Chapter 12 Past Events

After Ma Siqing was reborn, she often recalled her time in Danjiang in her previous life when she was alone.

It was simply a nightmare, a hell.

Zhang Xiaoe had a plan since the day she adopted her.

Because she was an abandoned baby, when Zhang Xiaoe found her by the Danjiang River, there was a thousand yuan and a transparent jade pendant in her swaddling clothes.

The swaddling clothes that wrapped Ma Siqing looked very delicate.

Zhang Xiaoe guessed that this might be the child of a girl from a wealthy family who had secretly agreed to spend her life with someone.

As a result, because of the relationship between the family background, they could not get married, and they could not let their family know about the existence of the child, so they abandoned it.

Danjiang County is not big, not small, she has heard such things several times.

There is a letter left by Ma Siqing

's biological mother in the cradle. The letter said that she could not take the child with her for various reasons, and begged the benefactor who picked up the child to help raise the child.

She will come back to recognize her relatives within ten years, and will reward her with a large sum of money at that time. When Zhang

Xiao'e saw the one thousand yuan, she couldn't walk.

In addition, she had been married for several years without children, so she took Ma Siqing home.

As a result, when Zhang Xiao'e raised Ma Siqing to the age of five, her belly suddenly became swollen, and she gave birth to three children in a row, a pair of twins, and two sons.

The one thousand yuan allowed Zhang Xiao'e to live a comfortable life for several years.

After having her own child, Zhang Xiao'e's attitude towards Ma Siqing changed.

Ma Siqing could hardly remember her life before the age of six.

But she remembered every detail after the age of six.

When Ma Siqing was six years old, Zhang Xiao'e asked her to do housework. In

the winter in Northeast China, with temperatures of more than ten or twenty degrees below zero, Ma Siqing, at such a young age, had to wash clothes for the whole family.

She also had to help Zhang Xiao'e take care of the children.

If she was a little slow or made mistakes, Ma Siqing would always be beaten by Zhang Xiao'e.

Life was hard in that era.

Although Lin Fugui had a job, his salary was not enough to support a large family.

Lin Fugui has three sons, with a salary of 40 yuan, and each family can only give 10 yuan.

After the 1,000 yuan given by Ma Siqing's biological mother was used up, Lin Desheng also lost his job.

Lin Desheng originally had a job moving goods in a supply and marketing cooperative, but because he took advantage of others and behaved badly, he was fired.

Seven years passed, and Ma Siqing's biological mother did not come back to recognize her child.

Zhang Xiao'e scolded Ma Siqing for being a burden and a money-loser every day.

It was not her turn to eat the meat at home.

She had to do all the housework.

As for studying, that was even more impossible.

Fortunately, when Ma Siqing was seven years old, she met an old man in the cadre school by chance. The old man was educated, and Ma Siqing would go to run errands for the old man whenever she had time.

Although she was beaten by Zhang Xiao'e every time she came back, Ma Siqing persisted.

In return, the old man taught Ma Siqing to recognize words and addition, subtraction, multiplication and division.

The old man also told Ma Siqing many stories and taught her to recite poems.

Ma Siqing initially thought that Zhang Xiao'e favored boys over girls and therefore did not love her.

But Zhang Xiao'e treated Lin Chunhua differently.

Lin Chunhua had everything she wanted and did not need to wash clothes, cook or sweep the floor.

Zhang Xiao'e also sent Lin Chunhua to school.

As she grew up, Ma Siqing realized that she was not Zhang Xiao'e's biological child, but someone else's abandoned child that she picked up by the river.

Ma Siqing also had dreams that her biological mother came back to find her and took her away from the Lin family.

But dreams are always dreams, they can never come true.

Ma Siqing grew up slowly under the beatings and scoldings of Zhang Xiao'e and the driving of her younger siblings.

Zhang Xiao'e waited and waited, but no one came after ten years.

She felt that she was being fooled.

She had raised a child for

others in vain. She became even more dissatisfied with Ma Siqing.

In addition, Lin Desheng lost his job and stayed at home to eat and do nothing, and Lin Fugui had to divide the little money he had among his three sons, so she only had ten yuan in her hands.

Zhang Xiao'e released her grievances on Ma Siqing.

Ma Siqing became Zhang Xiao'e's punching bag.

In the previous life, the scene of washing clothes for the whole family in the cold winter was still vivid in her mind.

This is Northeast China!

She was shivering with cold at night, but Zhang Xiao'e didn't let her sleep on the kang.

She had no choice but to put on all her clothes, wrapped in a quilt and slept on a long wooden bench in the corner of the room.

Ma Siqing smiled bitterly, she was really lucky.

Later, Sulan's mother Bai Yun knew about this and asked Ma Siqing to sleep on the kang in her house.

Ma Siqing didn't dare to agree for fear of angering Zhang Xiao'e.

Bai Yun saw Ma Siqing's worries, so she had to boil hot water every night, fill the hot water bag, and let Sulan send it to Ma Siqing.

With Bai Yun's help from time to time, Ma Siqing survived that period.

When she was fifteen, Ma Siqing got her period.

She was extremely panicked that day, she thought she might die.

When she went to tell Zhang Xiao'e, she kept scolding her, saying how could she do such a sloppy thing when the family was broke.

Zhang Xiao'e didn't even teach Ma Siqing how to deal with her period.

Bai Yun heard Ma Siqing crying at home and ran over to see.

He brought two menstrual belts for Ma Siqing.

These were prepared by Bai Yun for Sulan, but Sulan hadn't come yet, so he let Ma Siqing use them first.

Then Baiyun taught Ma Siqing how to use a sanitary belt, how to deal with menstruation, what menstruation is, and not to touch cold water and not to get tired during menstruation.

When she was free, Baiyun also taught Ma Siqing how to sew a sanitary belt.

But Ma Siqing didn't have any cloth, so Baiyun took her own rotten clothes and gave them to Ma Siqing.

From the age of fifteen to eighteen, Ma Siqing was reluctant to go out when her menstruation came.

Once, she really couldn't avoid it, and was called out by Zhang Xiaoe to buy a bag of salt. When she came back, the back of her pants was full of blood. She

was laughed at by the children in the neighborhood for a long time.

When Ma Siqing was eighteen years old, Lin Desheng's father, Lin Fugui, had his left hand strangled by a machine in a textile factory and retired early.

At that time, her non-blood-related sister and brother were not yet of age.

And the only positions available for replacements in the textile factory were for female weavers, so Lin Desheng could not replace him.

Lin Desheng's two younger brothers had jobs, and their wives also needed to take care of their children, who were still young.

Zhang Xiao'e had to take care of the children, so she could not replace him.

Although the work in the textile factory was equivalent to a stable job, it was tiring, dealing with cotton all day long, and several people had lung disease.

Lin Desheng went to make a scene, asking the organization to give him a replacement job, after all, his old man was injured on the job.

The leaders of the textile factory consulted the director of the Revolutionary Committee, Dong Dashan, and the request was rejected.

Because someone in their family could replace him.

In this way, the job in the textile factory luckily fell to Ma Siqing.

However, this was luck, but it was also the beginning of a new tragedy.

Ma Siqing got the job in the textile factory, but Zhang Xiao'e asked Ma Siqing to hand over all her wages.

Zhang Xiao'e only left one yuan for Ma Siqing every month.

One yuan, for an 18-year-old girl who already had a job, how could it be enough.

After Ma Siqing got a job and earned money, sanitary paper at 17 cents a pack was still a luxury for her, and she still used a menstrual belt.

But she was always careful every time and was never laughed at again. Occasionally, when she

saw sanitary paper at home, Ma Siqing took it to use. Every time Zhang Xiao'e found out, she would beat and scold her.

In her previous life, she had fought, but what could she do as a weak woman who had never been educated and had nothing?