When Lu Ronghui led An'an into the courtyard, she noticed the strange atmosphere. Most of the people in the courtyard were craning their necks and secretly looking towards the girls' dormitory.
"What's wrong?"
"They're arguing again inside." The educated youth who spoke shrugged nonchalantly. They had a small argument every three days and a big one every five days. Everyone had seen it so often that they were no longer bothered by it.
Lin Haiping was in charge of the information point, but his words had no effect whatsoever, so he simply hid away. The others were even more indifferent, treating it as an internal conflict among the female educated youth.
"Watch your mouth. With that old watch of yours, you're always making false accusations against this person and that person."
Chen Hong noticed Liu Ruo early on; she stood out among the new educated youth. Although Bai Rongjun was also well-dressed, she had a lot of worries between her brows, unlike Liu Ruo, who was still so naive that Chen Hong wanted to ruin her.
Everyone here is here to endure hardship, and has long been worn down to the point of being lifeless. Why is she still so vibrant?
"you!"
Lu Ronghui was afraid that it would affect An'an, so she told her to stand in the yard and not to get close. An'an nodded and stood at the farthest point, but at the same time she couldn't help but stretch her neck to look inside.
Liu Ruo seemed off this morning, looking very depressed and aggrieved. However, since they were assigned to different places today, Lu Ronghui didn't have time to ask her what had happened. She only noticed the stained clothes on Liu Ruo's body.
Liu Ruo is clean; she even washes her clothes before working in the fields, and the stains are clearly not from farm work.
Upon seeing Lu Ronghui approach, Chen Hong's arrogant demeanor faltered; she was hesitant to provoke Lu Ronghui.
After learning the whole story, and looking at the stained bedding that was clearly unfit for sleeping, Lu Ronghui asked Liu Ruo, "What do you want to do?"
"I..." Liu Ruo only knew that they had done something wrong.
"You want them to apologize?"
"No!" They couldn't possibly apologize sincerely, especially since the watch had already been returned, and there was no evidence to accuse Chen Hong of stealing it.
Should we say that Chen Hong stole Bai Rongjun's soap, and therefore also stole her watch? But now they've both agreed that it was borrowed.
Chen Hong had clearly thought of this as well. Bai Rongjun was now in cahoots with them and wouldn't come forward to identify her. So what could Lu Ronghui do to her?
Does she think she can bully her, an educated youth, just because she has connections with the villagers?
Zhou Shuyi was also upset. She had lived with Chen Hong for so many years and never expected her to be this kind of person, even after being discovered, she could still bully Liu Ruo so blatantly.
“What happened before was all a misunderstanding, so let’s just let it go. Liu Ruo, please don’t say anyone took your watch anymore, you have no evidence to suspect anyone. Everyone else, please don’t be angry anymore, let’s turn hostility into friendship.”
Lu Ronghui knew that if Liu Ruo tolerated this, they would definitely become even more aggressive in the future and would only think that she was easy to bully.
Sometimes, people's malice comes out of nowhere.
"Did you put her blankets and clothes on her?"
Chen Hong stood in front of the cabinet with her arms crossed, looking smug. "I don't know." Her two friends also shook their heads, not knowing either.
“In this dormitory, only the three of you have conflicts with Liu Ruo.” Lu Ronghui brought back a basin of dirty water from outside and picked up Chen Hong’s bedding.
"Did you pour it?" she asked the two people, who were unlikely to admit it and just stood there with stiff faces.
“If it wasn’t Chen Hong, then it was you. Since you don’t admit it, it means it was Chen Hong who was responsible.”
Chen Hong was stunned and immediately tried to snatch the bedding from Lu Ronghui's hands, but Lu Ronghui let go and threw it directly into the dirty water.
"Lu Ronghui!"
Liu Ru blocked Chen Hong from passing, saying, "Since you've dirtied my blanket, then nobody can sleep."
"Chen Hong, your friend said you did it, we're just returning it. Let's leave the matter of the blankets and clothes as it is for now, everyone returns what they received, no one has anything to say."
However, there's more to the story regarding the watch. Although there's no direct evidence, we should still inform the team leader. That way, if there are any more thefts in the dorms, the team leader will have something to report.
No evidence? So what if there's no evidence? If all else fails, we'll have the police come and investigate.
"No!" Chen Hong was terrified. Even if there was no direct evidence to catch her, what would happen to her if the captain suspected her?
Others tried to smooth things over, but Chen Hong's two friends had already been frightened by Lu Ronghui's gaze. Their blankets had almost been thrown at them, and since it was Chen Hong's business, they decided to leave it alone.
"Yes, I shouldn't have been afraid of affecting everyone's reputation that day and didn't tell the brigade leader. This thief is only stealing from our educated youth dormitory now, but what if he steals from the village or the brigade's property in the future?"
If we're going to make a scene, we should make this matter public.
The more she tried to whitewash the situation, the more ungrateful they became, thinking she was easy to bully.
Chen Hong's two friends both turned their gazes away from her and silently hid behind the crowd, so she could only ask others for help.
“No one stole your things. If the brigade finds out that something like this happened in our dormitory, the brigade leader will definitely doubt our character. How will we live in the village after that? How will we go back to the city?”
The others hesitated to speak, but Chen Hong could only hold Bai Rongjun's hand, hoping she would plead with Liu Ruo and the others. Bai Rongjun, held by Chen Hong, had no choice but to step forward.
"This is an internal matter; why don't we resolve it ourselves?"
"If you solve it yourself, what will you do if someone else's things go missing? Other people aren't as kind as you to lend her their soap."
Bai Rongjun's face turned pale after Lu Ronghui's words, and she felt a little wronged. She just didn't want everyone to go too far.
No matter what they said, Liu Ruo went straight to the brigade leader. When the other villagers heard that there was a commotion at the brigade headquarters, they all gathered around.
"What happened?"
"I heard that some of the educated youth stole something, including a watch."
"A watch? That must cost over 100 yuan. You'd have to go to a labor camp for that." The villagers' gazes fell on the educated youth. They never expected that a thief would be among these educated young people.
Aunt Tian and the others also gathered around. Their impression of the educated youth had improved a lot because of Zhou Lian's childbirth. But now that they heard about the theft, all the unpleasant things from before suddenly came flooding back.
Everyone had a look on their faces that said, "I knew it! They really are that kind of people."
Bai Jiamei watched from the side. If you ignored the details of the matter and only looked at the villagers' expressions, they matched the description in the book, where the villagers had a very bad impression of the educated youth.
"It's really disappointing that something like this happened among you educated youth. Although we haven't found the real culprit yet, we still need to give you educated youth a moral lesson."
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