“Little Meng, I’ve looked at the almanac. Tomorrow is an excellent day. Tomorrow, Yang Qing’s eldest uncle will bring Yang Qing to your home for a formal visit,” Wang Cuifeng said with a beaming smile.
Wang Cuifeng and Yang Qing’s uncle’s family were neighbors living across from each other. Yang Qing had asked her to pass this message along the previous evening.
Meng Ruo nodded with a smile, but her heart felt a bit uneasy. For some reason, she had a premonition that things wouldn’t go so smoothly. At the very least, Li Mei wouldn’t let her marry out so easily.
When Meng Ruo returned home from work, she saw Zheng Wan in the kitchen assisting Li Mei.
Zheng Wan had gone to the restaurant today to familiarize herself with the environment. Since she wasn’t officially starting until tomorrow, she had returned in the afternoon.
Helping in the kitchen, Zheng Wan massaged her aching waist and neck, saying, “Mom—”
Just as the word “Mom” left Zheng Wan’s mouth, Li Mei shot her a glare.
“Didn’t I tell you? Don’t call me ‘Mom’ here. Call me Second Aunt.”
Zheng Wan curled her lip indifferently and muttered under her breath, “There’s no one else here anyway.”
Li Mei swept another sharp look toward her.
Zheng Wan could only compromise: “Second Aunt, Second Aunt. Happy now?”
Only then did Li Mei lower her head and continue chopping vegetables.
Zheng Wan asked, “Can’t I just squeeze in with Meng Ruo? Do I really have to sleep on the living room sofa?”
That so-called sofa was actually just a long wooden bench. It was narrow and short; not only could she not stretch her legs, but it was also painfully uncomfortable.
“I slept on that sofa for one night, and now my waist is sore, my back hurts, and I have a stiff neck,” Zheng Wan continued to complain.
Hearing this, Li Mei stopped her chopping. Actually, she had considered that arrangement initially, but she quickly dismissed the idea.
Previously, because of the matter regarding her nephew from her maternal family, she had offended Meng Ruo. From that incident, she realized that Meng Ruo wasn’t as easy to manipulate as she appeared on the surface. Therefore, she didn’t dare provoke any more trouble or offend Meng Ruo, fearing that something else might go wrong.
Now, her only wish was for Meng Ruo to get married and move out as soon as possible to make room for her biological daughter.
“She’s getting married soon. If you want to stay in her room, it won’t hurt to wait another day or two,” Li Mei said dismissively, continuing to chop vegetables.
So, that was a ‘no.’ Zheng Wan knit her brows.
How was it that she could share a room with Meng Ruo in her previous life, but not in this one?
That event was too far in the past; she really couldn’t remember how she had managed to move into Meng Ruo’s room in her previous life.
Li Mei glanced disdainfully at Zheng Wan, who was standing there in a daze, and said, “Don’t just stand there. Those vegetables haven’t been washed yet.”
“I’ll wash them in a bit,” Zheng Wan said nonchalantly. “Mom, I still have things to say.”
“Speak quickly, and get to work once you’re done,” Li Mei said impatiently.
Zheng Wan hesitated for a moment and said, “Mom—”
Li Mei glared at her again.
“Second Aunt—” Zheng Wan rolled her eyes, emphasizing the words. “Can you help me find another job? I don’t want to be a kitchen hand at a restaurant. What kind of future is there in that?”
Li Mei’s hand stopped mid-wash. She gritted her teeth in anger but managed to restrain herself from exploding.
“Then what kind of job do you want?” Li Mei asked through clenched teeth.
“I heard Sister Meng works at the food factory, and she isn’t even a manual laborer—she’s in the office.”
As she spoke, Zheng Wan acted coyly. “Can’t you help me find a job like that?”
Li Mei closed her eyes in frustration. Finally unable to take it anymore, she angrily slammed the vegetables she was holding back into the water.
Startled, Zheng Wan froze beside her.
“What is she? She’s a college student! What are you? You didn’t even finish middle school!”
Fuming, Li Mei used her wet hand to poke Zheng Wan’s forehead several times, making her wince and step back.
“Why didn’t I notice before that your aims are so high while your abilities are so low?” she scolded while poking her. “You even look down on a kitchen hand job as having no future? If you think doing farm work in the countryside has a better future, then get your self back to the countryside right now!”
“I didn’t finish middle school—was that because I didn’t want to study? It was because my dad wouldn’t let me!” Zheng Wan’s eyes turned red with anger.
Li Mei said, “Back then, I saw how pitiful you were living with your father and stepmother, so I wrote to you saying I would bring you here. But I didn’t expect you to be so ungrateful.”
In reality, letting Zheng Wan work as a kitchen hand was just a temporary measure for Li Mei. She certainly wouldn’t let her daughter work in a kitchen for the rest of her life; she had other arrangements for her career.
What she planned was one thing, but having her arrangements looked down upon by Zheng Wan was another matter entirely. This job was something she had worked hard to beg Meng Jun for, yet the girl had the nerve to look so disgusted by it.
“I’m ungrateful?” Zheng Wan cried out in frustration.
At that moment, Meng Ruo had just finished work and walked through the door.
Li Mei quickly pulled Zheng Wan into a corner and whispered to her, “Alright, alright, stop crying. They’ll see you in a moment.”
During dinner that evening, Zheng Wan sat right next to Li Mei.
As Meng Ruo was picking up food, she suddenly paused and looked at Zheng Wan with a searching expression.
Zheng Wan soon noticed her gaze. Although displeased, she still feigned a bright smile and asked, “Sister Meng, what are you looking at?”
“Nothing,” Meng Ruo replied with a smile of her own. “I just think you and Auntie Li look very much alike.”
What Meng Ruo said seemed like a casual remark, but it was like a stone casting a thousand ripples.
Upon hearing this, both Zheng Wan and Li Mei froze.
In truth, if one were to really look, Zheng Wan looked more like her biological father; otherwise, her appearance wouldn’t be so mediocre. Li Mei had been recognized as the “flower” of their village back then.
Hearing this, Meng Jun also looked up and carefully scrutinized Zheng Wan’s features. Come to think of it, there really was a resemblance.
Everyone fell into a tacit silence, and the atmosphere at the dining table suddenly grew tense.
The only one unaffected by the atmosphere was Meng Jiyue, who spoke up smugly: “Sister is talking nonsense. How does she look like my mom? She’s so dark, and my mom is so fair.”
As he spoke, Meng Jiyue pointed his chopsticks at Zheng Wan and then at Li Mei.
“My mom is much prettier than her. She’s so ugly.” After saying that, Meng Jiyue rudely made a face at her.
Meng Jiyue’s words unintentionally helped Li Mei out of the situation. She quickly and cleverly followed up: “Right, right, right, our Jiyue is right. I don’t look like her at all.”
Zheng Wan’s face darkened immediately, but she didn’t dare say anything.
Zheng Wan’s face was dark not because Li Mei denied the resemblance, but mostly because Meng Jiyue had called her dark and ugly.
These were the two things she cared about most—just as a person with a limp cares when people talk about their leg, or a blind person cares when people talk about their eyes.
Or rather, in her previous life, she hadn’t cared as much about being dark and mediocre, but in this life, she cared deeply.
In her previous life, she had been like a puppet living without a self. Before marriage, she followed Li Mei’s arrangements for everything; after marriage, she followed the arrangements of her husband, Tan Lin. She had toiled her whole life for her husband and son.
At this point, Meng Jun, who had been comparing them for a long while, finally spoke: “There is still a bit of a resemblance.”
As soon as he said this, Li Mei was so startled that the piece of meat she had just picked up dropped. Her reaction was much larger than before.
The same words coming from Meng Ruo versus coming from Meng Jun held entirely different weight.
“The mouth is similar, and so are the cheekbones.” Meng Jun didn’t notice Li Mei’s reaction and spoke with a serious expression.
But then, he let out two laughs and said in a perfectly normal tone, “After all, she is your biological niece. Isn’t it normal for her to look a bit like you?”
Once Li Mei heard Meng Jun say that, the heart that had leaped into her throat settled back down.
“Yes, yes, yes, she is my niece after all,” she hurriedly followed up.
In just this short while, her heart had been through ups and downs like a roller coaster. It was a good thing she didn’t have any heart problems, or she really wouldn’t have been able to take it.
Meng Ruo ate her meal on the side, happily watching the show.
She had merely started the conversation and it had scared Li Mei to such an extent; it seemed she was truly terrified of this secret being exposed.
She remembered that in the original book, the fact that Zheng Wan was Li Mei’s biological daughter wasn’t revealed until very late. At that time, Meng Jun was already fed up with Meng Ruo and was preparing to kick her out of the house, so he had no time to worry about a small detail like Zheng Wan being Li Mei’s daughter.
She didn’t have a perverse desire to intentionally stir up trouble to see Li Mei’s panic and fear; she just wanted to give her a warning. Li Mei had a mountain of her own problems to resolve, so she should stop reaching out so far to sabotage Meng Ruo’s marriage prospects.
Everyone finished dinner with their own hidden thoughts.
Once the group dispersed, Meng Ruo went to the bathroom to wash up. The bathroom door was slightly ajar, and as she approached, she saw Zheng Wan looking in the mirror.
This period novel was mainly intended to praise the happy lives of the ordinary protagonist couple, so it didn’t give the female lead, Zheng Wan, an outstanding appearance. The focus of the description was on the female lead’s selfless personality and her resilient, hardworking will.
In contrast, as the villainous female supporting character, Meng Ruo had an extraordinary appearance because of her wealthy background setting.
Meng Ruo stood at the door and knocked lightly, asking, “Are you still using the bathroom? I’m getting ready to wash up.”
Zheng Wan didn’t leave the bathroom immediately but moved aside to make room.
Meng Ruo didn’t mind and began washing up in front of the mirror.
Zheng Wan looked at Meng Ruo’s fair skin in the mirror and then at her own skin, which had been tanned dark by the sun, and she couldn’t help but grit her teeth in resentment.
At the dinner table earlier, she had thought that Meng Ruo must be wearing makeup to be so white. She had seen this kind of makeup technique in advertising posters before—applying powder to the face to make it look very white.
However, even after Meng Ruo finished washing her face, her skin was still delicate and smooth. She was naturally fair.
Li Mei was also fair; even if she tanned in the summer while in the countryside, she would turn white again after staying indoors during the winter. Unfortunately, Zheng Wan’s skin didn’t take after Li Mei’s; it took after her father’s. Her father had the yellow-black skin common among rural people, which tanned even darker under the sun.
This year, she had been working in the fields since the busy farming season began, facing the scorching sun every day. How could she not be this dark?
This only deepened her desire to become a wealthy lady. In her previous life, she had seen many such wealthy ladies in shopping malls; every day they were either getting beauty treatments, having afternoon tea, or going shopping.
As for her, although she became a full-time housewife after giving birth to her son, she woke up every day to a pile of housework—preparing three meals for the family, doing laundry, cleaning, and taking care of the husband and child. She had toiled for a lifetime.
“Sister, you are really fair.”
Zheng Wan spoke with a smile on her face, but in her heart, she was thinking: What’s the use of being fair? Having beauty but no brains—in the end, you’ll still end up being kicked out of the house.
“Now that you’ve come to the city, you’ll soon turn white again,” Meng Ruo said with a smile.
Every debt has its debtor. Whether in the original book or now, it was Li Mei who was making things difficult for her. Zheng Wan hadn’t done anything excessive to her yet, so she didn’t have much hostility toward her.
After Meng Ruo finished washing up, she shared a few skincare tips with Zheng Wan before returning to her room.
Yang Qing and his eldest uncle arrived the following evening after dinner. The Meng family had also just finished eating, so the whole family happened to be present.
When the two came to visit, they were carrying quite a few things—cigarettes, alcohol, biscuits, rock sugar, longans, and red dates, all of which they had bought at the supply and marketing cooperative.
Seeing how thoughtful they were with their etiquette, Meng Jun was very satisfied.
The two families sat and chatted for a while, and the conversation was quite pleasant. Through the chat, Meng Ruo learned that Yang Qing’s uncle, Yang Heping, also worked at the electronics factory. The difference was that because of his educational advantage, Yang Qing was a technical worker highly valued by the factory, while his uncle was just an ordinary worker on the assembly line.
“Then we will go back and look at the calendar to find an auspicious day to finalize the marriage for the two children,” Yang Heping said, standing up and firmly shaking Meng Jun’s hand.
“As long as the two children like each other, it’s fine,” Meng Jun said.
Meng Jun and Yang Heping exchanged pleasantries as they walked toward the front door.
As Yang Qing and his uncle were leaving, they happened to run right into Zheng Wan, who was returning from the restaurant.
Zheng Wan brushed past Yang Qing.
Yang Qing’s physique and looks were so superior that it was hard not to notice him. When Zheng Wan passed him, she couldn’t help but steal a few extra glances.
With those glances, she suddenly felt that this man looked somewhat familiar.
In her previous life, there had also been a man with such superior looks, and later, that man became an electronics tycoon with immense wealth.
Thinking of this, Zheng Wan’s heart couldn’t help but race.
She could even feel that, in the shadows of fate, the gears had begun to turn.