Chapter 72

Chapter 72

Han Cheng's enthusiasm was instantly extinguished.

He was so naïve—how had he not considered why his uncle had been so eager to split up the family estate? Though his uncle was getting older, it wasn’t yet time to distribute the inheritance.

Sun Miao continued, "They’re in such a hurry to have you move out precisely to cut ties with you as soon as possible. You’ve just entered your new workplace, a time when you need your family’s backing the most. How can you move out of the Han family now?"

Even if she were to marry Han Cheng, she wanted to marry into the Han family compound.

A Han Cheng without the backing of the Han family compound wasn’t worth marrying.

Moreover, she was now in her third year of university, approaching the critical point of job placements after graduation. Once the autumn recruitment began next year, the personnel bureau would visit various schools to select candidates. If the Han family severed ties with them now, did that mean they had no intention of paving the way for Han Cheng in the future?

Sun Miao pressed on, "Look at your eldest and second cousins—they reached their current positions at such a young age. Then look at your eldest uncle—he struggled for most of his life and only became a deputy division chief as he neared retirement. I’m saying this for your own good. If you can’t see this clearly, your eldest uncle’s path will be yours in the future."

Han Cheng felt a chill in his heart as the gentle and kind expression of his uncle surfaced in his mind.

Was it really like Miao Miao said—was all of this part of his uncle’s plan?

He had no memory of his own father but had always been close to his uncle.

If his uncle had treated him this way, it would truly crush him. He had even happily agreed earlier—now he felt like a fool.

"What should I do now?"

"If he offers to decorate the house for you, go along with it. But when the time comes, don’t move out. Just say your uncle’s health isn’t good and you want to stay in the old house to take care of him. A family like theirs, with their reputation—if you don’t mention moving out, would your eldest and second brothers really force you to leave? It’s not like there’s no room for you." There was absolutely no way she would move out of the Han family estate.

As soon as Han Shuping entered the house, Jiang Huiqi came forward to greet him, taking the coat he casually handed her and hanging it on the rack.

"Your elder brother just returned—aren’t you going to have a few drinks with him?"

Han Shuping dropped onto the sofa with a heavy sigh. "Elder Brother is still with Father in his room."

Jiang Huiqi casually inquired about the old man’s health and then brought up Han Jiming. "...I don’t know what they were thinking. He’s a grown man—it’s not like they can keep him locked up forever. Honestly, at the old man’s age, if something were to happen, he wouldn’t even get to see his son. They didn’t want to raise him themselves—that’s on them, and now they complain that the third son isn’t close to them. What were they doing all those years?"

She left the rest unsaid—at the old man’s age, how many years does he have left?

Han Shuping was troubled by more than just this. His feelings toward his youngest brother, who was young enough to be his son, were complicated. But what had upset him today was Han Cheng’s reaction. "Father mentioned dividing the family assets today. The old house in Sanhe will likely go to Jiming, along with two shops. The old villa in Shanghai will go to Elder Brother, and we’ll get two properties in Hong Kong."

Jiang Huiqi’s eyes lit up. "They’re really giving us both properties in Hong Kong?"

Then she frowned. "What about Han Cheng?"

"He gets one apartment, two shops, and a sum of money. He’s likely getting the biggest cash payout of all. That kid Han Cheng has no tact—he was overjoyed when Father finished speaking and didn’t show a shred of sadness. You should’ve seen it—Father was truly hurt. That’s why Elder Brother stayed with him in his room." Han Boyuan rarely spent much time at home, but whenever he returned, he made sure to devote time to the old man.

Han Shuping took a sip of tea, Han Cheng’s smiling face still lingering in his mind. This cousin was around the same age as his youngest brother but lacked even half of his composure.

His barely contained excitement was obvious, overflowing with joy.

No wonder the old man was upset—this was a child he had raised himself, one who wasn’t even married yet.

Han Boyuan and Han Shuping, both married, had been somber about the division of assets. Yet Han Cheng had looked ready to dance a jig in front of the old man. How could that not sadden the old man? If there were still money to be divided after his death, Han Cheng would probably sing at the wake.

But never mind that. What troubled him more was that the household staff had overheard Sun Miao’s words.

Han Shuping didn’t even want to repeat those words to outsiders, thinking it made the family look bad. But his wife wasn’t an outsider, and he couldn’t help but form a negative opinion of Sun Miao. "I never had much respect for the Sun family, but Han Cheng insisted on marrying their daughter. There was nothing I could do about it. Family is family—I had no right to oppose it. How much we interact in the future will depend on our relationship. But now Han Cheng only listens to the Sun family—where do we even factor in?" He implied they should keep their distance from now on.

As for Sun Miao’s refusal to move out of the Han family—when the time came, she wouldn’t have a say.

Even after getting married and starting a family, still refusing to leave the house—the old man wouldn’t stand for that.

Jiang Huiqi curled her lips. "She really thinks she’s hot stuff."

Just the thought of having to call this kind of person a sister-in-law made her feel irritated.

This girl was downright tacky, looking down on this and that, and her mother was no better—rumored to still be out gambling and playing cards. When they kicked her out, she threw such a fit. How could they possibly treat her as family in the future?

The idea of having to interact with her as in-laws in the future made Jiang Huiqi feel as disgusted as if she’d bitten into a bug.

After marriage, moving into the Han family mansion and still trying to mooch off the Han family’s status?

Jiang Huiqi sneered. Did she really think the old man had grown so feeble with age that he was just a paper tiger? If Han Cheng really married someone like this, it wouldn’t be a marriage—it’d be a feud!

———

By late December, the temperature in the capital had grown even colder.

After putting it off for a month, Smith finally took Emma back to England.

At this point, Feng Yanwen was juggling tutoring sessions and the renovation of her tutoring center, running around like a headless chicken with no time to dwell on sadness or sorrow over the farewell.

Before leaving, Smith introduced a few more foreigners interested in learning Chinese.

Xu Meng suddenly had an idea and suggested to Feng Yanwen that they get the training center up and running fast.

"Not only teaching English, but also teaching foreigners Chinese." In the coming years, more and more foreigners would come to China—it was a goldmine.

And since there were very few institutions offering this kind of training, Feng Yanwen set a price several times higher than regular tutoring, which the foreigners readily accepted.

Later, Smith told her that, given the income levels in most developed countries, her training fees were practically peanuts. They wouldn’t even bother haggling—just like how Feng Yanwen wouldn’t bother bargaining over cabbages priced at 1.5 yuan for a hundred catties.

It really was dirt cheap!

As for the newly rented space, it had originally been used by Wang Shuanzhu as a warehouse. After selling off the old junk that could be sold, the rooms were emptied. The two rooms were large and spacious, each capable of seating twenty to thirty students. Feng Yanwen was very satisfied after seeing it and signed the lease right then and there.

Xu Meng accompanied her to inspect the place and felt that the place didn’t need major work.

The cement floors could stay as they were, but the electrical wiring needed to be redone. Wang Shuanzhu had renovated the place after buying it, but back then, the rooms had been arranged as storage spaces, so the lighting wasn’t great—just had old-school tungsten bulbs, and there weren’t even any power outlets. Though, to be fair, most places back then skimped on outlets in every room either.

"The lights should be replaced with fluorescent tubes—brighter ones," Xu Meng said, glancing at the ceiling and felt something was off. "Install two ceiling fans in each room, and make sure they’re bolted down tight. As for the desks, they don’t have to be standard school desks, but we’ll need to hire a carpenter to make them."

She felt like there were tasks everywhere, and Feng Yanwen simply didn’t have the time.

At the Railway Bureau, there were at least ten classes a week, meaning Feng Yanwen spent at least three days a week teaching there.

This was already Huang Mei doing her a favor by scheduling the classes stacked together. Otherwise, if they were scattered—one in the morning, another in the afternoon—there’d be no use complaining even if she was frustrated.

Between finding carpenters, electricians, and buying supplies, she was stretched way too thin.

After staying at Wang Shuanzhu’s place for a while, the mother and daughter headed back.

Xu Meng said, "You should’ve hired help sooner. It’d be helpful now when things are so busy."

Feng Yanwen sighed. "Hiring people is easy, but finding someone trustworthy is another story. Forget everything else—with all the chaos here, finding someone who’ll actually pull their weight isn’t that simple."

After saying this, she sighed, and Xu Meng echoed it.

Yeah, finding workers is such a pain.

Wang Shuanzhu was eager to help, but this small-scale renovation wasn’t worth calling in a crew, and Feng Yanwen had no intention of troubling him. Fortunately, they quickly found an electrician. Xu Meng waved her hands around, explaining the renovation plan to him. At first, the electrician was confused, but he quickly caught on to what they wanted—from wiring the lights to installing them.

Thankfully, electricians in those days were jacks-of-all-trades and offered some highly practical suggestions.

"Boss Wang’s got some spare wood lying around at home," the electrician said. "If you bring it over, the planks can be cut into desks. Stools are even simpler—just smaller planks with four legs attached. Saves you the sanding too."

The electrician’s advice was excellent.

Xu Meng went to discuss it with Wang Shuanzhu and ended up taking all his leftover wood off his hands.

Even the roughest of these old planks were decent tung wood. A quick sanding and some varnish, and they were good to go for desks. Before long, they had a carpenter on the job too. With ready-made planks, the work progressed swiftly and was completed in three or four days.

Xu Meng could finally relax a little. During this period, both she and Feng Yanwen had been swamped.

Returning from the shop, she noticed a shadow lurking by her doorstep and instinctively thought of Granny Chen, who had once come to steal soil. With security being poor these days, theft was rampant, especially around the New Year—even a handful of green onions would go missing. People didn’t dare leave their courtyard gates open during the day.

Xu Meng braced herself and tiptoed closer.

Just then, the figure turned around, and their eyes met.

Both took a step back in surprise, and Huang Xiaoying even plopped down on her butt.

"Cousin."

"Cousin, how did you get here? And looking like this?"

Had she been robbed?

Xu Meng led Huang Xiaoying, shivering like a leaf, inside to warm up by the fire.

She first fetched a thermos and went to the kitchen to find a small pot. Adding a generous amount of brown sugar and several thick slices of ginger, she let it simmer until the ginger scent was strong. Then, she poured a full porcelain mug of the hot ginger tea and handed it to Huang Xiaoying, who was hugging the warm wall.

Huang Xiaoying trembled uncontrollably, her lips almost blue.

The last time Xu Meng had seen her was during last year’s New Year visit to their grandmother’s house, when Huang Xiaoying was still in middle school.

The two were close in age and had often played together as children. Huang Xiaoying came from a large family, and Xu Meng had always envied her when they were young.

"How did you find your way here?" Huang Xiaoying had never been to the capital before, let alone visited Xu Meng’s home.

As she spoke, Xu Meng dug through her closet for something to wear.

When she moved out of the Xu family home, Xu Meng hadn’t brought any old clothes. Everything in her wardrobe had been bought later.

She didn’t have many winter outfits—just two outfits to switch between—but there was no other choice. Huang Xiaoying’s clothes were soaked through and dirty, so she had to change. Feng Yanwen was taller, and Huang Xiaoying was half a head shorter, so Xu Meng grabbed one of her own sets for her.

Huang Xiaoying continued to shiver, clutching the mug of ginger tea. The sweet, gingery smell rose from the cup—Xu Meng hadn’t skimped on ingredients. One sip burned with ginger heat all the way down her throat, oddly soothing despite the burn.

Her frozen fingers thawed around the warm mug, and the tea’s temperature had cooled to a pleasant warmth, making her want to drink more.

Huang Xiaoying thought of her own home, where brown sugar was hard to come by. With six children, her mother could barely work for at least half a year with each pregnancy. As the eldest, she had been doing chores since she was little.

Her cousin hadn’t had it much better.

As children, they often squeezed into the same bed, sharing stories about their families. Back then, Huang Xiaoying couldn’t understand her mother’s endless pregnancies, and Xu Meng resented the Xu family members who treated her poorly. Compared to her cousin Xu Jia, whom she’d grown up with, she’d always liked this cousin better.

Huang Xiaoying took a few more sips of the ginger tea, only tasting anything by the third sip, then looked up at Xu Meng.

Tears began streaming down her face.

Xu Meng’s nose stung as she bent down and hugged her tightly.

The two cousins wept silently in each other’s arms.

"Sis, Mom wants me to go work in the south. She wants me to—to—" Huang Xiaoying couldn’t finish, bursting into loud sobs, her tears falling uncontrollably. If her mother had just asked her to work in a factory, she might have gone without much thought—after all, many girls from their village had left for southern jobs before even finishing middle school.

But what her mother wanted her to do was different. She was told to go with Huang Zhenzhen.

Huang Zhenzhen had returned home draped in gold and jewelry, making Feng Yanzi wildly jealous.

Never had she imagined her own mother would push her into such a living hell.

Xu Meng’s heart turned icy. In her past life, this cousin had gone down a dark path. Later, she heard Huang Xiaoying had worked as an escort in southern nightclubs, earning a lot of money. Her aunt back home lived in style, building a new house within two years and then pushing the younger girls to follow the same path.

Eventually, news of Huang Xiaoying faded. Much later, it was said she had followed a businessman from Hong Kong, a man older than her own father, who rarely returned except to send money.

Feng Yanzi had mixed feelings about this daughter—she adored the money she sent but cursed her selfishness behind her back, complaining that she refused to bring her sisters along once she prospered. But after Feng Yanwen passed away, Xu Meng’s ties with that side of the family weakened, and eventually, all contact with Huang Xiaoying was lost.

After crying for a while, Huang Xiaoying finally pulled herself together, sniffling as she spoke. "I went to Uncle’s house to ask around and found out you’d moved out. So I ran away secretly."

She wasn’t wearing much, and didn't have a penny to her name. Last night, she had slept outside.

Too afraid to ask strangers for shelter—with how dangerous things were these days—she eventually spotted an elementary school and slept in an unlocked classroom. The next day, she continued walking until she hitched a ride on a tractor going into town. Otherwise, she wouldn’t have arrived until tomorrow.

Xu Meng glanced down and saw Huang Xiaoying’s cotton shoes caked in mud. Her nose stung again, and tears spilled uncontrollably.

For the Huang Xiaoying of this life—and the one from before.