Chapter 3 Earning Money Brings Peace of Mind: Midnight

Wang Xiao was dragged along for half a street, almost losing his breath.

No, she reached out to grab Wang's father. If she kept running like this, she wouldn't just be killed by that scumbag; she'd collapse from anger on her way to her elopement.

A horn sounded first from the roadside, and a man in his thirties poked his head out of the truck driver's seat, looking at the father and daughter with a puzzled expression: "Brother-in-law, what's this?... Xiaoxiao?"

Old Man Wang was overjoyed when he saw the newcomer and immediately pushed his daughter toward the car: "Yi Dong, you've come at the right time. Quick, take Xiao Xiao to your house. Xiao Xiao isn't getting married, so keep a close eye on her and don't let her run away. Xiao Xiao, you understand what your uncle and aunt said, right?"

Wang Xiao only realized it at this moment.

The elderly couple were clearly afraid that once their daughter saw Ruan Rui's face, all her rationality would vanish, and she would insist on marrying him off to become a stepmother.

Sigh, what kind of karma did the original owner create to drive his own parents to this point?

Wang Xiao nodded with a wry smile, "Dad, don't worry, I won't run around."

Why would she run away? She's a complete stranger in this world. Having inherited the original owner's identity, where else could she possibly go? She could only obediently follow her uncle.

She only got to the point: "Make sure Ruan Rui and Zhang Yan don't get that letter. It will be evidence if there's any trouble later."

Wang Tiejun quickly waved his hand: "I know, I know, you go back with your uncle."

Chen Yidong restarted the car, secretly glanced at his niece, and cautiously asked, "Xiaoxiao, have you really come to your senses?"

She's such a grown woman, and I can't just tie her down. If she still has feelings for that man, she could easily go to town, catch a bus, and run away.

Wang Xiao nodded firmly without hesitation: "Of course, how old am I? I'm still a child myself, how can I be a mother to a child?"

Actually, 21 years old is not young. Nowadays, many women her age, whether in rural or urban areas, have already had children.

However, in the eyes of elders, especially those who have watched their children grow up, their own children will always be children. At 21, they are still young girls. Why should they get married and have children?

Chen Yidong wholeheartedly agreed with his niece's words, nodding vigorously: "Yes, that's right. Our precious daughter is more than qualified to marry a king or general. Why are you in such a hurry to get married?"

He relaxed and was more inclined to ask, "How did you suddenly figure it out?"

Without hesitation, Wang Xiao said, "It was an eye-opener. I overheard him on the phone saying he still misses his ex-wife. The only reason he remarried is because he needs someone to help him take care of his daughter."

This is not something Wang Xiao made up; in fact, the original owner of the novel did hear the man say those words.

A normal person would definitely turn around and leave in this situation, but what did she do? The original owner was heartbroken and actually made up her mind to move the other person with her sincerity.

Tsk tsk, it really proves what Yang Li said: Some girls don't date for happiness, but for excitement. They have to experience all the hardships they've never had before in love.

Chen Yidong wished he could turn back right now and punch that bastard to death. He cursed his ancestors for eighteen generations! The girls of the Chen family were all precious treasures, and they were being used as free maids by an outsider?

Wang Xiao thought to herself: Isn't that right? Your real niece has truly been a nanny for over 20 years with great joy. Not only for free, but also with a salary, the kind that even Wang Baochuan would have to kneel down and call her boss.

She continued, "Suddenly I felt really bored, not sad, just a feeling, oh, I see. I felt like someone had put a spell on me, that's why I was so dizzy."

In 1990, Hong Kong movie videotapes were quite popular in mainland China. Therefore, Chen Yidong also knew about black magic.

He nodded vigorously, completely agreeing with his niece's point of view: "Uncle also thinks you seem to be bewitched. You're such a good and sensible girl, when have you ever been so confused?"

Wang Xiao smiled bitterly to herself. She guessed that the original owner was too obedient and sensible, so her rebellious phase came late and she used it all up in marriage.

The more her parents objected, the more she insisted, wanting to prove her independence. By the time she realized what was happening, she had invested too much and the sunk costs were too high, so she could only continue down this path to the bitter end.

Tsk, when they should be respecting themselves, they don't even care about their dignity; when they shouldn't be saving face, they insist on suffering. A life without misery is anti-intellectual.

Thinking of this, Wang Xiao earnestly emphasized to Chen Yidong, "Uncle, I've come to my senses now. I will definitely never talk to that despicable guy again, so don't worry."

Chen Yidong smiled with relief and said "okay" repeatedly, while comforting his niece: "Who hasn't been touched on the head by a ghost? You'll be fine once you come to your senses."

As the car drove on, leaving the provincial capital and entering the suburbs, both banks were lined with golden rice paddies. In the distance, the fragrance of rice seemed to waft towards us, a sight that truly brought joy to our hearts.

After passing this vast rice paddy and getting onto the main road, the buildings on both sides of the road turned into two- or three-story buildings. Oh, this is the county town.

When the buildings turned into golden rice paddies, we finally arrived at our destination, and the car drove directly into the gate of Zhouzhen Chemical Plant.

Chen Yidong was a sent-down youth. When the educated youth returned to the cities in 1978, he was already married, and his wife was pregnant and about to give birth. While the others left, he stayed to continue his life.

Zhouzhen is a township under the jurisdiction of a city next to Jinning City. It has a relatively developed economy and is one of the earliest areas where township enterprises emerged. There are now about 20 factories of various sizes in the town, not counting the small processing plants in the villages.

With more factories, more people will work in them. The daily routine of Zhouzhen residents is to return home to farm during the busy farming season and work in factories during the off-season, thus managing both agricultural and industrial production simultaneously.

Chen Yidong is precisely this kind of person who takes on both roles.

He works as the sales manager at a chemical plant. He was able to drive to the city this time because he had closed a business deal. Now that the truck has returned to the plant, he told his supervisor and rode his bicycle home with his niece.

It's harvest season right now. Although his family has harvested their rice, he and his wife still have to go to other people's fields to repay the labor they owed them.

The so-called "mutual aid" was a new form of mutual assistance that emerged in rural agricultural production after the abolition of production teams. Normally, farmers would cultivate their own land, but when it came to the harvest and planting season, families with good relationships would form mutual aid groups to concentrate their efforts on major tasks, taking turns to help each other in their fields.

Chen Yidong instructed his niece, "Just stay home and don't worry about what's going on outside. With your dad, mom, and uncle here, no one will dare to bully you."

Wang Xiao looked at his uncle's hunched back and felt a surge of emotion. The original owner of this body was truly ungrateful; meeting such good family and relatives was a blessing beyond measure, yet he didn't know how to cherish it.

Unlike her, before she transmigrated into the book, apart from her grandmother who cared about her, the existence of her other immediate family members was basically just to let her experience what it meant to undergo tribulation.

Chen Yidong also educated his niece: "You just graduated from university and are so young. There is no need to rush to think about personal matters. You should work hard in your career."

Wang Xiao suddenly felt a sense of joy at having met a kindred spirit.

Listen to this, who says people in the 20th century have outdated ideas?

Before she transmigrated into the book, she was still in college. She already had her own online store business, but the elders in her family implied that girls shouldn't pursue graduate studies after graduation and should hurry up and get married and have children.

Her cousin is pursuing a PhD at a prestigious 985 university, and some people are nagging her, saying that girls shouldn't study so much and that missing the optimal childbearing age will make it harder to have a third child.

So a woman's only remaining value is her uterus.

She traveled back to 1990, but her uncle told her that, regardless of gender, having one's own career is the real skill.

Wang Xiao immediately chimed in, "Yes, Uncle, that's what I think too. I'm going to work hard in my career."

The original owner of this body worked as a researcher at a chemical engineering institute, doing scientific research. Wang Xiao wasn't very interested in the lab; she wasn't cut out to be a scientist. While other scientists were content with a simple life, all she cared about was making money.

Right now, her uncle is taking her on his bicycle through the streets of Zhouzhen, which consist of three streets in total. Each street is lined with stalls on both sides, selling everything from fruits and toys to various small commodities.

Along the way, there was a young man wearing bell-bottoms with shoulder-length hair walking along, nodding and swaying his head as he carried a tape recorder. The tape recorder was playing: "In Asia, our people are the most hardworking; in Asia, our athletes are even more dashing..."

People around him mocked him, "The Asian Games are over, why are you singing 'Asian Heroic Spirit'?"

The young man didn't argue, but pressed the record button twice, and Luo Dayou's voice flowed from the square device: "Your dark, bright eyes and your smiling face, it's hard to forget how your appearance has changed..."

Wang Xiao laughed out loud when he heard this. More stalls on the street meant more customers, and no one would be foolish enough to do a losing business.

She wondered if she should set up a stall in town too.

It is said that the 1980s and 1990s were an era of tremendous social class change. As long as you are willing to work hard and find your niche, there is no reason why you can't make money in small business.

Before she transmigrated into the book, she mainly sold her business online, but during the COVID-19 pandemic, she even drove around with friends setting up street stalls. While it was primarily for livestreaming to attract customers, she still gained some experience. There's no reason she shouldn't be able to run a business in 1990.

Unfortunately, Chen Yidong was in a hurry to go home to change jobs, and he pedaled his bicycle very fast, not giving Wang Xiao a chance to see the sales situation of each stall clearly.

Qianjia Village is connected to Zhouzhen Market. After riding the car for less than ten minutes, we stopped in front of a farmhouse.

Chen Yidong's family is well-off; the house enclosed by a small courtyard is a two-and-a-half-story building. The first floor serves as the kitchen, living room, and bathroom; the second floor as bedrooms; and the third floor for storing miscellaneous items and grain. It's harvest time now, and the newly harvested rice is spread out to dry on the cement threshing floor in the courtyard, a golden expanse that looks quite festive.

He entered the courtyard and saw his daughter doing her homework at the entrance of the main room. He greeted her, "Jingjing, don't go out to play today. Spend more time with your cousin."

Twelve-year-old Chen Jingjing looked up, saw Wang Xiao, and was extremely surprised: "Sister, didn't you get married today? What happened?"

Chen Yidong picked up a sickle stored in the corridor and stopped his daughter from continuing the topic: "Your sister isn't getting married, so don't bring this up again."

Chen Jingjing stuck out her tongue, not daring to provoke her father. The family disapproved of her cousin's marriage. Even her usually capable and strong-willed aunt cried in front of her mother. Her mother said it was the first time she had ever seen her sister-in-law shed tears.

Yesterday, when her father went to the city on a business trip, she originally wanted to go with him to attend a wedding, since school was on holiday for the busy farming season. However, her father, with a dark expression, told her to stay home and not join in the commotion.

Now that her father's figure had disappeared outside the gate, Chen Jingjing dared to ask her cousin, "Sister, what happened? Did my dad bring you back?"

Wang Xiao couldn't help but touch his nose. It seemed that the original owner was indeed quite dizzy. Even a junior high school girl didn't believe that she would suddenly come to her senses.

She cleared her throat and repeated the curse, emphasizing with great seriousness, "Anyway, when I woke up, I felt that what happened before was particularly absurd. I can't continue to make mistakes, I have to turn back before it's too late."

Chen Jingjing nodded, and like a little adult, said seriously, "Sister, don't make the same mistake again. I find this strange too. Why would anyone want to be someone's stepmother? I've heard that people who rush to be someone's elder are either stupid or wicked."

Wang Xiao was taken aback, feeling that this girl truly lived up to her name, almost to the point of being shrewd. At such a young age, she could speak with such profound insight.

In the words of her best friend, it's not impossible to marry an old man and become a stepmother at a young age, but at least you have to be like Wendi Deng, first get a courtyard house in Beijing, and then get a marriage certificate to achieve a leap in social class.

Otherwise, why rush to help the poor? Haha, all one-sided acts of giving are despicable, whether it's being a brother-supporting fanatic or a love-struck fool.

Get as far away as possible and stop harming normal people.

She nodded, agreeing with her cousin: "I thought so too when I woke up. Anyway, I won't talk to that person anymore. By the way, you should too, don't make a mistake. A man's infatuation can be escaped, but a woman's infatuation cannot."

What?

Chen Jingjing is only in the second year of junior high school and has never studied such complex classical Chinese. But she still understood what her cousin meant and flatly denied it: "I'm not going to have a relationship early, I want to go to university! I want to be a university student like you in the future. My mom said that once I go to university, I can find any kind of partner I want. Why would I want to fall for someone like a mung bean in a pond?"

Wang Xiao was amused by her younger cousin's words. She laughed and emphasized, "Even if you go to university, you can't guarantee that you'll only meet good people. You know, there are plenty of clever bad people too."

Take the original owner's ex-boyfriend, for example. He was a graduate of a prestigious university, and a postgraduate student, which is quite rare these days. Unfortunately, while academic qualifications may filter out academically weak students, they can never eliminate scumbags.

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That's all for today's update. Next stop: 7 AM tomorrow.

Haha, wishing everyone a happy Mid-Autumn Festival and National Day in advance! Happy holidays to all!

The female protagonist in this story only cares about money, is relatively indifferent to emotions, focuses on herself, and has no interest in saving anyone.