"What? Huixiu really signed up to go to the countryside?"

An auntie who had watched the whole thing was also completely bewildered, but she knew a little more about the matter. "It's not just about signing up to go to the countryside, is it?"

She felt a little guilty and breathless as she said this, as if she had misheard.

"If I remember correctly, the person from the educated youth office just said that it was Huixiu who volunteered to go to Xinjiang to help."

That's aid to Xinjiang. If it's going to the countryside, as long as your family is in dire need of money, you can spend some money to arrange it and go to the nearest village, which is just a three to five hour round trip. Occasionally, if there's a holiday, you can even go home for a visit.

That way, they won't be bullied by local bullies.

If you're sent to Xinjiang for work, unless something goes wrong, it'll be difficult to see them again in this lifetime. Young men and women who go to the countryside can get a leave of absence to visit their families during the Mid-Autumn Festival and Chinese New Year if they perform well.

Aid to Xinjiang...

I took seven or eight days of leave to visit my family, but I spent almost ten days on the road. I had to turn back before I even got to my doorstep. Just thinking about it makes me so depressed I could vomit blood.

After figuring out the reason behind it, everyone suddenly felt sympathy for Shen Huixiu.

Looking at the letter, Shen's mother picked it up and hurriedly slapped Shen Huixiu hard across the face.

With a sharp crack, everyone came to their senses. Chen's mother was anxious and angry. "You brat, just how ambitious do you think you are? You even dared to go to Xinjiang to avoid marrying him?"

Resources were scarce there, and the sandstorms were fierce. After a trip there, you would come back covered in sand from head to toe.

Mother Shen couldn't understand why her two children had such big ideas. One of them was clinging to her mistakes and wouldn't let go. She had decisively separated from the family, but she still held onto her shortcomings. Now, if she wanted to go out and say a few words about her, she was afraid of angering her and causing her to come back and tear off the veil of shame.

That would make the whole family lose face.

This is quite something. You schemed against someone, but they didn't fall for it. Instead, you got yourself involved, gave yourself to them, and then made them marry someone else. It's perfectly reasonable for you to do this.

Who would have thought that she would go to such lengths to avoid marrying into that family?

No one noticed until Mother Shen mentioned it, but once she did, everyone's expression changed.

Good heavens, no wonder this beautiful young girl insisted on going to Xinjiang for aid work; apparently, her family was struggling financially and she was forced to marry to get a dowry.

As outsiders, they had no idea about the underlying implications. All they knew was that the Shen family was quite eccentric. They had driven away the second daughter of the Shen family in the first place, and now that the second daughter was no longer there to protect her, the once-favored third daughter was no longer in a good position.

Forcing someone to get married is just a way of coercing them into a marriage with money, a case of trying to force a sale.

However, thinking about it, Huixiu is a girl with ambition. If she didn't want to get married, that would be fine, but she even supported the country's construction.

It sounds exciting, but everyone in the neighborhood knows that the real suffering is yet to come.

Shen Huixiu was a bit foolish. She knew she had been tricked, but at this moment, she made a big show of not wanting to go, crying and wailing, which meant she felt that her good days were over.

She took a deep breath and clutched the two letters, written by herself, tightly in her palm.

“Mother,” Shen Huixiu lowered her eyes, every word she spoke cutting into her heart, “I don’t want to get married now. Forgive your unfilial daughter, but I feel that my youth should not be spent revolving around the stove. I’ve seen the life you’ve lived for more than ten years, and I’m tired of it.”

“I want to live my own life. You still have your older brother and sister-in-law, so losing me as your child is no big deal. But I want to contribute my own strength to the frontier…”

After saying this, Shen Huixiu knelt down and kowtowed three times to her mother.

Mother Shen was stunned; no one knew her daughter's personality better than she did.

Just a few days ago, she went so far as to scheme against her own sister to avoid going to the countryside and get a job. Now she's suddenly so enlightened?

Shen's mother wanted to yell at her for talking nonsense, wondering if she'd been kicked in the head by a donkey or squeezed in a door, saying such things in public.

That's absolutely insane.

She wanted to curse, but her father was still rational and stopped her mother. He looked at Shen Huixiu deeply and said in a deep voice, "Fine, since you have your own ideals, then we, as your parents, won't say anything more. But you should know that there are no parents in the world who don't love their children."

Shen Huixiu gritted her teeth. "Old man, you're quite clever. You've managed to exonerate yourself so smoothly."

“We want you to marry Xiao Wang, mainly because he is a few years older than you and has more social experience. You have just graduated, and having an experienced partner to guide you will save you from many detours.”

"Then there's Xiao Wang's family background. He's capable of earning money himself, and if you marry him, you'll have a much better life. We, as his parents, are already half-buried in the ground, and we can't enjoy this blessing for you. But you insist on going to Xinjiang to help with the aid work, and as your parents, we feel terrible about it!"

Father Shen's palms were sweating with nervousness. "I'm proud of you, and I'm so proud that we raised such a dedicated daughter. But I'm also worried about you. The living conditions over there are just as your mother said... Whether it's a blessing or a curse depends entirely on you."

After saying those last few words, Mr. Shen pondered for a moment, making sure there were no problems, before finally letting out a sigh of relief.

Even if Chen's mother was incredibly stupid, she would realize what was going on by now.

Instantly, she broke out in a cold sweat. Good heavens, if she had said something inappropriate in the heat of the moment, she would have been completely finished.

"Yes, yes, yes!" Mother Shen hurriedly raised her hand to wipe away her tears. Afraid that she wouldn't be able to cry, she even gave herself a hard slap on the thigh, and tears immediately welled up in her eyes.

“My daughter, I was wrong. I really shouldn’t have forced you to get married under the guise of doing what’s best for you. I just wanted to love you more, what’s wrong with that? You’re so foolish…”

Before she could finish speaking, her father gave her a hard slap from behind. This stupid woman, does she even think before she speaks?

Was the aid to Xinjiang a blunder?

Saying that means you've lost your mind.

After being hit, Mother Shen's mind immediately cleared, and she changed her tune, saying, "Your mother was confused~"

Shen Huixiu also wanted to curse, what a fool?

If they were truly confused, the mother and her children wouldn't be here crying their eyes out.

“Mother,” Shen Huixiu suggested sincerely, “why don’t we go together? That way we can look out for each other on the road. You’ve spent your whole life working in the kitchen, so while you’re still young, why don’t you come with me to see the world and have some fun?”

Looking into Shen Huixiu's exceptionally sincere eyes, Shen's mother almost couldn't hold back her emotions. "You bitch!"

No matter what they say, they're actually after me.