Chapter 3: Educated Youth Abandoning Their Wives and Children

When Chen Chunya didn't answer the phone, she had a lot of complaints she wanted to express.

You can hear the person on the other end breathing, but you just can't bring yourself to say anything.

"Spring Sprouts?" Ji Huaizhi's magnetic voice came through the receiver.

Two simple words brought tears to Chun Ya's eyes: "Why haven't you contacted your family for so long? Why haven't you replied to the several letters I've sent you?"

Listening to the woman's complaints, Ji Huaizhi cursed the original owner in his heart, but tried his best to coax her in the original owner's tone: "Chun Ya, I'm sorry to have worried you these past few days."

"I haven't picked up the letter you sent me yet. I had a little accident a while ago. I was accidentally grazed by a passing car while crossing the street, so I'm calling you right away now that I'm all better."

Upon hearing the reason, Chun Ya hurriedly asked, "You were hit by a car? Are you alright? Why weren't you watching where you were going? How serious is it?"

Ji Huaizhi's voice sounded somewhat guilty as he was bombarded with these questions.

The original owner was indeed scratched by the car, but he only suffered minor cuts and extorted fifty yuan from the car owner.

Unable to explain why he hadn't replied for so long, he resorted to this excuse.

"It's alright, I just called you. How's everything at home lately?"

Chun Ya was relieved to hear that everything was alright, but the recent rumors almost overwhelmed her.

"You haven't sent any news for so long. Everyone says you've abandoned me and Xiaotian, that you're living a good life in the city, and that you'll definitely marry a college student and improve together."

"You, a college student, would definitely not be interested in a country girl like me."

Ji Huaizhi heard the woman's voice on the other end of the line, trembling with tears. She must have suffered a lot of grievances recently.

"Chen Chunya, why don't you join in their insults! Weren't you always so fierce?"

"Besides, I'm already so old, and I have a six-year-old child. How could a college student from Renmin University be interested in me? You have to trust your man, you know?"

Chen Chunya was amused by him. Wasn't she just insecure?

Putting everything else aside, Ji Huaizhi's face doesn't look like that of a 26-year-old at all, and to say he has a 6-year-old child is simply unbelievable.

"Alright, honey, I'll come back for the Chinese New Year during the semester break. If possible, I'll bring you and our son to the city then."

"I saved some money at school and sent it back to you. Buy what you want and spend it, okay?"

"I can't talk to you anymore, the phone bill is too high, I'm hanging up now."

Chen Chunya was hung up on before he could finish speaking, without even being asked where the money came from.

But she wasn't angry at all.

All she knows now is that Ji Huaizhi has no ulterior motives and said he would come back for the Chinese New Year during the semester break.

It's been almost a year since I last saw him. Before, when I asked him if he was coming back during his holidays, he would always make excuses. It seems that the money he sent back was earned during his holidays.

As my father said, men mature later and have already learned to take responsibility.

Ji Huaizhi breathed a sigh of relief after hanging up the phone; being a husband is really not easy.

Luckily, the original owner hadn't seen Chun Ya for so long, otherwise what if she had noticed?

This system is really unreliable.

He sent two hundred yuan home, and now Ji Huaizhi only has a few dozen yuan left. He still needs to earn money to support his wife and children.

There was no need to maintain contact with the original owner's biological parents.

It seems that they contacted the original owner after he was admitted to university, asking him to come home. When he returned, he enjoyed the compliments from his family.

However, the underlying message from Ji's parents was that he should not forget his brothers, even though he had achieved success.

It is now the end of 1978. The notes have not yet been cancelled, and private trading is no longer allowed. The black market still exists.

But now big cities have relaxed a lot.

Ji Huaizhi recalls that individuals were allowed to register as sole proprietors and run small businesses as early as 1980, and in 1983, some regional invoices were abolished. After that, invoices gradually faded from people's view.

After returning to his dormitory, Ji Huaizhi kept thinking about the system.

He couldn't remember anything from his previous life. In order to regain his memories, he made a deal with the system, allowing him to do missions in various small worlds in exchange for immortality and the restoration of his memories.

He didn't believe in immortality, but he wanted to regain his memories.

It's not a good feeling to wake up and not know who you are.

As for the mission requirements, I'm not a scumbag like the original owner.

So it's no big deal for him.

No matter what, I just need to live well in this world for now.

~

Ji Huaizhi continued living his life according to the original owner's trajectory, and continued his tutoring work as usual.

However, Ji Huaizhi was not as annoying as the original owner, and his relationship with his roommates had improved considerably.

He also frequently wrote letters and made phone calls to Chun Ya.

Chun Ya had attended junior high school for two years and was a junior high school graduate, making her one of the few "highly educated" girls in the village.

"Huaizhi, writing letters home again?" Huang Dong was already used to it. "A female classmate said there's an academic conference today, shall we all go?"

Ji Huaizhi didn't even look up: "I won't go. I still have to go to my part-time job."

Huang Dong came over and put his arm around Ji Huaizhi's shoulder. The two were getting along quite well now. Huang Dong felt that Ji Huaizhi had been too withdrawn before, which was why he didn't have any friends and didn't know how to get along with people.

I recently discovered that he's actually a decent person, but he's obsessed with money.

"No, we're brothers, there's no end to making money! I'm telling you, the prettiest girl in our class even told me today that she wanted to invite you along."

Ji Huaizhi frowned, realizing that this class beauty was the girl the original owner of the body had tried so hard to seduce in his previous life.

"Who is the prettiest girl in our class? I'm not going. I'm going to tutor someone after I finish mailing the letter."

Another roommate, Wang Youfa, looked on incredulously: "No! It's that girl who asked to borrow your notes yesterday!"

"I think you're just faking it! You don't know, when the class beauty took the initiative to talk to you, all the other guys in the class were so envious."

Ji Huaizhi knew in his heart that the time had come. Before, the original owner never talked about his family in class, nor did he mention that he was married. In the eyes of outsiders, he was giving off a signal that he was single.

"I'm married, so don't talk nonsense. It's fine for me as a man, but young girls still care about their reputation." Ji Huaizhi said speechlessly.

But what he said shocked everyone.

"What!"

"You're married?"

The two men were utterly shocked: "How come we've never heard you mention this before?"

"Right? Haven't you been alone at school for over a year? No one has come looking for you."

Ji Huaizhi calmly tilted his head: "Didn't I say that?"

Huang Dong and Wang Youfa exchanged a glance and said in unison, "Of course we didn't say that!"

"I never said I had a six-year-old son?" Ji Huaizhi raised an eyebrow calmly.

Huang Dong: "What!"

Wang Youfa: "You have a six-year-old son?"

Ji Huaizhi was surprised by their reaction, which showed how well the original owner of this body had kept it hidden: "Why are you so surprised? I'm already 26 years old."

“At my age, people in my area already have two children.”

Upon hearing this, Huang Dong shut his surprised mouth and also manually closed Wang Youfa's mouth.

"Why don't you go home when school is on holiday? Don't you miss your wife and son?" Huang Dong was quite surprised, mainly because he was a loner and it was hard to tell that he had a family.

He even suspected that he might have been like those who abandoned their wives and children, unwilling to have any connection with that side.

But when he said it, he was too frank, without any sign of hiding anything.

"Of course I want to, but the round-trip fare is quite high. I might as well take advantage of the holiday to earn more money and send it back home."

That makes a lot of sense; not everyone has a family fortune.

People like Ji Huaizhi, who couldn't earn money through studying, could only save a little and send it back to their wives and children.

"So these are the letters you wrote?" Wang Youfa looked at the letters on the table.

Ji Huaizhi shrugged: "Isn't it obvious? It was written for my wife."

Huang Dong said with a regretful expression, "If the girls at our school knew that you were married and had a six-year-old child, I don't know how many of them would be heartbroken?"

Ji Huaizhi shook his head, indicating that he did not understand their thoughts.

Wang Youfa put his hand on his chin and said, "No wonder you were so frugal in school, always making money. So you had a family to support?"

"Didn't you say before that you were a sent-down youth?"

Ji Huaizhi nodded: "That's right."

"And your wife? Is she from the countryside?" Wang Youfa frowned.

Although Ji Huaizhi was an educated youth sent to the countryside, he was still a city dweller after all.

Moreover, he's a college student now, so the thought of him marrying a woman from the countryside is quite unbelievable.

“I met my wife after I went to the countryside. After that, my family abandoned me. I was so weak that I could barely lift a finger and almost starved to death. It was my wife who often helped me out.” Ji Huaizhi said frankly, not thinking of himself as particularly noble now.

Recalling the time when the original owner first went to the countryside:

“You don’t know, I had a conflict with the educated youth in the countryside and was pushed into the water. It was my wife who saved me.”

Wang Youfa suddenly leaned close to Ji Huaizhi's face: "So you have no way to repay the life-saving grace, so you can only offer yourself to me?"

Ji Huaizhi pushed his face away in disgust: "Pretty much, but the main thing is that she's completely different from the city girls I've met before."

Wang shuddered again: "Ji Huaizhi, you should just stay aloof like before. Your smile is really disgusting."

Fuck you.

They now genuinely think highly of Ji Huaizhi, speaking frankly, which is much better than those who have already married and had children in the countryside, then went on to university and abandoned their wives and children.

Now, sometimes you'll see women holding children near the school gate, saying they're looking for their husbands.

There were also cases of fathers-in-law and mothers-in-law bringing their children to find their daughters-in-law.

If Ji Huaizhi knew what they were thinking, he would definitely laugh.

If he hadn't come, wouldn't the original owner have been that man?