Chapter 352
On the fifth day of the Lunar New Year, Wang Jiazhi went to the Yi family's house. The two of them went there one after the other, and the three of them had dinner together. Seeing this, A-ma thought that if Wang Jiazhi moved back home, the family would definitely play cards less. Most importantly, she couldn't bear the fact that A-ma was too comfortable over there. Although A-ma had been in the Yi family for many years, some of her ideas were still very traditional. She couldn't stand Wang Jiazhi's seductiveness, nor could she stand Mrs. Yi's daily life of eating, drinking and having fun. Shopping and eating would be fine, but the constant sound of mahjong at home every day was a sign of a good family. How could it be that there was no decent woman at all. The house was a mess, and she blamed her husband for not liking to go home.
My mother should also understand that Mrs. Ma, Mrs. Xiao, and Mrs. Liao are a group of people who not only eat, drink, and have fun, but also have affairs. They are not decent women at all.
If Old Yi hadn't been so concerned about Wang Jiazhi, and if all those ridiculous things hadn't happened in A-Ma's eyes, Wang Jiazhi would still have fit A-Ma's ideal concubine criteria. Quiet, unsociable, not a troublemaker, and frugal. Of course, she'd also have to give birth to a son to qualify.
After dinner, they drank tea together. No one said much. He stood up and went into the study. Mrs. Yi said to her mother, "Send the apples and tangerines over for him to try. The red ones are the best."
Grandma agreed to go down. Wang Jiazhi was very surprised. After a while, Grandma really came upstairs with a plate of chopped red apples and a plate of tangerines.
Didn't Mrs. Yi know that he liked green apples and didn't like red ones? Could she have remembered it wrongly? He only ate green apples, which tasted light. The red ones were too sweet.
Mrs. Yi had invited some people to play cards. If she hadn't been there, the game would have started in the morning. Grandma said they were playing cards like crazy these days, often staying up all day and all night, sometimes even a whole day, an overnight, and a whole morning, and they even drank coffee to stay awake.
Although they usually eat, drink, go shopping and play cards, they feel a little guilty because it is the Chinese New Year and they can have fun with a legitimate reason.
Today's card game was between Mrs. Liang and Ms. Qiao. After playing for a while, he came out, said hello, and then left again, either to go to the government office or to see the children. This time, it was her suggestion, thinking he should come back as a sign of respect. Since she said so, he had no choice but to come back.
Although Ms. Qiao was still unwilling, she felt much relieved. Wang Jiazhi didn't know that this was also the result of the suppression by Mrs. Ma and Mrs. Liao. After all, they were living a good life with Lao Yi, and she was not able to get close to him even though she was eager to do so. These two people were not satisfied, so of course they would grab everything to find a sense of superiority. Of course, these two people were not as good as Ms. Qiao, but she came at the wrong time. If it were the same period, Ms. Qiao would definitely be more favored than Mrs. Ma. Although these two people knew this truth, they could suppress Ms. Qiao in this way, which was a bit of a reversal of right and wrong and intentional bullying. The other party could not resist, which would make them happier. It was just like the small circle bullying Wang Jiazhi. Even if they humiliated you, so what? You had no reason to blame anyone and could only suffer in silence.
Mrs. Yi wore a maroon dress today, and Wang Jiazhi wore a peach-colored one. Everyone else tacitly understood, thinking it was appropriate for the occasion: the principal wife wore red, the concubine pink. If Mrs. Ma came, she would definitely point it out in a sarcastic way.
Wang Jiazhi didn't agree. She wasn't a fan of formalism to begin with. Ancient regulations regarding certain colors reserved for the royal family were simply a way for rulers to elevate their status, not necessarily to guarantee superiority. The bright yellow of several dynasties seemed too nouveau riche, far inferior to the beautiful black dragon robes of the Qin Dynasty.
Ms. Qiao smiled and said, "This hairstyle is great. I've never seen it before."
Wang Jiazhi wore a butterfly bun today. She braided the hair on both sides of her temples first, and then braided it with the other hair at the back of her head into a butterfly shape. She wore a pink gauze flower and a white diamond butterfly hairpin, and the wings and antennae could tremble.
Wang Jiazhi adjusted her hair and said with a smile, "It's the old style. My mother combed it for me."
Ms. Qiao said, "Yes, it looks like it was combed by a master."
Wang Jiazhi secretly watched Mrs. Yi's reaction. Everything was normal. She felt a little guilty because he was the one who combed her hair that morning.
This guy especially likes to play with her hair. At first, he just secretly put flowers on her hair. It was also at that time that her hair was permed, so there was not much room for him to play. Now her hair is long and straight, and she can ask him to do any hairstyle she wants.
At that moment, Grandma brought in some snacks. Wang Jiazhi looked at the two red apples and a few oranges on the plate. The apples were obviously from the plate he hadn't eaten, so she had them for snack while they were still yellow. Grandma was really considerate of them, saving as much as possible. Wang Jiazhi remembered that even if she copied all day and all night, the money she earned wouldn't even be enough to lose a round of mahjong here.
Ms. Qiao mentioned a recent news story about a wealthy teenage girl who fell in love with a poor, idle young man. Unbeknownst to her, she was so captivated by his demands that she insisted on marrying him, and her family acquiesced. She gave birth to two children and brought prosperity to her in-laws. Later, seeing her husband failing to live up to her expectations, she divorced him and took the two children with her. However, her ex-in-laws continued to support her. Her in-laws, ex-husband, and uncle all lived in a villa she had provided, and she provided them with food, clothing, and even money for their business ventures. Later, apparently because her family's demands were too much, she refused, so she killed the man, dismembered his body, and cooked his head in a pot to prevent the stench.
"That family's surname is Kuang, and the old man is a policeman. I heard that the whole family gambles. They are simply a family of evil spirits. They are already divorced, and they should be kept away from each other. You are so kind to support them, and they end up like this."
Wang Jiazhi asked, "Which Kuang?"
Ms. Qiao said, "Guangzi is a rare surname."
Wang Jiazhi thought to herself, "Sure enough."
She admitted that she was prejudiced against anything related to Kwong Yumin, and now even this special surname was prejudiced against her.
A few days ago, Xiaoshuang wrote to me, sharing news she'd received from Wen Runze's colleague and friend. Kuang Yumin's mother had passed away, coincidentally on the day of the Little New Year. She said she dreamed of her son, his entire body rotting, lying miserable on the street in the middle of winter. Upon waking, she burst into tears, saying her son was dead. She'd already been depressed by her son's disappearance for two years, and now she'd completely collapsed. He passed away within a few days.
Meihui still kept in touch with many of her classmates and shared the news with Xiaoshuang, who then told her. Xiaoshuang said Meng Shunying's father had personally traveled to Hong Kong to look for her, reported the case to the police, and posted notices everywhere, offering to spend a fortune to find his daughter. She didn't know who had told her, but her father, who was less than fifty, already had more than half his hair white.
Huang Lei's father also seemed to have gone to Hong Kong. I heard that he was willing to spend a lot of money to find someone, and he looked very old.
Wang Jiazhi looked at it and thought, as expected, everyone is raised by their parents, except me. Serves me right!
At this moment, Wang Jiazhi thought, in her previous life, she had died and that was it. Their parents and relatives had died, and no one had ever seen them alive or dead. Of course, no one would tell them that their child was dead, so they would definitely always believe that their child was still alive, and then suffer forever. But those people were so selfish, they didn't care about the feelings of their parents.
Xiao Shuang also shared what she had learned about Kuang Yumin's family. In fact, Kuang Yumin's surname wasn't originally Kuang. His father was a live-in son-in-law, and his family was destined to be wiped out. His maternal grandfather had only one daughter, her mother, and his family had quite a bit of property in the tofu business. His father was very good at pleasing people, and he treated his grandparents with all the kindness they could. Later, when he was ten years old, his grandfather passed away, and his father changed his and his brother's surnames to his own. At that time, his grandmother disagreed, saying that his father was ungrateful, but an old woman couldn't do anything about them, and his mother didn't side with his grandmother, and only sided with her husband.
"And his mother is very proud of having two sons and no daughter. When chatting with others, she would say in a sarcastic tone, 'I am not as lucky as you. I have two daughters, and daughters are so caring. Unlike me, I gave birth to a son as my first child, and I gave birth to a son again. I just didn't have the fate of a daughter.'... His family always said that they wanted to go to the school to make a scene, saying that their son left without a word and that the school was responsible. Because the school moved to Hong Kong, they couldn't go, so they gave up. His parents always said that the marriage was arranged with the daughter of a wealthy local businessman, and they thought that he would come back to get married as soon as he graduated so that he could have a grandson to carry on the family line. They didn't expect it to be like this." Xiao Shuang wrote in the letter.
It was the first time that Wang Jiazhi knew about Kuang Yumin's family. She felt sad in her heart that if it wasn't such a family, she couldn't raise such a son.
I don’t know which marriage is more profitable, Meng Shunying or the one arranged by my family. If that incident hadn’t happened, I’m afraid that when he returns, the family of three will have to carefully evaluate which one is more cost-effective.
What kind of family would raise a son like this? Wang Jiazhi even recalled the time when Kuang Yumin was intoxicated by reciting Mao Zedong's poems and then mobilized people to kill those around Mao Zedong. It was really ridiculous. As expected, this matter was absurd from the beginning.
It has always been a mystery to her why Lao Yi did not see her for the last time, but she felt that he was most likely angry with her because he cared about that disgusting thing, so he was very disappointed in her. It is also not ruled out that it was because of Kuang Yumin. He thought she still liked Kuang Yumin, so he hated her even more.
In fact, her thoughts were not without reason. After she died in her previous life, Old Wu also wanted to use her death to do everything he could to attack Old Yi. However, Old Wu did not expect this because she and Kuang Yumin did not seem to have anything going on. On the one hand, she was very cold to Kuang Yumin in front of Old Wu. More importantly, Kuang Yumin thought she was dirty. If his superiors knew that she had a crush on this unclean person, she would be embarrassed in front of them. Moreover, if his superiors knew that he had a crush on her and allowed others to defile her, he would be a person worse than an animal. How could his superiors be willing to promote him? So she tried her best to hide it in front of Old Wu. Old Wu also learned from Kuang Yumin what Wang Jiazhi did for the action. No matter how paranoid and inhumane he was in this life, he would never have thought that a man would do such a thing.
As Wang Jiazhi expected, Kuang Yumin was the first to confess, spilling the beans in no time. He particularly resented Wang Jiazhi's rejection, claiming she was deeply infatuated with him and had joined the operation and made such a sacrifice because of him. Under the circumstances, he certainly didn't have the energy to resort to further treachery before his death. However, he was a man prone to self-deception. Even after Wang Jiazhi had declared she no longer had feelings for him, he continued to hypnotize himself, believing she was still deeply in love with her.
The more you say something in your mind many times, the more likely it is that it will blurt out when you panic and lose the ability to think.
But even though he said that, no one believed him. Some of Lao Yi's people who knew the situation didn't even believe that Wang Jiazhi had ever liked him.
Secretary Zhang was the first to extract the confession. He had great respect for Wang Jiazhi at the time and couldn't believe she would be interested in someone as foolish and cowardly as Kuang Yumin. Seeing Wang Jiazhi's fearless devotion to death, he concluded she must have a strong conviction to save the nation, a conviction that made her willing to sacrifice everything. However, the group was too foolish and cowardly to achieve anything. Despite her own self-sacrificing spirit, she couldn't escape the pain of a woman's emotional turmoil. She developed feelings for Lao Yi, and in the final moments, she couldn't bring herself to kill him. Despite his various objections to Lao Yi, Secretary Zhang wasn't blind; he knew he was a womanizer.
After Lao Yi learned about this, he did not rule out the possibility that Wang Jiazhi had liked Kuang Yumin, but he did not want to believe it, because if so, fate would have been even more cruel to her. As for whether she still liked Kuang Yumin later, he was not sure, but he believed that even if she did, it would not be very strong. After all, he believed that with Wang Jiazhi's personality, it was impossible for her to like someone very much in her heart, and then at the same time, she would be too deeply in love with another person and bloom so passionately in bed. Especially later, when he saw the pictorial of their drama performance, although he was already very ashamed of himself and that the girl loved the boy, but seeing the photo of Kuang Yumin, no matter what he was, he would not be inferior to this.
Even if Wang Jiazhi and Kuang Yumin were to meet in this life, Lao Yi would not think there was anything between them. Instead, he felt a little jealous when he saw Zhou Minlin's photo. After all, he did not like Kuang Yumin at all. Zhou Minlin was the love rival he had carefully chosen for himself.
When one is truly infatuated, one may find many things good, but when one looks on coldly, everyone finds them distasteful. Back then, Wang Jiazhi thought he was incredibly handsome, especially his delicate face, and she'd hug him and kiss him profusely. But when she met him, she found their faces increasingly repulsive. She felt that Kuang Yumin's face had been stretched in half, becoming longer and thicker; she felt that Old Wu's face was becoming increasingly swollen. She questioned her own taste, wondering why she had ever liked Kuang Yumin in the first place.
She had already agreed with Mrs. Yi that she would only play for a short while and leave at noon. When Mrs. Ma arrived, she left as well, returning just in time to feed the baby.
He was playing with his child at home, and he smiled and asked, "Does it hurt when you breastfeed now?"
"No."
"She's teething."
"Um?"
The two looked into the kitten's mouth, and the little one opened her mouth and laughed, cooperating with their inspection. There really was a tooth, and she hadn't noticed it.
He said, "Wait until her teeth grow longer. If it hurts too much, ask the wet nurse to feed her."
"No, she won't bite me." She hugged the child and kissed her.
She suddenly remembered that an aunt came to the house at that time, and her mother and the aunt talked about the hardships they had experienced in giving birth and raising children. They mentioned the fear and sadness during childbirth, getting up several times at night to feed and change diapers, and the pain caused by the baby biting when feeding because of his teeth.
After the aunt left, his father said, "Which woman doesn't feel pain when giving birth? Don't breastfeed. It's so hypocritical."
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