When he got home, Ding Mei was nagging Wen Huaiming in the living room, and he didn't even bother to ask a question about his son's return. Wen Liang felt very much ignored, so he ran to the kitchen to find something to eat, and sat aside to listen to his parents talk.
"If you ask me, Li Shengli is not a man. So what if his wife ran away? The more this happens, the more he should live a decent life and let those dogs have a good look at him. All he does all day is drink, maybe he'll drink himself to death!" Ding Mei had a look of regret on her face. Her look of disappointment reminded Wen Liang of the time when he was beaten up for not doing well in exams.
Wen Huaiming looked at the Qingzhou Daily and said nonchalantly, "Everyone has their own destiny. There is nothing you can do about it. Shengli can't take care of his wife, so he can't blame anyone else. What can I say is that Li Shengli shouldn't have married a woman like Zhao Yaqing."
Ding Mei didn't know what she was thinking of. Her eyes turned red and she wiped her eyes with her hand: "I just feel sorry for Nuannuan. She was such a smart little girl. Now..."
Wen Huaiming sighed, "Send 200 yuan tomorrow. We also have a responsibility in this matter. We can't just watch people starve to death."
"Yeah," Ding Mei nodded, thinking of the beautiful woman who was having a good time in Shenzhen, and hated her in her heart: "I was really blind. I treated her as a good sister and introduced her to Li Shengli. If I had known this would happen..."
Wen Liang listened to all the details and remembered what was going on. Zhao Yaqing was the first woman Wen Liang loved in his previous life. Ding Mei and Zhao Yaqing entered the factory at the same time, one as a cashier and the other as an accountant. They worked together and soon became good sisters.
Zhao Yaqing's parents are farmers in the suburbs. They don't have many friends in Qingzhou. The food in the staff canteen is not good, so they often come to Wen Liang's house to eat. The young otaku was quickly captured by this extremely beautiful aunt.
Li Shengli is a technician in the third workshop. He is an honest man who does not drink or smoke. Although he looks handsome, he never flirts with the female employees in the factory. He is a well-known gentleman in the agricultural machinery factory. After being introduced by Ding Mei, he and Zhao Yaqing finally got together and became a popular topic.
But unfortunately, love is just a lottery ticket that wins the jackpot. After the prize collection period, it is even less than a piece of waste paper and will make you regret it.
In 1993, Zeng Wucheng, a former second-rate guy in the factory, came back from the south. He was well-dressed and generous. Although he still looked disgusting and ugly as before, he had become a legendary rich man. People from the factory went to visit Zeng's house in groups, and they all came back with only one thing to say: Zeng Wucheng, that gangster, is now a rich man. This world is really a place where the bold will die of overeating and the timid will die of starvation.
Zeng Wucheng's current situation is all thanks to Zhao Yaqing. Although Zeng Wucheng is a child of the agricultural machinery factory, he is uneducated and has been hanging around on the streets since he graduated from junior high school. He also often flirted with young women in the factory, but he met a young woman outside. They were all family-oriented people, so they just accepted the loss. Zeng Wucheng was shocked by Zhao Yaqing as soon as he saw her. He proposed to her several times but was rejected by Zhao Yaqing. This guy was still determined and tried to rape Zhao Yaqing one night when she was returning to the factory alone from Wen Liang's house. Li Shengli happened to meet him and saved him.
Afterwards, Zeng Wucheng threatened to cause trouble to Li Shengli many times. It was not until Ding Mei asked Wen Huaiming to ask his friends in the police station to punish him several times that Zeng Wucheng finally stopped. However, he had no place to stay in the agricultural machinery factory, so he gritted his teeth and went to the south. Unexpectedly, in just a few years, this kid returned home in glory.
The agricultural machinery factory had been going from bad to worse since the early 1990s, and many people were looking for other ways out. Li Shengli was a man of courage. In 1992, he resolutely quit his iron rice bowl and opened a small restaurant. His ancestors were chefs, and he had family secret cooking methods, which should have made him a good businessman. However, business really depends on one's character. In just one year, he lost all his hard-earned savings. Everyone in the factory laughed at him for being a fool. He had a iron rice bowl with a government job but didn't keep it. Now, he might not even have money to buy clothes for his wife.
Due to various circumstances, Zeng Wucheng returned in 1993. Just three months later, Zhao Yaqing abandoned her husband of nine years and nine-year-old daughter and followed this wealthy man to Shenzhen.
Love, in the face of reality, becomes a joke.
Thinking back to all this, Wen Liang sighed. In his previous life, he had resented Zhao Yaqing countless times, thinking that all the bad women in the world were guilty of this. But after two lives as a human, his thoughts would naturally change. Maybe it wasn't this woman who was dirty, but this world.
Ding Mei recovered from her self-blame and found her son leaning on the sofa, staring out the window, his dark face showing a sadness that a young man had never had. Her heart suddenly trembled, and she sat down beside him, stroked his hair, and asked in a low voice: "Wen Liang, what's wrong, are you unhappy at school?"
Wen Huaiming hated to see Ding Mei like this. He snorted and went to the bedroom. Ding Mei didn't bother to pay attention to him. She took Wen Liang's hand and said with a smile, "Good son, tell me what's wrong. Do you have no change? I'll give it to you!"
"Mom, what did you say about Li Siqing? Is she not okay?" Li Siqing is Li Shengli's daughter. She was formerly known as Li Yi and her nickname was Nuannuan. After Zhao Yaqing left, Li Shengli changed her name to this.
"Alas, today when I went to his house, Li Shengli was still drinking heavily, drunk like a pig, not caring about anything at home. Siqing told me that she hadn't paid the tuition for last semester, and the school was about to start for junior high school, and the school notified her that if she still couldn't pay the money, she wouldn't have to come to school... What a sin, the little girl is only eleven years old, and the clothes she wears are still seven or eight years old, the top can't cover her belly button, and the pants don't even reach her calves, she is dark and thin, and her hands are full of calluses..."
In the previous life, after Zhao Yaqing left, the two families stopped communicating. Ding Mei often sent some money to him, but Wen Liang never saw the father and daughter of the Li family again - he was still in a miserable self-isolation and had no time to care about the life and death of others.
Wen Liang vaguely remembers the cute girl who pulled his clothes and called him brother. Li Siqing, who perfectly inherited the excellent genes from his parents, has been a beauty since childhood, with big eyes, long eyelashes, and smooth skin. Her long ponytail swings back and forth, and she has two shallow dimples when she smiles, making her look like an elf.
But I didn't expect that she is having such a hard time now!
"Mom, help them if you can. Although Aunt Zhao is gone, Siqing did nothing wrong after all..."
"Need I tell you? But your father is useless. I only have this little salary. How long can I help him? Sigh."
Wen Liang stood up. It had already darkened outside the window. A few rays of moonlight crawled along the wall into the balcony, casting a few mottled shadows in the corner.
The darker the sky, the brighter the moon.
If we could start over again, wouldn't it be to have less tragedies and more comedies, less sorrow and anger, and more joy in this world
It’s okay, everything will change!