Fu Hong's eyes welled up with tears: "I never imagined that Xiao Lan would still be thinking of me down there."
He Shasha looked bewildered, finally understanding why her mother had been nagging her: one dared to speak, and the other dared to believe.
She looked at Xing Zhaozhao, puzzled. If she hadn't seen it with her own eyes, she really wouldn't have been able to connect this person with the charlatan her mother had described. She didn't understand, what was the point? She wasn't short of money.
Dong Fanghua was already used to it and acted as if she didn't care what they said. She had completely given up, since they wouldn't listen anyway and she had nothing to lose, so she let them do as they pleased.
Fu Hong ignored her daughter and granddaughter's reactions; her mind was now completely focused on her younger sister.
"Tell Xiaolan that I'm doing well, and tell her not to worry. Let me know when she's reincarnated, and I'll come to see her," Fu Hong said with a relieved smile, looking at Xing Zhaozhao.
Dong Fanghua: "..."
He Shasha: "..."
Dong Fanghua and He Shasha both shuddered, goosebumps rising on their arms. That was a bit creepy.
Xing Zhaozhao: "..."
Xing Zhaozhao rubbed her arms, agreeing with the sentiment. However, since things had already come to this point, she could only continue lying; she definitely couldn't tell the truth.
"Are you really doing well?" Xing Zhaozhao looked at Fu Hong suspiciously. "Was that your brother-in-law just now? He's so old now, but he still doesn't know how to behave. He's still the same old guy. He probably wasn't much better when he was young. He must have given you a lot of trouble, right?"
Before Fu Hong could say anything after Xing Zhaozhao mentioned Dong Cang, Dong Fanghua angrily interrupted, "It's not just him, there's also my aunt, two shameless debt collectors. They're so young, they do nothing but ask for money, and they even gamble away their family fortune. And then there's that idiot Dong Cheng, who knew perfectly well that his younger brother and sister were hopeless, but after being begged by them, he rushed to take on their debts and worked himself to death. My mother must have had the worst luck in eight lifetimes to have gotten involved with the Dong family."
Fu Hong's face darkened, and she glared at Dong Fanghua: "What nonsense are you spouting? That's your father. He's always doted on you since you were little, and he's never shortchanged you on what's rightfully yours."
Tears welled in Dong Fanghua's eyes, and her lips trembled uncontrollably: "Why wasn't I shortchanged? I don't have a father anymore. He shouldn't have left us so early."
After saying that, tears streamed down her face. Unable to hold back any longer, she sobbed as she got up and ran out.
"Mom..." He Shasha was worried and quickly chased after her.
Fu Hong couldn't help but wipe away her tears, looking at Xing Zhaozhao through her teary eyes, and said, "He was a good person, he shouldn't have ended up like that..."
Fu Hong and Xing Zhaozhao recounted their past in detail.
She got together with Dong Cheng after Fu Lan disappeared.
My younger sister suddenly disappeared and we couldn't find her anywhere. Both Grandma Fu and Grandpa Fu fell ill one after the other.
Fu Hong had to take care of her sick grandparents and search for her younger sister all by herself. She couldn't even focus on her work. She had several accidents and almost lost her job because of some misdeeds.
It was Dong Cheng who helped her, comforted her, took care of her sick grandparents, and ran around asking people for help to find her sister. Although he ultimately failed to find her, he truly did everything he could to help her.
When Dong Cheng proposed, the only thing that made Fu Hong hesitate was his unreliable family members.
However, Dong Cheng also assured her that in the future, his parents would definitely be supported, but he would never let his own family suffer.
Fu Hong believed him.
After getting married, Dong Cheng did keep his promise to Fu Hong before the marriage. He would definitely support his parents, and he couldn't skimp on that money. He also took good care of his own family. After his daughter was born, he always doted on her. Even when Fu Hong didn't have any more children and Dong's mother kept gossiping, he ignored her and directly shielded Fu Hong from the gossip.
Dong Cheng had been doing his best to maintain harmony between the two sides, but unfortunately, it was eventually broken.
Dong Cheng's two younger siblings, Dong Cang and Dong Cui, were unreliable from a young age and didn't improve much as they grew up. They were lazy and cunning, relying on their parents when they were young and on their older brother when they grew up. Even after they got married and had their own families, they didn't make any progress and never did anything worthwhile.
Dong Cang always drifted around aimlessly.
Dong Cui was close in age to her second brother, Dong Cang. She was also a bad student, lazy and gluttonous, and followed her brother around everywhere. In an era when divorce was big news, she divorced and remarried several times. Fortunately, she had no children and was not implicated. In the end, she was said to have married a man surnamed Liu.
That year, Dong Fanghua was in her third year of junior high school, preparing for the high school entrance exam. Suddenly, Dong Cang and Dong Cui brought their parents to their house, crying and begging for their older brother to save them. When asked, they learned that the two of them had been led astray by someone and owed a total of 10,000 yuan.
Back then, if someone became a millionaire, it would be widely publicized in the newspapers. Dong Cheng and Fu Hong both worked in a textile factory, and their salaries were quite good at the time. However, they had to support their family, so they didn't save much. They had to save it for their daughter's college education and couldn't touch it. Even though the two elders in the Dong family cried and begged, Dong Cheng didn't budge. It was a promise he made to Fu Hong when they got married.
The creditors came knocking and gave Dong Cang a severe beating. Dong Cui, being a woman, escaped unscathed for now, but they also threatened to demand repayment within a certain timeframe, or else...
Both of them were terrified.
Later, Dong Cui, I don't know if she went to the older brother surnamed Liu whom she was working with, and paid back the money, a total of 4,000 yuan.
The remaining 6,000 yuan of Dong Cang's money was sold by Dong's parents, who sold everything they could and borrowed everything they could, but they still couldn't raise the money. Dong Cheng borrowed the rest to pay it off, leaving him with a mountain of debt. He took on several jobs to make ends meet, which took a toll on his health, and he died before Dong Fanghua's college entrance examination.
After this incident, Dong Cang stopped gambling, but his family's fortune had been squandered. Fortunately, the house was on homestead land and couldn't be sold, so at least he had a place to live.
Not long after, Dong's parents passed away, and Dong Cang could no longer leech off them. He had always been lazy and didn't do anything, and with several mouths to feed at home, he set his sights on Fu Hong.
Without Dong Cheng's help to shield her, Fu Hong was extremely annoyed. To make matters worse, the textile factory was also doing poorly at that time, and it was difficult to even pay the minimum wage. Fortunately, she hadn't touched the money she had saved for her daughter, otherwise she might not have been able to pay for her college tuition. She couldn't even use the money to shut Dong Cheng up.
Those two years were the most difficult two years for Fu Hong.
Later, Qin Shi returned.
After the old principal and Mrs. Qin passed away, Fu Hong saw that Qin Shi, a young boy, was having a hard time, so she often helped him out. Even after she got married, she never lost contact with him.
After the movement ended, Qin Shi, being a little older, went to work in the south. When he returned, he was already a big boss who owned several factories.
Fu Hong simply resigned from the textile factory and, with Qin Shi's help, started a business, which she did quite well.
Dong Cang came to our door again, bringing his family of mouths to feed and his crying baby.
Fu Hong couldn't bear to see children suffer and was fed up with Dong Cang, so she chose to keep him quiet by giving him money. She kept giving him money for decades, but unexpectedly, it only made him more greedy. The children she had given birth to, and the children of her children, all grew up crooked and were ruined. She even overheard them scheming to take her family's assets. It was only because there was no man in her family that she realized she couldn't go on like this. She considered the hundreds of thousands of yuan she had given him as a waste.
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