Chapter 26 Women Want to Fight
Qi Meihua had no intention of letting He Xiaolan in. She looked at her warily, the torn towel in her hand almost crushed to pieces. She wished she could bury He Xiaolan with one blow.
"Don't you work in Beijing? What are you doing here? I don't know you well."
"You talk like I know you very well. If I hadn't had something to do, I wouldn't have wanted to come." The late autumn sun was still as hot as ever. Standing under it, I felt as if my eyes were shone with illusions. Qi Meihua was still the arrogant pregnant woman, and she was still the frightened quail.
"What's the matter? I don't know anything." Qi Meihua's voice sounded a little weak.
The vendors on both sides were eagerly anticipating a big battle. They stopped playing with their phones and had no time to pay attention to the people who came to buy vegetables and meat. They just watched to see what kind of conflict would break out between the two women, one old and one young.
"Control your husband and your son, don't go around biting people and causing trouble." He Xiaolan actually had a lot of things to say, but when the words came to her lips, she couldn't say them. She started with a stream of curse words and then bland words, which were completely powerless and were thrown at Qi Meihua.
"Take care of it? I have the final say. I will take care of it. I just hope that they will die soon so that I can have peace and quiet."
"It's boring when you say that. You are a family. You made a mess in my house a few days ago, and now you just want to ignore it?"
Qi Meihua didn't want to hear He Xiaolan's words, so she turned around and walked into the barber shop. He Xiaolan followed her in, but was stopped by Qi Meihua outside the door. "It's no use for you to make a scene with me. If you have the guts, just kill those two. I'll kowtow to you three times then."
"When you insisted on being with He Guoqiang, didn't you ever think about this day?"
Qi Meihua stopped pretending to be busy and froze in place, unsure how to respond. The barbershop was small, with only two barber chairs. Large chunks of leather had fallen off, revealing the yellow sponge, stained with hair debris that couldn't be cleaned away. In the corner, where hair was washed, there was a plastic spray bucket, also covered in black stains, and a shampoo chair with paint peeling off to the point of being unrecognizable. This was all Qi Meihua had, her only possession.
Qi Meihua was just eighteen when she met He Guoqiang. After graduating from junior high school, she followed her older sister to southern China to work for a few years, but couldn't stand the humid climate there and returned to her hometown. Her father had found her a job at a paper mill through a helper, but she was fired after getting into a fight with the factory director's daughter.
After a year of wandering, he learned barbering techniques from a Sichuanese man, saved some money, and borrowed some from his older sister to open this barber shop in town. At the time, He Guoqiang often went to the restaurant across the street to drink, and Qi Meihua sometimes ate lunch there, so the two got to know each other.
Qi Meihua learned from the restaurant owner that He Guoqiang was married. Having rarely encountered old men who talked nonsense, Qi Meihua felt that He Guoqiang was a very free-spirited person. His carefree attitude made Qi Meihua a little obsessed. When He Guoqiang came to drink, he would sometimes bring some girls with him. Most of the girls were not beautiful, but He Guoqiang was very generous with his money. One girl wanted a perm, so He Guoqiang took her to Qi Meihua's restaurant.
While waiting, a man started to grope Qi Meihua while she was shaving. Qi Meihua didn't want to, but since he was drunk, she just dodged him desperately, not daring to resist. It was He Guoqiang's roar and punch that made him flee.
Qi Meihua lost, lost to her moral conscience. "Since he has so many women around him, what's the harm in having me?" Later, the girl returned to the county town, and He Guoqiang stayed in Qi Meihua's shop. It was on that shampooing bed that Qi Meihua was stripped of her moral integrity by He Guoqiang. She still remembers it was summer, and the shop had only a small electric fan, which squeaked as it turned. She was wearing thin clothes, and for only a few minutes, the mirror reflected her naked self and He Guoqiang standing behind her, sweating profusely. This date lasted for a week. Sometimes He Guoqiang would bring her peach cakes from the county town, sometimes fashionable clothes. Every time she received a gift, she would sleep with He Guoqiang.
In the blink of an eye, He Guoqiang disappeared. Qi Meihua ran into him again half a month later at the restaurant across the street, but he acted as if he didn't recognize her. He was just having dinner and drinking with his friends. Qi Meihua recognized the man drinking with him at first sight: the man who harassed her that day.
Qi Meihua stepped forward and asked the two men if they had colluded with each other. He Guoqiang laughed, and the man also laughed, and even put his hand into Qi Meihua's clothes. He Guoqiang did not stop him and allowed the man to harass Qi Meihua. It was only when she picked up the wine bottle on the ground and wanted to hit the man on the head that she ran away successfully.
"He Guoqiang is in such a state, but you still married him. I really don't have much to say to you. You probably brought this upon yourself." He Xiaolan felt a headache after hearing this. She had only seen this kind of clichéd plot in various melodramatic TV dramas.
"What if I don't marry him? I'm pregnant. I found out I was already four months pregnant." Qi Meihua went to the county town to look for He Guoqiang, but He Guoqiang insisted the child wasn't his, saying she wasn't a virgin when they were together. "You haven't even lost your period, who are you trying to fool? Go find whoever you want."
She cried for a long time at the gate of He Guoqiang's factory. Back in Shenzhen, she'd heard other women say they bleed the first time they have sex, and she didn't know why she didn't bleed. She didn't dare go to the hospital, fearing that others would find out. No matter how hard she ran, jumped, or pounded her belly, the baby remained firmly planted inside her.
As the pregnancy progressed, she could no longer hide it from her family. She asked around and found He Guoqiang's house. She was determined to marry him no matter what, as her child couldn't be without a father.
"Qi Meihua, your child must have a father. Have you ever thought about whether other people's children need a father? The things you did have spread all over the city, such as wanting to jump into the river and throwing feces at my doorstep. Do you know how my classmates scolded me when I was in school? Do you know how much grievance my mother suffered at work?"
"Who can control who? Your mother has been gritting her teeth and not getting a divorce. You know how people scold me. He Xiaolan, why don't you go find He Guoqiang instead of me today? I haven't seen him for a week or two. What's the point of looking for me?"
"Okay, meeting your family is the worst luck I've ever had in my life. I'm too lazy to talk nonsense with you. Just tell He Tianci that if he dares to make trouble again, I'll send him to jail for a few days. This will also give you some peace and quiet."
Speak of the devil, and he will appear. He Tianci came over in a nonchalant manner, with a cigarette in his mouth, and shouted from a distance, "Mom, give me two hundred yuan, I have to have dinner with my boss tonight." But when he looked up, he saw He Xiaolan standing at the door. He immediately spat the cigarette butt in his mouth onto the ground, flashed in front of He Xiaolan and pushed her.
"What are you doing here at my mom's place? Are you bullying her?"
He Xiaolan didn't stand firmly and was pushed to the ground. Hua Hudie and Qin Tiantian were sitting in the car and saw He Xiaolan being bullied. They jumped out of the car like a female leopard out of a cage.
Qin Tiantian was small and was responsible for helping He Xiaolan up. Hua Hudie was taller and stepped forward to step on He Tianci's foot, making him unable to move due to the pain. Qin Tiantian turned around and called to the two stall owners, "Take out your phones and record. He hit me first and we've recorded it. Every action now is self-defense. Did you record it?"
The two stall owners were pounding garlic with both heads in response to Qin Tiantian's question. He Xiaolan stood up without cleaning the dirt off her body. She walked forward and grabbed He Tianci's hair. Hua Hudie kicked He Tianci in the knee. He didn't feel the pain and knelt down immediately.
Seeing that Qi Meihua also wanted to take action, Qin Tiantian directly hugged Qi Meihua's waist and dragged her into the house, muttering, "If you don't teach your son well, someone else will do it for you. Since you are old, I won't argue with you. Don't try to make trouble."
He Xiaolan let go of her hand and pushed He Tianci to the ground. Hua Hudie stepped on his thigh and said, "Call the police. They are just watching the fun when it has come to this."
"You three old women are still fighting in a group, I'm going to fight you." He Xiaolan picked up a wooden stick on the ground and poked He Tianci's vitals with it without much force, "Just wait for the police to come, I tell you, if you move, I will use force and make you a eunuch immediately."
When Zhang Xinrong and the mayor saw the three of them at the police station, they looked like beggars who had just returned, with messy hair and dirt all over their bodies. They sat aside in disbelief, staring at He Tianci and his mother, as if they were about to throw them into the frying pan in the next second.
"He Xiaolan, you're already a mother, why are you still fighting with others?" Zhang Xinrong was angry and wanted to laugh, mainly because the two urban beauties sitting next to him had also become country girls. "You two too, if I don't stop them, how can you fight together?"
"Bullying, auntie, these two are too bullying!" Hua Hudie was just that strong. She could drop points as she said. She raised her finger and pointed at He Tianci and Qi Meihua while crying, "I tell you, even if that old bastard He Guoqiang comes, I will beat you three together and not let any of you go."
"What are you talking about? You three look so good together, don't you?" The police officer handling the case was a recent college graduate. He immediately wanted to call the police. They were about to be taken to the police station for mediation, but before she could vent her anger, Qin Tiantian kicked He Tianci and kicked him directly into the police car.
"Uncle police, did you see that? The three of them beat me up."
"You think you're right to hit a woman? He Tianci, don't you feel uncomfortable if you don't come a few times a month? Why don't you live here, okay?" The police gave them the printed confession and asked them to sign it quickly and go home.
"Why don't you detain him? I recorded it all. He was the one who hit people first," Qin Tiantian took a look at the confession and mediation record.
"We have our own rules for handling cases. If you don't want to go home, just sit here and calm down. You three sisters look quite old, so why are you so impulsive when encountering things?"
"Do you think the three of us look like sisters? Oh my god, am I aging so obviously? Let's go back and do a few projects in the store. Am I really starting to look old?" Hua Hudie touched her face in disbelief. The fight was no longer important. The most important thing was that there were no wrinkles on her face.
When they walked out of the police station, He Guoqiang was squatting at the door smoking. Ms. Zhang Xinrong didn't even look at him and walked straight past him. Qin Tiantian pulled He Xiaolan and said, "Our mother is very handsome. Her expression is amazing."
Hua Hudie spat at He Guoqiang and said, "What a shameless old man! What kind of family are you?"
He Xiaolan quickly pulled her away and said, "Let's not cause trouble in front of the police station. Just be quiet."
Continue read on readnovelmtl.com
