In the end, Li Juan accepted the two dimes with a slightly embarrassed look on her face. Liu Linlin, standing nearby, chimed in with a snide tone, “Well, seems helping her out did have its perks. No wonder you were so eager to run around after her.”

Li Juan’s face flushed. “That’s not why…”

Song Wei shot Liu Linlin a cool look. “We’re not living by the sea, so why are you trying to play overseer here? This is between Li Juan and me. What makes you think you get to butt in?”

Liu Linlin slammed a pot onto the stove with a loud clank. “What’s that supposed to mean? Besides, I was talking to Li Juan, not you!”

“Please, let’s not argue,” Li Juan tried to interject.

Liu Linlin sneered. “Oh look, ever since that little swim landed you in the hospital, you’ve gotten way too full of yourself.”

Li Juan quickly spoke up. “Linlin, please stop. Song Wei didn’t jump in the river—she slipped in by accident.”

After hearing Song Wei’s story on the cart, it had sounded logical to Li Juan. Anyone in her shoes would have been upset after sending Luo Yecheng so many things only to get nothing in return.

Liu Linlin scoffed. “Oh, so we’re just taking her word for it now? Everyone saw her chasing after Luo Yecheng, and now he’s off forming a ‘revolutionary partnership’ with someone else, so yeah, it makes sense she’d be upset enough to throw herself into the river. Some people really have no shame.”

Song Wei looked at her calmly. “Whether I’m shameless or not, I can’t say. But I can tell you’re definitely shameless. For one, Luo Yecheng and I are from the same place, so maybe there’s some history there. You, though? Didn’t you give him gifts a few times, even when he was dating Jiang Xiaowan? It’s not like people didn’t notice.”

Liu Linlin, clearly not one to keep her cool, flushed red with anger and lunged at Song Wei. “You wretch!”

Oh? So she wanted to fight now?

Stretching her arms, Song Wei intercepted Liu Linlin’s hand, grabbed her wrist, and with an easy flick, tossed her aside. Li Juan’s mouth fell open in shock, expecting delicate, frail Song Wei to be the one getting hurt.

A group of other returning educated youths witnessed the scene just as Liu Linlin stumbled to the ground. Song Wei barely glanced at them before turning back to Liu Linlin.

“Just so you know, you started this.”

Liu Linlin had landed face-first, bruising her nose, and she cried out in pain, cursing loudly. The others rushed over to break things up.

“Song Wei, what are you doing?” Luo Yecheng hurriedly helped Liu Linlin up, turning to her with a frown. “Why did you hit her?”

Liu Linlin, clutching her face, shot Song Wei a venomous glare.

Song Wei let out a cold laugh, rolling her eyes dramatically. “Luo Yecheng, not only are you a sleaze, but you’re blind too. Did your eyes end up on a dog’s head? Couldn’t you see she tried to hit me first?”

“You…”

Luo Yecheng was taken aback. He hadn’t expected her to speak to him like this, and his face grew dark. “Even so, you didn’t have to go that far.”

“Oh, enough already. I didn’t just want to hit her—I want to hit you too. Give back the ration tickets I gave you! After all the favors I did for you, you turn around and start courting someone else? You think I’m just here to be taken advantage of?”

Luo Yecheng looked uncomfortable. “Song Wei, stop causing a scene. You need rest—you just got out of the hospital.”

“I’m giving you a heads-up to save you some face. Don’t push me to ruin your wedding to Jiang Xiaowan. We’ll see how much you like that kind of ‘scene’.”

He hadn’t expected her to call him out so publicly, and his face darkened. Just as he was about to respond, she cut him off.

“Don’t forget, Luo Yecheng—you owe me a bicycle ticket. I have the IOU to prove it.”

She stared him down, deadpan.

“When you begged me for the ticket, you even wrote a letter. I kept it. Don’t even think about wriggling out of this. If you’re any kind of man, you’ll return what you owe. Otherwise, I’ll make sure everyone knows what kind of person you are. You’ve got a few days to pay up.”

She rubbed her forehead, shot him and Liu Linlin a dismissive glance, and walked off, hand on her temple like some fragile, delicate flower.

“This is giving me such a headache. I’m going to lie down, so don’t bother me unless it’s important.”

And with that, she swept back into the women’s dormitory, not giving Luo Yecheng a chance to argue.

Everyone else stood around in silence.

After a moment, a senior youth cleared the tension, and the group dispersed, going back to their business. But Luo Yecheng’s face was livid, his pride clearly in tatters. Liu Linlin fumed too, but everyone else was far more intrigued by Song Wei’s new attitude.

“What’s up with her?”

“It’s like she’s finally done with him, and not hiding it one bit.”

“Li Juan, do you know what’s going on?”

Li Juan, though angry herself, was too shy to criticize him openly. “Probably just like she said.”

She then carefully explained what Song Wei had shared on the cart. People were stunned—she hadn’t jumped into the river out of heartbreak, but had accidentally slipped on a stone.

One of the female youths blinked in shock. “But everyone thought…”

She trailed off, but they all knew what she meant.

Li Juan, said angrily, “That was all because of that nosy Granny Niu! She’s been badmouthing Song Wei ever since she arrived, all because of a silly argument they had!”

Inside, Song Wei overheard their gossip, a sly grin on her face.

Her head was still throbbing; the original owner had hit her head hard on a rock during the fall and had quite the bruise. She lay down for a nap to recover.

When she woke, the other educated youths had left for work. Being freshly out of the hospital, she was granted a day off to rest.

Song Wei spent the time sorting through her belongings. The original owner hadn’t brought much money or ration tickets. Her family situation had been complicated—she had a biological father but a stepmother, plus a half-brother and a stepsister.

As they say, once you get a stepmother, you also get a “stepfather,” and that couldn’t have been truer here.

The original owner didn’t have to go to the countryside. Her birth mother had arranged a job for her before passing away, so she only needed to graduate from school to take it up.

However, with two girls in the Song family who had just graduated from high school, one of them had to go to the countryside.

So, her stepmother schemed to take Song Wei’s job for her own daughter, signing Song Wei up to go to the countryside without her knowledge. By the time Song Wei found out, it was already too late.