Chapter 27

“Zhan Xinyue, you dare hit me.” Zhan Hongyan covered her swollen mouth, asking with resentment and venom.

“I already hit you, what’s the point of asking?” Zhan Xinyue sneered, “You must be an idiot.”

Zhan Xinyue approached Zhan Hongyan and said in a voice only they could hear, “It’s not the first time I’ve hit you. Zhan Hongyan, if you dare to provoke me again, I’ll tell everyone in the brigade that it was you who slept with Huang Jianjun last night.”

This sentence was like a bolt of lightning, instantly turning Zhan Hongyan’s face pale. She didn’t dare to speak, she covered her face and wanted to run home.

Zhan Xinyue wouldn’t let her go so easily. She grabbed her and asked, “Zhan Hongyan, tell me yourself, should I hit you?”

“Yes, yes, you should.” Zhan Hongyan was afraid that Zhan Xinyue would really tell everyone about her losing her virginity. She nodded in humiliation.

“Can I go now? I have to go to work.”

“Why should you be hit?” Zhan Xinyue wouldn’t let her off so easily.

“I shouldn’t have said that you were living at Sheng’s house before you were married.” Zhan Hongyan sobbed in pain, “You don’t have a place to live now, and Commander Sheng is already in the army. There’s only Grandma Sheng at home. It’s okay for you to live at Sheng’s house.”

Zhan Xinyue looked at the villagers who were watching the show and asked loudly, “Comrades, tell me, can I live here?”

“Of course you can. You and Commander Sheng are already engaged. He’s gone back to the army to submit the marriage report, and he’ll be back to get married soon. You’re already his wife, you just haven’t gotten the marriage certificate yet. Why can’t you live here?”

The first person to speak was Wang Xiumei, Secretary Liu’s wife. She wasn’t taking sides with Zhan Xinyue. After all, it wasn’t the feudal era anymore, you didn’t have to have a wedding ceremony before you could move in.

Moreover, this wasn’t the first time something like this had happened. In the 1950s and 1960s, many places experienced natural disasters, and there were refugees. Among these refugees, there were many unmarried girls who were alone.

When these girls fled to a place, the enthusiastic cadres would help them find a match and find a family for them.

In those hard times, people couldn’t even eat their fill, where would they have the money to hold a wedding banquet? They couldn’t even afford the 1.6 yuan to get a marriage certificate. It was basically like living together without a wedding banquet or a marriage certificate.

[The movie starring Zhu Shimao, where he asks if he wants a wife, is about something that happened in that era. Here, the heroine is not a refugee, but she really doesn’t have a place to live. And the male lead is not at home, she’s living with his grandmother. It doesn’t count as living with the male lead before marriage.

I want to say something specifically here. Actually, that era wasn’t as feudal as we imagine. Some period dramas will make things seem very serious for dramatic effect. The setting of each book is different, don’t criticize me because of the setting of a certain book.

That kind of thing, where you have many lovers and are sentenced to death for premarital sex, actually happened in 1983. That was the year of the crackdown. Then I searched for news, and those who were sentenced to death were those who had premarital sex with multiple people. It wouldn’t usually happen for a one-on-one relationship. In the end, it’s still the same thing, when reading online novels, don’t look for logic, just enjoy it.]

“Of course she can live here. Why would she still live at the Zhan family’s? I would find it disgusting. I don’t even know which bed that old beast, Huang Jianjun, slept on.” A thin aunt said with a pouting mouth, looking disgusted.

“She has to live here. Our Xinyue is so beautiful, it’s not safe for her to live alone. Sheng’s house has a high wall, a locked gate, and Grandma Sheng to keep her company, it’s good like this.”

All the villagers present were on Zhan Xinyue’s side. They weren’t blind, they had seen Zhan Xinyue work hard and say little, while Zhan Hongyan was lazy and liked to gossip behind people’s backs. Of course, they would be willing to help Zhan Xinyue.

Moreover, Zhan Xinyue’s husband, Sheng Tunan, not only bought them meat to eat, but he also donated money to the brigade’s elementary school, fixing the leaky roof and buying new desks and chairs. Their children finally didn’t have to get wet when they went to school, and they didn’t have to worry about the chairs breaking and them suddenly falling down.

They weren’t ungrateful. They had received favors from Commander Sheng, and now that he wasn’t here, they definitely had to help his wife a little more.

“Thank you all for speaking up for me.” Zhan Xinyue nodded slightly, then turned to Zhan Hongyan and said coldly, “This is the last time. If you dare to bother me again, it won’t be as simple as just hitting you.”

Zhan Hongyan nodded repeatedly, promising, “I won’t dare anymore.”

After saying that, she covered her face and ran away crying.

As soon as she left, the others went to work in the fields. Wang Xiumei lagged behind and gave Zhan Xinyue a thumbs up,

“Xinyue, you did the right thing today. You should hit people like that when you have to. You used to be too tolerant, they bullied you so much.”

Wang Xiumei was also a fierce woman. Her husband, Secretary Liu, couldn’t bear to lose face, but in the countryside, if both husband and wife were honest, they wouldn’t be able to get along. Even if they were officials, it wouldn’t work.

Over the years, whenever Secretary Liu encountered difficult people at work, Wang Xiumei would help solve them.

In the countryside, you can’t just reason with people.

“Yes, I was too foolishly filial in the past.” Zhan Xinyue laughed self-deprecatingly. In the first half of her previous life, she was kept in the dark. Even though she knew that Zhan Ai Guo and Chen Ju Xiang favored their son, she still gave them money and bought them a house.

Of course, she wasn’t a saint. When she found out that they weren’t her biological family, she took back what she had given them and retaliated.

In her previous life, after Zhan Ai Guo and his son were kicked out, Zhan Xinyue spread the word that she wouldn’t let them work, which resulted in them scavenging for a living until their deaths.

“It’s not too late to know now. Commander Sheng is a good man. It’s better for you to live a good life with your family than anything else.”

Wang Xiumei smiled, then didn’t stay any longer and rushed to work.

As soon as she left, Zhan Xinyue helped Grandma into the courtyard, locked the door, and let Grandma sit under the big grapefruit tree in the courtyard to enjoy the shade.

“Grandma, don’t you think I was too harsh in hitting her?” Zhan Xinyue didn’t have to work, so she moved a chair and sat down with Grandma. She must have looked very fierce when she was hitting her.

In Zhan Xinyue’s impression, Grandma Sheng had always been kind and gentle. She was afraid of scaring the old lady.