After Zhang Hong joined the supply and marketing cooperative, she, Liu Hongju, and He Qiuying also bought goods and set up stalls. Later, they discovered that Chen Zhang and his wife had also gone to the city to set up stalls to make money.
Her mind started to wander. The supply and marketing cooperative's wages were stable, but they only amounted to a little over twenty yuan a month.
On a good day, they can earn hundreds of yuan by setting up a street stall. And the place where they get their goods is still their old acquaintance, the same person their brother-in-law brings back from the factory.
She also brought her husband, Ji Zhijun, to the city. They would go to the city every few days to buy goods, and then set up stalls in various communes to sell them on market days. Their income was quite good.
Having been a supplier before, Ji Zhijun immediately recognized the problem between Chen Zhang and Liu Pianran.
Chen Zhang chuckled awkwardly, "Actually, I did try to persuade her, but she said she didn't have the money to cover costs, so she would buy the goods from me and pay me back after selling them. Monkey can't give her credit."
Ji Zhijun advised with a serious expression, "Chen Zhang, as your brother and relative, I'll give you my advice. She's been with you a few times, and she must have made some money. But to lose even the money for the goods she bought, I'm afraid she has other ideas. Be careful."
“I understand, I promise I have no ulterior motives at all, but that Liu Zhiqing’s life is really pitiful. You don’t know that her mother-in-law loves to make things difficult for her. She often has to get injections and take medicine, and she can’t save any of the little money she earns.”
Ji Zhijun scoffed at his explanation, saying that it would be outrageous for a woman who stole someone else's boyfriend to be doing well!
The two left while talking, and not long after, an old woman emerged from behind a thick bush; it was Lin Haodong's mother, Granny Lin.
Granny Lin stared intently at Chen Zhang's retreating figure, even contemplating tearing him and Liu Pianran apart.
The two of them made money together, but Liu Pianran never got a single penny back. When asked to buy some meat or grain, her mother-in-law would have to pay for it herself.
Granny Lin only had about thirty yuan from the grain distribution, and Lin Haodong sent half of his monthly subsidy back to her. Liu Pianran knew that her mother-in-law had money, so she didn't let her take advantage of her at all.
When Haodong comes back, when her son comes back, she will make those adulterous couple pay.
Lin's mother suppressed her rage and kept a close eye on Liu Pianran and Chen Zhang. She watched as they exchanged the money three more times, and as Liu Pianran handed stacks of ten-yuan bills to Chen Zhang, her anger grew stronger and stronger.
In mid-December, on a chilly evening with sleet, Lin Haodong, wearing a thin cotton coat, carrying a small backpack, and covered in snowflakes, walked back to the Nanshan Brigade.
Lights were on in every household in the brigade. Although the weather was cold, the harvest was good this year, and faint laughter could be heard from every household.
The dim light offered a little comfort to Lin Haodong, who was shivering from the cold.
Back at the Lin family home, Lin Haodong was somewhat disappointed. The Lin family home was pitch black, with no light in the yard or inside the house. It was cold and deserted, lacking any festive atmosphere or even any human presence.
He stood in the courtyard and called out several times into the house: "Pianpian, Pianran—Mother—Mother—"
He called out seven or eight times, but there was no response from inside. Lin Haodong was suspicious. Why was no one home in this cold weather? Liu Pianran wasn't there, and neither was his mother.
Could something have happened to his mother? Lin Haodong was startled and turned around to go to the brigade leader's house to ask. Just as he turned around, he heard a creak behind him and someone opened the door.
Lin Haodong quickly turned around: "Pianran—Mother, it's you? Are you cold?"
Holding an oil lamp, Lin's mother peeked out of the house, her body hunched over. When she saw that it was her son, Lin Haodong, she weakly replied, "Son, you're finally back."
She opened the door and welcomed Lin Haodong into the house, then went back to the kitchen and started a fire in the stove with dry firewood.
Lin Haodong quickly moved the stove into the main room, asking suspiciously, "Mother, why didn't you light a fire in this cold weather? How can you stand it? Where's Pianran?"
“Ah Dong—”
Lin's mother began to sob sadly, and was about to complain when she saw Lin Haodong's thin cotton coat and the chilblains on his hands in the firelight. She asked in surprise, "You came back dressed so thinly? Why didn't you wear a thicker cotton coat? It's been so cold these past few days with the rain and snow."
Lin Haodong had to send half of his monthly allowance back to his mother, and the remaining money wasn't even enough to cover his basic living expenses, let alone buy a thick new cotton coat.
But seeing the cold and deserted state of the house, and his mother's aged face and graying temples, he couldn't bring himself to complain.
He smiled wryly and said, "South China is not cold at all. In winter, some of my classmates were still wearing thin shirts and swimming in the river. Who would have thought that the temperature would be so low here after we got off the train?"
He squeezed his mother's cold hand and frowned: "Why didn't you light a fire at home in the middle of winter? Where's Pianran?"
"Don't mention that wretched woman, that shameless slut who can't be separated from her man for a moment. She should never have broken off the engagement in the first place. Don't you know what kind of life your mother has been living these past six months since you left?"
Granny Lin complained bitterly, lamenting that Liu Pianran disrespected her mother-in-law, dressed up every day to seduce men, and neglected her family at all.
When the topic of Ji Xia's marriage to the third son of the Chen family came up, it was said that since her engagement to the Chen family, the entire family had been doing very well, and the villagers all said in private that Ji Xia was destined to bring good fortune to her husband.
Lin Haodong remained silent after hearing this. He could hear the regret in his mother's tone. However, Lin Haodong smiled bitterly to himself. The annulment of the engagement was the Ji family's decision, and he had no right to object.
Given the Lin family's current power, he simply cannot refuse the Ji family's rights.
After listening in silence for a while, he asked in a low voice, "Pianran, which man in the brigade are you with now?"
Lin's mother huffed and puffed, "Which man? Apart from the Chen family, who in ordinary families would dare to do such a shameful thing?"
Lin Haodong frowned: "Chen Laosan, Chen Jing? Ji Xia doesn't care?"
"It's not him, it's Boss Chen Zhang!"
"Pianran is at his house? I'm going to go settle the score with him now?"
Lin Haodong turned to leave, but his mother grabbed him, saying, "She's not at the Chen family's house. You won't find her even if you go now, and they won't acknowledge it."
"If you want to know, I'll take you tomorrow. If you count the days, they should meet tomorrow."
Lin's mother pulled her son to sit down by the stove: "Have you eaten anything? I'll go to the cellar and dig up two sweet potatoes to roast for you. You don't know, that slut is never home, and she never gathers firewood. We're almost out of firewood for cooking."
Lin Haodong pursed his lips and touched his empty stomach.
He now craves a bowl of hot noodle soup to soothe his dry throat and fill his empty stomach.
During the two days and two nights on the train, he brought two pieces of bran cake soaked in hot water to sustain him for more than fifty hours.
But seeing the situation at home, which was worse than he had imagined, Lin Haodong began to miss the days when he was engaged to Ji Xia.
During those days, he hardly ate any coarse grains. Ji Xia would send him two or three pounds of flour and a few pounds of rice every month. The mother and son would save the money and eat it with cornmeal for more than half a month.
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