“Sometimes I think that it’s not so bad to just live like this in a daze. The children are all grown up, and both sets of parents live in the same village. Divorce would be too ugly.”
"But whenever I see Yue'er, it feels like there's a handful of sand in my heart, and nothing feels right."
“He said that we all owe Dr. Qiao, so we have to make it up to him through Yue’er. But how do I owe Dr. Qiao? It was Dr. Qiao who stole my man.”
“I know he has always looked down on me, thinking I am uncultured and vulgar, and not good enough for him. Over the years I have come to terms with it. If I am not good enough for him, then I shouldn’t force it. I divorced him, and he can find someone better than me.”
Liu Ercui spoke these words with a calm demeanor, but Qin Hanshu believed that she must have gone through a fierce internal struggle.
To be honest, Qin Hanshu didn't expect Liu Ercui to make the decision to divorce, and to be so resolute about it.
Divorce is not common in this era, and Liu Ercui had so many ties to bear. Most women in her position would probably choose to make do and stay together.
"Sister-in-law..." Qin Han paused for a moment, "No, from now on I'll call you sister. Sister Ercui, as long as you've made up your mind, I'll definitely do my best to support you."
Liu Ercui took Qin Hanshu's hand and said, moved, "Little sister, I'm going to shamelessly ask you for help."
Qin Hanshu immediately guessed what kind of help he needed.
"Work, right? No problem, I'll take care of that. But besides work, there's something even more difficult to handle: your household registration."
Zhang Lei is being demobilized and his household registration will be transferred back to his hometown. The military will no longer accept Liu Ercui and her children's household registration.
Liu Ercui herself didn't care. Being a vagrant was fine as long as no one checked and it didn't affect her life.
But the children need to go to school, especially the eldest son of the Zhang family, who is about to enter junior high school.
Qin Hanshu asked, "Will Zhang Lei agree to let all the children come with you? If they do, getting them to school will be a big problem."
Liu Ercui said, "I've thought about this... To be honest, although I really want all the children to come with me, I also know that it's impossible. The Zhang family will never let their three sons come with me."
"The best outcome would be if I could win Pei'er over."
“Pei’er is still young, so we can wait two more years for her to go to school. At that time, we’ll try to see if there’s any way to resolve her household registration issue.”
If all else fails, she'll have no choice but to go back to her hometown. But before she goes back, she must save up some money; a woman needs money to have the confidence to make her own decisions.
Qin Hanshu couldn't help but take a second look at Liu Ercui.
She used to think that Liu Ercui and Zhang Lei's marriage was just an arranged marriage by their parents, and that Liu Ercui's insistence on marrying Zhang Lei was because she grew up in a closed environment and her thinking was not open-minded.
But now it seems that's not the case.
If it's just about living together as a couple, then Liu Ercui doesn't need to get a divorce. On the contrary, she can take advantage of Zhang Lei's concealment of Yue'er's situation as a mistake by the man, and in the future, Liu Ercui will be able to have more power to make decisions in the household.
However, Liu Ercui's willingness to face the difficulties after the divorce rather than continue living with Zhang Lei shows that her feelings for Zhang Lei were much deeper than others imagined.
Liu Ercui often said that she was an uneducated country woman who didn't understand the love and romance that city people talked about all the time.
Perhaps she herself didn't realize that the feeling she had for her husband was love.
Because of love, one will set aside all practical interests and focus on a man's abstract heart.
However, Liu Ercui's path to divorce was not so easy.
The details of their marital conflict remain unknown to outsiders.
When Qin Hanshu heard that Zhang Lei had filed for divorce, she had already finished a semester of classes and was on summer vacation.
Since her last conversation with Liu Ercui, Qin Hanshu has been helping her with her job search.
Because she was admitted to university, Wang Yinghui paid more attention to her, believing she was a promising talent, and had a talk with her before the start of the semester.
That means she should focus on completing her studies, and when she returns to the department store, the personnel department will be handed over to her.
University graduates are assigned jobs as section chiefs, but the difference between section chiefs in different departments is significant.
Wang Yinghui entrusted the labor and personnel department to her with the aim of cultivating his own power. However, to Qin Hanshu's surprise, she suddenly became Wang Yinghui's confidante.
Of course, this is on the premise that she actually becomes the head of the labor relations department.
However, even though her future still looks bright, people at work see her differently than before.
There was no need to contact Wang Yinghui directly; she took care of arranging a job for Liu Ercui herself.
At first, she didn't set her sights too high, thinking that it would be good enough if she could arrange a cleaning job for Liu Ercui.
The actual result exceeded her expectations, and she secured a sales clerk position.
Becoming a sales clerk can solve your household registration problem.
When Qin Hanshu told Liu Ercui about this, Liu Ercui was speechless for a long time.
Finally, she took Qin Hanshu's hand and said, "Sister, I will remember your kindness for the rest of my life."
Qin Hanshu laughed and said, "Talking about gratitude is too much of an exaggeration. We've known each other for so many years, and you've taken care of me so much. It's just a small favor."
Liu Ercui was not an ignorant person; she knew that this was not a simple favor.
Even for city dwellers, finding a job is incredibly difficult, let alone being a respectable department store sales clerk.
And urban household registration...
Liu Ercui didn't say anything more, but kept this feeling in her heart.
Next, while busy with her divorce proceedings, Liu Ercui went to the department store to report for duty and also looked at houses.
Renting a place isn't easy; you have to look around and try your luck. Qin Hanshu was heavily pregnant and it wasn't convenient for her, so she asked Liu Ercui to look for one herself.
Liu Ercui was lucky; she found a place to stay in less than a month.
I heard it's a house in a tenement building. The owners are a young couple who are divorced. The woman went back to her parents' home, and the man wanted to earn some extra money, so he rented out the house and went to live in his company's dormitory.
Everything was in place; all that was left was for the divorce certificate to be issued so that Liu Ercui could begin a new life.
However, the divorce report has been delayed.
One day, the organization suddenly spoke with Liu Ercui, asking if Zhang Lei had committed a misconduct offense, which was why they wanted to divorce.
It turned out that Lin Peng, seeing that he could neither get money from Zhang Lei nor see Yue'er, harbored thoughts of revenge and reported Zhang Lei.
It is said that Zhang Lei had an affair with his deceased wife.
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