Chapter 5: Smash and Grab

The mother and daughter exchanged a glance and walked to the corner of the room. One held a shovel, while the other grasped a stick. With perfect coordination, they split up and began to smash things at either end of the room.

Shen Zihan swung her stick down onto the Polaris brand clock, which was the old lady’s prized possession. No one was allowed to touch it, not even to dust it; she did that herself. Now, after Shen Zihan struck it, the clock stopped working.

As she smashed it, Shen Zihan could almost hear the old lady’s heart breaking.

Yu Meijuan aimed her shovel at the Huanan brand sewing machine. The first strike didn’t seem to change much, but Yu Meijuan wasn’t going to let this opportunity slip away easily.

If one hit didn’t work, she swung again, and again. Eventually, the sewing machine’s head and panel were split apart. It was clear how much strength Yu Meijuan was using.

With a loud “Aah,” Old Lady Shen’s scream could shatter eardrums.

People didn’t have time to cover their ears and felt the urge to flee from the old lady’s piercing voice.

“You two bringers of misfortune, my clock, my sewing machine! Stop it right now!” After catching her breath, Old Lady Shen began to curse.

In an instant, the room was in chaos. People scrambled to stop the mother and daughter, but Yu Meijuan and Shen Zihan were as agile as monkeys. They specifically targeted the valuable items in the house. The rest of the Shen family had no way to deal with them, allowing them to smash and grab freely.

After they finished in the main room, Shen Zihan went to the old lady’s bedroom. She first flipped over the bedding on the kang, then stomped on it with her foot.

The old lady slept on such soft bedding while forcing them, especially Shen Zihan, to sleep on the grass. Shen Zihan found the bedding very displeasing.

After flipping the bedding, she reached into the kang hole and indeed found a metal cookie tin.

“Ha, this must be the money the old lady exploited from my mom. I’ll take it all.”

Shen Zihan thought of what to do as she acted. She stored the entire box in her space and then returned everything to its place. Now was not the time for the old lady to discover anything.

Shen Zihan collected important items into her space, not even sparing the jars and bottles on the table. With a sweep of her elbow, she knocked everything onto the floor.

Admiring her handiwork, Shen Zihan left with satisfaction.

When Shen Zihan stood triumphantly in the yard, Yu Meijuan was also standing proudly in the courtyard. The mother and daughter exchanged smiles, revealing the happiest smiles they had shared in over a decade.

The entire Shen family, with its many members, failed to stop the mother and daughter from wreaking havoc in their home.

The damage was not limited to the main room; Yu Meijuan and her daughter didn’t spare anyone’s room.

The sounds of wailing, screaming, and curses from the Shen family were music to their ears.

Returning to their own room, Shen Zihan took out the metal cookie tin. “Mom, look at how much of this is yours.”

Yu Meijuan opened it and was astonished to find a pair of jade bracelets and over a dozen gold bars, as well as a bundle of large union certificates and many ration tickets.

Yu Meijuan held up the bracelets and gold bars for Shen Zihan to see. “Look at these inscriptions. They’ve been the reason that bastard Shen Jianguo has threatened me for over a decade. But it’s also because of these inscriptions that he hasn’t dared to sell them.”

Shen Zihan carefully examined the words “Yu Yanming” on the bracelets and gold bars, looking at Yu Meijuan in confusion.

“This is your grandfather’s name. He was a big capitalist. During the movement, our whole family was sent down, but they were all sent to the northwest. Your grandparents, your uncle, and your second uncle, a total of ten people.”

“Do you have any news about them?” Shen Zihan asked her mother.

“No, I just regained my memory. Once things settle down here, we’ll go find them. I think they’re probably in the capital,” Yu Meijuan thought otherwise; years had passed since the movement, and she didn’t understand why her family hadn’t found her. Something must have gone wrong, but she didn’t tell her daughter.

“Okay, I’ll definitely get into a university in the capital, and then we’ll go find them,” Shen Zihan said, unaware of her mother’s thoughts. She was happily counting the money, discovering there was actually three thousand yuan.

“Mom, how could they have so much money? This money can’t all be yours, right?” Shen Zihan asked in surprise.

“It’s all mine; more precisely, it was exchanged for my things, and there’s even more than this. I will get everything back; I won’t let their family benefit,” Yu Meijuan replied.

“These people are too despicable, using your money to live and ordering us around, and they even want to kill us to silence us. They are just born bad seeds. They will get their comeuppance,” Shen Zihan said.

While the Shen family was in chaos, Yu Meijuan was busy planning with her daughter about the money they had. Yu Meijuan directly handed the items over to Shen Zihan.

Shen Zihan didn’t understand at first, and Yu Meijuan didn’t clarify. Suddenly, she realized that her mother had already guessed that she had a special storage ability.

The concepts of knowledge and understanding are quite powerful; once a person possesses these two, they become formidable. Shen Zihan’s admiration for her mother reached a new height.

“How about we make a big move tonight?” Shen Zihan said, blinking at her mother.

“That’s exactly what I was thinking, but I didn’t plan to take you along since you’re just a girl. There are some things I don’t want to expose you to,” Yu Meijuan said, looking at her daughter with concern.

“Mom, don’t forget what I told you. I think seeing our enemies dealt with in person would be the most satisfying,” Shen Zihan recalled the scene from her previous life when she and that mother-daughter pair met their end together, her eyes filled with the thrill of revenge.

“Alright, then let’s go together,” Yu Meijuan said, glancing outside and feeling that it was about time. She opened the door and listened carefully, noticing there were no other sounds in the yard, suggesting they had fallen asleep.

Yu Meijuan picked up a shovel and waved it at Shen Zihan. Seeing the tool in her mother’s hand, Shen Zihan thought her mother was going to fight, so she grabbed a hoe and followed her mother outside. The two of them tiptoed out.

One carried a shovel while the other carried a hoe as they walked along the quiet country road. Shen Zihan noticed her mother was heading in the wrong direction and asked, “Mom, this isn’t the direction to Li Cuihua’s house. Where are we going?”

“We’re going to dig up the things I hid. Once we confront them, it might be inconvenient to retrieve these items, and luckily you have a place to store things,” Yu Meijuan replied. Shen Zihan remained silent and quietly followed her mother, the only sounds being their footsteps.

They arrived at the foot of a giant poplar tree, where Yu Meijuan stopped.

She circled the tree, then confirmed the location and said, “Your furniture is handy; you dig first.” Shen Zihan resigned herself to the task and began to dig. The ground was frozen, making it quite difficult. After considerable effort, they managed to uncover a layer of soil.

Seeing her daughter was tired, Yu Meijuan took the hoe and started digging. After about two hours, they finally discovered a metal box. Together, they pulled the box out of the pit.

Just as Shen Zihan was about to open the box, Yu Meijuan said, “Let’s put it away for now; it’s getting late, and we have important things to do.”

Hearing her mother’s words, Shen Zihan quickly stored the box, hoe, and shovel into her space right under her mother’s nose. Although Yu Meijuan didn’t show it on her face, she was genuinely shocked inside. Her daughter had a great fortune! She felt very happy for her daughter.

“Now that we’ve put away the tools, what do we do about this big hole?” she teased her daughter.

Shen Zihan smiled and took out the tools, and then the two of them hastily filled the large hole back in.

Then they headed toward Li Cuiping’s house.