Chapter 3: A City Household Registration? Keep Dreaming!

“Chu Yue! Are you insane?! Just flapping your lips and you’re asking for five hundred yuan? Why don’t you go rob someone on the street?!”

Chu Yaoyao yanked herself free from Li Amei, her cheek still red with a slap mark, and glared at Chu Yue with fire in her eyes.

Chu Yue let out a snort and retorted:

“Five hundred yuan is too much? Why don’t you take five hundred to the street and see if you can buy yourself a healthy young girl with a city hukou — one who’s even willing to marry blindfolded to someone she’s never met!”

“Besides, you’ve been engaged to the Lu family since we were still in the countryside — nearly ten years now. In all that time, haven’t you taken money from the Lu family every single month? Should I do the math for you? Ten yuan a month for ten years — you really want me to spell it out?”

“That money — Lu Zhanlin gave it willingly, for his future wife. But now I’m the one marrying him as a military spouse, I’m the one becoming his wife. Shouldn’t that money come to me? I’m not even asking for a thousand — just five hundred. I’m already letting you off easy!”

Her sharp and articulate rebuttal left the whole room stunned.

In terms of both logic and reason, Chu Yue’s words were flawless.

Even Li Amei couldn’t find a hole to poke.

Ten years. She had, indeed, taken money from the Lu family for ten years — maybe even more than she remembered.

But…

Li Amei was stingy to the bone — the kind of person who wouldn’t cough up a single cent even if you pried her mouth open.

So she fell back on her favorite tactic: “tears + playing the victim.”

“Yueyue… we don’t have that kind of money… really, we don’t… Your father only makes thirty-something yuan a month. And that Lu boy — he’s just a foot soldier! How could he possibly give us ten yuan a month? It’s just not true…”

“A foot soldier? That’s not what you said earlier. Earlier you were boasting about how Lu Zhanlin is a platoon leader, how he has authority in the army. If he hadn’t been giving you money, would you have let Chu Yaoyao get engaged to a man about to go off to war, with his life hanging by a thread?”

Chu Yue’s light and cutting words exposed Li Amei’s greed on the spot.

Even after being unmasked, Li Amei still refused to give up.

“I really don’t have the money… even if you force me to death, I can’t produce it… Are you, as my daughter, really so heartless? Do you want me dead?”

“Dead? You’re accusing me of pushing you to your death?” Chu Yue’s face turned ice-cold. “Isn’t it the other way around? Who’s really forcing who to die here?”

If the original Chu Yue hadn’t been literally driven to death by these people, she, the new Chu Yue, wouldn’t be here now — dropped into this 1970s nightmare.

“I said five hundred, and I mean five hundred! I won’t marry for a single cent less.”

“Don’t talk to me about how military marriages can’t be annulled. So what if my name’s already on the marriage certificate? This whole thing was a scam! A fraud marriage! You really think I won’t report it?”

“Believe it or not, I’ll write a letter to the military base right now. By tomorrow, the local police will be knocking on your door and dragging you both to jail!”

Chu Yue went all in — no mercy, no compromise.

Li Amei’s face turned ashen, her eyes burning with seething hatred as she glared at Chu Yue.

A girl who’d lost her mother, whose father didn’t care about her, and who had been under Li Amei’s thumb for over a decade — and today, she actually dared to rebel.

But everything Chu Yue said hit Li Amei’s weakest spots dead on.

Her original plan had been simple: steal Chu Yue’s university admission, then ship her off on a train to the army base. Once there, even if Chu Yue wanted to run, there would be nowhere to go.

You think Lu Zhanlin would just let his wife escape?

But now, her scheme hadn’t even started before it was already falling apart.

Everyone else could now tell that Chu Yue was dead serious about burning bridges. But only Chu Yaoyao, ever the dim one, still thought she could scare her into submission.

“Chu Yue! What good would it do you to report this? If the truth comes out, you won’t be able to go to university either — you might even end up in prison!”

“Then we’ll go to prison together,” Chu Yue sneered. “I’d be in for a few months at most. But you two — scamming a soldier into marriage? You’ll be rotting behind bars for years.”

That shut Chu Yaoyao up real quick. She stumbled back a few steps in fear.

She turned to her mother in a panic:

“Mom, is she serious? Are we really going to prison?!”

“No, no, of course not! Yaoyao, your father loves you — he’d never let that happen! Nanshan, say something! Talk to Yueyue — you’re the head of this family, aren’t you?!”

Now, finally, Li Amei remembered that Chu Nanshan was supposed to be the head of the household.

But Chu Nanshan just kept his head down, puffing harder on his pipe, not saying a single word.

He took a heavy drag and spat out three words:

“Give her the money.”

The moment Li Amei heard that, she jumped up in outrage.

“What did you say? Are you out of your mind? How can we give her money? Besides, our family is dirt poor—where would we even get the money?!”

“Give her the money!” Chu Nanshan repeated in a hoarse voice.
“If you don’t, she won’t marry. Then what? We’ll all end up at the police station? Do you want the whole neighborhood to know and make an even bigger fool of us?”

For once, the man stood up to Li Amei.

Seeing that Chu Nanshan was truly angry, Li Amei’s arrogance quickly deflated.

“No, Nanshan, that’s not what I meant… It’s just… the money… we don’t have any…”

To put it plainly—Li Amei just didn’t want to give it.

But after sharing a bed with her for five years, could Chu Nanshan really not know whether she had money?

He glanced sideways at her.
“I’ll give two hundred. That’s Yueyue’s dowry for the marriage. You cover the remaining three hundred. I don’t care how you do it. But the five hundred yuan—she has to get all of it.”

“Dowry? Two hundred for a girl’s dowry? Are you marrying her off or bringing a daughter-in-law in? Have you even thought about Yaoyao? Or Jianjun? Your son still needs to get married in the future too! And where do you think you’re going to get two hundred from anyway?”

“For the past five years, I’ve handed my salary to you every month. Just use that.”

“Your salary? God help us… Two adults, three kids—five mouths to feed. With your measly thirty-something yuan a month, how could there be anything left over? Five hundred? Impossible… I’m telling you, absolutely not. Three hundred at most!”

Pressed into a corner, Li Amei gritted her teeth and named a figure.

Chu Yue quickly jumped in.

“You said it yourself—three hundred it is! Deal’s done!”

Li Amei whipped her head around to look at Chu Yue—only to see a smile curling at her lips.

Damn it!

She had fallen into Chu Yue’s trap.

Chu Yue had known from the start that Li Amei couldn’t cough up five hundred yuan.

In the 1970s, five hundred yuan was a small fortune—enough for a city family to save up over two years even if they scrimped and saved. For rural folks, it was an enormous sum.

What Chu Yue really wanted to find out was how much money Li Amei actually had.

She controlled Chu Nanshan’s salary, the allowance from Lu Zhanlin was also in her hands—only Li Amei knew how much she had stashed away.

That three hundred yuan—was undoubtedly a huge blow to her secret savings.

Li Amei’s mouth hung open, her throat dry and hoarse. She wanted to speak, but no words came out.

She could only swallow this loss in silence.

After stating her first demand, Chu Yue quickly moved on to her second.

“This house was originally obtained through my mother’s work points. After she died, only three names were listed on the household register: my father’s, mine, and Jianjun’s. Even if I get married, my household registration stays here. My second condition is: Li Amei and Chu Yaoyao are not allowed to transfer their household registration into this house.”

“You… you… you…”

This time, Li Amei was so furious her hands trembled, her face flushing red.

She had been dreaming of a city household registration—so she could finally eat state-distributed rations.

In the five years of marriage, Chu Nanshan had given in to her on everything—except the household registration, which he had refused to budge on.

Now that Chu Yue had made this request, it completely crushed any hope Li Amei had left.

Chu Nanshan was the first to nod in agreement.
“Alright. When Yaoyao goes to college, her registration can be transferred to the school—they’ll provide grain rations there.”

That settled Chu Yaoyao’s registration.

If Li Amei tried to fight for one just for herself now, she’d look like a selfish shrew, destroying her carefully crafted white lotus image.

All she could do was stare at Chu Yue with eyes full of hatred.

But inside, Chu Yue had only one thought:

“Want a city household registration? Dream on.”