to check that no one was watching, closed the door, and pulled the purse hidden in her sleeve back out.
She opened it and emptied the contents onto the bed.
There was a piece of broken jade about the size of her thumb, a box of clam oil, a broken fountain-pen nib, and a few other odds and ends. The most valuable item was the fragment of jade that Ren Gan-ying had gotten from somewhere.
“They’re even poorer than I imagined.”
Now that she had the purse, Ren Chaomei faced the same problem Ren Gan-ying had faced before: where should she hide it?
Keeping it in the house wasn’t safe, but hiding it outside came with the risk that some extraordinarily lucky person might find it.
What worried Ren Chaomei most was that she might painstakingly dig a hole and bury the purse, only for Ren Gan-ying to suddenly get the urge to dig in that exact spot and find it.
Luck was a difficult thing to predict.
Thinking about the possibility of Ren Gan-ying getting the purse back, an urge to destroy it rose in Ren Chaomei’s heart.
Better to shatter jade than live as a whole tile.
She had that ruthless streak in her—if she couldn’t have something, she would rather destroy it than let someone else benefit from it.
In the years to come, as long as she was willing to work hard and take risks, she was certain she could carve out a career for herself. She would survive without this purse. Having it would simply be the icing on the cake.
With that indifferent attitude toward whether she had it or not, Ren Chaomei curiously grabbed the purse and pulled hard.
“Can’t tear it. It’s pretty sturdy. Ren Gan-ying must have washed it before. It isn’t waterproof. But is it fireproof?”
Ren Chaomei pulled out a box of matches and struck one.
Just as she was about to hold the flame beneath the purse, she extinguished the match and began searching for a needle and thread instead.
“Can’t be that reckless. I’ll try a drop of blood first.”