Chapter 102: He has taken a liking to his mother-in-law, Wu Xueyan.

A building vanished into thin air. Zhang Mancang was dumbfounded, and the relatives who had followed him were also dumbfounded.

Zhang Mancang almost bit his tongue: "Now that you've lost the house, do you still want to marry Xiaoyue?"

One of the onlookers laughed and said, "Isn't it obvious? They've lost their house. Will the Zhang family still marry her off?"

The villagers admired Wu Xueyan's courage as a widow. Many could see that the Zhang family had been making exorbitant demands throughout the previous year, using the marriage as an excuse to take advantage of the situation. Each demand was more outrageous than the last, and they were determined to take advantage of the Li family.

They were convinced that the Li family had paid so many sunk costs that they wouldn't dare to back out, so they recklessly demanded exorbitant prices.

The houses have already been demolished, and there's no going back now.

"Zhang Mancang, you've come at the right time! Your family owes you money!" Wu Xueyan pointed at Zhang Mancang and shouted, "Our marriage with your family is off! Everything you ate, took, and used from my family, you have to pay back!"

Zhang Mancang's face turned pale: "This...this needs to be discussed properly."

"There's no room for negotiation. The house is what it is now. If you want to marry, the wedding will be held tomorrow, and you'll live in the old house. If you don't want to marry, your family will pay you back!"

When Zhang Xiaoyue saw that the house had collapsed and that she had such a big conflict with her in-laws, she was unwilling to jump into a fire pit and immediately rode a bicycle back to her own village.

Li Jianzhi borrowed a farm transport vehicle from the militia and took Zhang Mancang and others to Zhang Mancang's village.

He held a notebook in his hand, on which Wu Xueyan had recorded the things she had given to the Zhang family, and now he wanted them back one by one.

Zhang Mancang looked utterly desperate, while several young men from Northeast China beside him were all very excited.

"Brother Li, do you think I'm qualified to be a soldier?"

"Brother Li, how are the subsidies calculated after joining the army? How can I have a chance to be assigned to the navy?"

These young men are all from the same village and share the surname Li, so they are related by blood. The one speaking now is Li Yaowei's cousin, named Li Yaodong.

They went with Li Jianzhi to the Zhang family to demand their belongings, but their minds were elsewhere. They were more interested in finding out about the benefits and treatment after joining the army, what to pay attention to when being in the navy, and how to get promoted. No one cared about Zhang Mancang.

When they arrived at Zhang Mancang's brigade, a group of people surrounded him upon seeing him from another village.

"Zhang Mancang, is this your future brother-in-law? Are you getting ready to hold a wedding banquet soon?"

Li Jianzhi: "Where does Zhang Mancang live?"

Kind villagers gave them directions, and Li Jianzhi led his men there. They began moving things, which terrified the Zhang family. "What are you doing?" they asked.

Li Jianzhi: "These are our family's things. Now that Zhang Xiaoyue's marriage to my younger brother Li Jianping has fallen through, your family has to return the money and the things you took and used from our family."

"Where are your commune cadres? Someone go and inform the commune cadres, as well as the respected elders of the village, to come and witness this."

“This notebook clearly states what our family gave to the Zhang family, so don’t say we’re being unreasonable.”

"The wedding is off, but the big-ticket items we bought have to be returned: the radio, the bicycle..."

The whole village was in an uproar, and immediately a middle-aged woman stood up to persuade them:

"The house was all built, what happened? It was a perfectly good wedding."

Li Yaodong said, "My brother and aunt's family have already demolished their houses, so what kind of wedding is this?"

“Your family is making outrageous demands, wanting to build a new house and buy all sorts of big-ticket items. You’ve been dragging this out for over half a year without getting married. When the older brother came back, he even threatened that if he didn’t give you an imported watch as a betrothal gift, the marriage was off the table.”

"We, the Li family, are telling you now, this marriage is off-limits! Pay up!"

The onlookers were equally stunned upon hearing this. "The houses were all demolished? Newly built houses were demolished?"

"The Zhang family said they wouldn't get married until they built a new house, but now that the Li family has finished building it, they've demolished the house? This really won't happen."

"The Zhang family is too greedy. They didn't become in-laws, but enemies instead."

"Who would dare marry Zhang Xiaoyue in the future? It's a bottomless pit."

After having his belongings moved, Li Jianzhi had the commune cadres witness the process and then quickly returned home.

Zhang Mancang was still in a daze and hadn't reacted yet. The family's belongings had been moved out, and his younger sister Zhang Xiaoyue hadn't returned. A perfectly good wedding was over.

Even now, he still can't believe that what was once a sure thing has completely fallen apart.

"Zhang Xiaoyue! Zhang Xiaoyue hasn't come back yet. No, this marriage can't be called off!" Coming back to his senses, Zhang Mancang thought that this marriage absolutely couldn't be called off. If it was, Zhang Xiaoyue's reputation would be ruined, and who would dare to marry his sister?

Zhang Mancang waited for Zhang Xiaoyue at home. The Zhang family gathered together to think of a solution. When Zhang Xiaoyue returned, the Zhang family said, "The marriage with the Li family cannot be broken off. You still have to marry into the Li family."

Zhang Xiaoyue bit her lip: "It's all my brother's fault. He wants this and that. He even has the nerve to ask me for watches that cost thousands of yuan!"

Zhang Mancang: "I told you to ask him for it, and you just ask him for it? Don't you have a brain?"

"Isn't this something you did wrong?"

Zhang Xiaoyue's eyes widened. She felt that her older brother had gone mad. He was the one who spoke up, yet he was pushing all the blame onto her.

Zhang's parents also said, "Your older brother was just joking, why did you take it seriously?"

"A watch worth over a thousand yuan, do you think you're gold, expecting someone to give it to you to marry?"

"Are you brain-dead? You think you can just do whatever I tell you to do?"

Zhang Xiaoyue felt a chill run through her body. For the past year or two, she had been dating Li Sandi. Li Sandi had an older brother who was a military officer and a second brother who was a teacher in town. They only had a widowed mother at home, and the brothers sent money home. In the several communes, Li Jianping's conditions were actually considered very good. He wouldn't have any pressure to support his parents in the future, and his two older brothers would also contribute financially. He also didn't have to live with his sisters-in-law...

After she started dating Li San Di, her "status" in the family gradually increased. Every time she brought something back from the Li family, the Zhang family would praise her, making her feel more and more important.

Now that she's doing what her older brother said, she's offended her future in-laws, but they're blaming her for everything.

Zhang Mancang: "Go apologize to the Li family tomorrow and get married as soon as possible."

Zhang Xiaoyue exclaimed incredulously, "They demolished the whole house!"

Zhang Mancang: "Their house is big enough to accommodate everyone. It's just the two of you and his mother, a widow, which is more than enough."

The Zhang family added, "In our village, many families share a room with each other, with the north and south sides of the kang (heated brick bed) facing each other."

Zhang Xiaoyue trembled all over. She still remembered the joy she felt when she heard that the Li family was building a new house. She would live in a brand-new, big house, and the couple would not have to squeeze in with anyone. She would be the most enviable new bride in the village.

Now everything is ruined!

It was ruined by her greedy family.

"I won't marry him!"

"You have no choice but to marry him!"

Just as the Zhang family was collectively trying to persuade Zhang Xiaoyue, a young woman borrowed a bicycle and traveled in the dark to the village where Li Jianping lived.

The woman was wearing a thin, old cotton-padded coat, her face cracked from the cold wind. After arriving at the village, she looked at the sky in the distance and guessed that it would be a while before dawn. So she got off her bicycle and walked forward with faltering steps.

She only dared to stand quietly at a distance and observe the collapsed house of the Li family. Although the house had been demolished, the kang (heated brick bed) inside had been surprisingly preserved, which made the woman's heart skip a beat.

She groped her way closer to the courtyard in the dark to continue observing, only to find someone crying next to the woodpile—it was Li Jianping!

Wang Ruozhu felt a moment of panic. She had seen Li Jianping in the commune before and heard people talk about Zhang Xiaoyue's fiancé. They said that his family was well-off, his two older brothers were successful, and he had an older brother who was a military officer. In order to get married, he gave the Zhang family a lot of things and even built a house for them.

Now the house has been demolished, and the marriage with the Zhang family has been called off.

"Hello, is this Li Jianping?"

Li Sandi was still crying and feeling sorry for himself. He was miserable and thought that he would never be able to get married in his life. His conditions were too poor, not as good as his two older brothers, and no woman would want to marry him.

However, at this moment a woman's voice rang out, and a chill ran down Li Jianping's spine. His first thought was "a female ghost seeking revenge."

If you agree to what the other person says, you will be lured away by the female ghost.

He was so frightened that he held back his tears and quickly said, "I am not Li Jianping, I am Li Jianzhi."

He only felt a sense of relief when he said the name of his righteous and awe-inspiring elder brother.

Shouldn't the People's Liberation Army be able to kill the female ghost?

Wang Ruozhu laughed: "I don't believe it. You are Li Jianping, the one who was engaged to Zhang Xiaoyue. Now that the marriage has fallen through, everyone is talking about it."

Li Sandi was filled with despair and pain, thinking that it would have been better to encounter a female ghost, at least a female ghost would take his life directly instead of making him a laughing stock in the surrounding villages.

Wang Ruozhu said, "What do you think of me marrying you as my wife?"

Li Sandi was stunned.

Under the moonlight, a young woman stood before me. Her features were delicate and pretty, even prettier than Zhang Xiaoyue's. However, her skin and hair were of poor quality, making her look somewhat malnourished, and she was thin and frail.

Wang Ruozhu had just turned eighteen when her father was sent to a farm near Zhang Xiaoyue Village in the 1960s. She followed him there and has lived there ever since. Now that she is eighteen, her father is thinking of finding a family to marry her off to make money.

Her parents both hated her existence.

Her father was a teacher at a vocational school, and her mother was a student. The two had a teacher-student relationship at school. Her mother became pregnant with her before graduating, so she was forced to end her studies. At that time, her parents had a deep affection for each other, and her father was willing to take responsibility for the female student, so he married her mother who had dropped out of school.

Her mother happily married the man she loved and became a housewife.

However, after getting married, poverty brought many sorrows to the couple. Her mother began to resent her existence. Her mother's former classmate, after graduation, was assigned a job, married a better-off man in the city, received her parents' blessings, and lived a life that others envied.

She dropped out of school to have a child, became a housewife, and was with a male teacher with a meager salary. Her mother regretted it and resented the existence of this daughter. She thought that if this daughter hadn't been there, she would have graduated smoothly, just like her classmates, and would have been able to get a job and marry a man with better conditions.

Her mother started to file for divorce from her father, but her father refused. Later, her mother reported her father for sexually assaulting a female student while he was teaching. After the divorce was successful, her father lost his job and was sent to a farm with her.

After being sent to the countryside, her father began to drink heavily and commit domestic violence, venting all his resentment on her.

Now that she's eighteen, she's thinking of selling her daughter to get some money.

Wang Ruozhu refused to accept her fate. Of course, she knew that most of the families who bought wives were not well-off, and her father could not possibly find her a good family.

Rather than be sold, she would rather find herself a suitable home.

Wang Ruozhu wasn't interested in Li Sandi, but rather in her mother-in-law, Wu Xueyan.