Chapter 2.1

After two days of coming here at this time, this was Jiang Rou’s first time going out.

It’s not that she doesn’t want to go out, rather, she searched through all the cabinets and drawers in her house and couldn’t find a penny.

Based on the memory of the original Jiang Rou, all the money in the house was with Li Xiao, who would regularly leave money for her.

This time, his sudden trip to the police station was unexpected.

Speaking of it, Jiang Rou’s relationship with Li Xiao was somewhat complicated, not like a normal couple.

Although in her previous life, the police investigated Li Xiao thoroughly, it was difficult to find information about his ex-wife due to the short time they were together and the passage of time. Therefore, they only knew that his ex-wife gave birth, gave their daughter to Li Xiao, and then left the child with a wealthy businessman in the city when the daughter was three.

The police had tried to contact her (OG Jiang Rou), but they couldn’t locate her. Some said she had gone abroad, and others said she had died from an illness.

With (OG) Jiang Rou’s current memories, everything became more complicated.

(OG) Jiang Rou’s biological parents favored sons over daughters. She had two older sisters and a pair of younger twin brothers and sisters. Because the family was too poor to support all the children, her parents even sent her youngest sister away to be adopted.

(OG) Jiang Rou was sandwiched in the middle, and since she had health issues when she was young, she couldn’t be given away, so she was considered less important.

She knew all of this herself. She started school late and began attending school at the age of nine. She couldn’t compete with her more capable sisters, so she tried to win her mother’s favor through studying.

As she studied more, her horizons broadened, and she didn’t want to be trapped in the village for the rest of her life. So, she worked hard to get into the county’s high school.

Although she had good grades in the past, they were achieved through rote memorization. After entering high school, her grades clearly couldn’t keep up.

However, as she grew up, she became more attractive, leading her parents to begin to have ulterior motives, wanting to marry her off to a man who sold buns in the town for a dowry of ten thousand yuan.

The OG Jiang Rou naturally refused to marry that man, who was old and ugly. If she was going to marry, she wanted to marry someone from the county at the very least.

Under her parents’ relentless pressure, she set her sights on a well-off troublemaker in her class. She even found out that he often frequented nightclubs. To get close to him, she skipped her evening self-study sessions and slipped out of school every day to work as a waitress in the nightclub.

The nightclub was owned by the troublemaker’s uncle, and the troublemaker often spent the night there with his friends. There were even special rooms for them to rest.

One night, due to a twist of fate, Jiang Rou sneaked in while the troublemaker was asleep, only to wake up and realize that she had mistaken the person. When she woke up, she was with Li Xiao, who had dropped out of school several years ago.

Jiang Rou knew who Li Xiao was; he was a year ahead of her. He was expelled from school in the first semester of her sophomore year, and the incident caused quite a stir in the school.

It’s been two years since then, but there are still rumors about him in school.

But since the dead were cast and her parents came to the school to confront them, ‘Jiang Rou’ decided to ignore what others thought and moved directly into Li Xiao’s home.

Two months later, she found out that she was pregnant, and Li Xiao had no choice but to acknowledge it, though their relationship remained very cold.

Li Xiao hardly goes home, even if he comes back, he has nothing to say.

Although he doesn’t hit women, he still remembers how he had been deceived in the beginning, and besides, this woman didn’t want to marry him in the first place.

The original Jiang Rou was also in great inner turmoil. On one hand, she liked Li Xiao’s face and his strong personality. With him around, no one dared to bully her. But on the other hand, Li Xiao was too poor, had a bad reputation, and couldn’t provide her with the life she wanted.

It could only be said that the original Jiang Rou had left clues to her departure from the beginning of her last life.

Jiang Rou (OG) had been living in the county for half a year, but she rarely went out to shop as she was not very familiar with the area.

Jiang Rou (MC)  followed the route she remembered and went to the vegetable market. Li Xiao’s biological mother sold vegetables in the vegetable market. She deliberately took a detour to a meat stall, where she picked and weighed a pound of lean meat, costing four yuan. Then, she went to the nearby vegetable stall and bought chili peppers, potatoes, green beans, onions, and garlic, spending one yuan and seven cents.

The small basket looked heavy with all of the food she bought.

After buying everything, she sneaked out of the back door of the vegetable market, where there was also a pastry shop at the entrance. The shop didn’t look very clean, and it was dark, but Jiang Rou didn’t mind. She bought two yuan worth of pumpkin cakes and Mount Huangshan clay oven rolls.

She walked while eating, and to get back from the vegetable market, she had to go around more than half of the county. She got tired of eating halfway there. When she passed a snack store, she couldn’t resist and bought a red bean ice cream bar for one yuan.

The snack store was located at a crossroads, and on the other side was a river that crossed the county with a stone bridge. There were railings on both sides of the river, and willow trees were planted at intervals.

This side was a bit more economically developed, and buildings had already been constructed nearby.

In the distance, under the shade of willow trees, several people are smoking. They are talking loudly, laughing and joking, wearing flashy clothes, standing or squatting, and lacking in modesty.

Jiang Rou glanced at them and felt that these were not good people.

She continued walking, holding a basket without looking sideways, and intentionally took a detour to the side.

Rou’s heart tightened, and she silently prayed, “Please don’t come over; I can’t handle them right now.”

When she walked away, Zhou Jian nudged the man next to him with his elbow and whispered in an uncertain voice, “Is that sister-in-law?”

Why didn’t the boss’s wife greet them?

The man leaned his back against the tree trunk, his left leg resting on the ground and his right leg bending and stepping on the tree trunk, with a casual posture. His dark eyes watched the figure recede into the distance. He exhaled a puff of white smoke, squinted his eyes, and didn’t say anything.

Zhou Jian couldn’t help but speculate. “Is she angry? “
After all, their boss was locked up for several days and didn’t go back.

The man turned his head slightly, gave him a cold look, and Zhou Jian awkwardly touched his nose. “I’m just joking.”

Did others not understand? How can they not be aware of their relationship?

Jiang Rou wouldn’t even dare speak loudly in front of the boss, let alone get angry.

The man seemed indifferent, took one last drag from his cigarette, flicked the butt to the ground, and casually crushed it under his foot. His eyes instantly turned fierce. “Let’s go, it’s time to settle accounts.”

Without hesitation, he turned around and walked in the opposite direction.

Zhou Jian immediately became excited, without much thought, he called out to the others, “Let’s go.”

“Damn it, we must teach that guy surnamed Zhang a lesson.”

“Brother Xiao, we need revenge today!”

…