The moonlight shone like water; the night was deep and still!
Lying on the earthen bed, Li Yi couldn’t fall asleep. Partly, of course, it was because the midsummer heat was unbearable, but partly it was because of what Tang Xue had told him that afternoon.
Regarding the Tang family, Li Yi’s understanding was extremely limited, both in his past life and in this one.
In his previous life, driven by guilt, Li Yi had never made direct contact with the Tang family; he didn’t know how to face Tang Xue’s parents.
Of course, guilt was only part of it; Li Yi also harbored some resentment toward them.
They knew full well that Tang Xue liked Tan Cheng, and they knew that Tan Cheng and Tang Bing had been having an affair for a long time, yet they deliberately didn’t tell Tang Xue, treating her like a fool.
In the end, they drove Tang Xue to the brink of despair!
Compared to Li Yi’s callousness, the cold-heartedness and ruthlessness of these so-called family members may have been the final straw that broke Tang Xue’s emotional resolve.
What made it even harder for Li Yi to accept the Tang family was that, after he had made his fortune, he went all the way to Qin Province specifically to find Tang Xue’s grave.
To his dismay, he found her grave looking like an abandoned, unclaimed mound—nothing more than a small pile of earth, with a tombstone broken in half and overgrown with weeds. It was clear that no one had tended to it for many years.
Li Yi sent people to track down the Tang family, hoping to have Tang Xue’s grave restored.
But to his surprise, the Tang family assumed he was seeking to arrange a posthumous marriage, so they immediately demanded an exorbitant sum—10,000 yuan.
This was 1990—normally, that was the price for marrying a genuine, untouched maiden, so calling it an exorbitant sum would not be an exaggeration.
Seeing how the Tang family treated the late Tang Xue, Li Yi felt not only anger but, more than anything, deep sorrow for her.
So, in the end, he paid the Tang family 10,000 yuan, rebuilt a grave for Tang Xue right there, and bought a large tract of nearby mountains, turning it into a memorial park.
Originally, Li Yi had intended to help the Tang family more out of respect for Tang Xue, but because of their actions, he ultimately classified them as strangers and never paid them any further attention.
However, after hearing what Tang Xue had to say today, Li Yi felt that there must have been more to her suicide in his previous life.
Given Tang Xue’s personality, she might have been angry that Tan Cheng married Tang Bing, or perhaps she felt despair upon discovering she was pregnant, but that wouldn’t have driven her to suicide.
First, she wasn’t the kind of fiery woman who was brave enough to face life and death without fear. Second, for a girl who had gone to the countryside with only a few simple belongings at the age of sixteen, these events alone wouldn’t have been enough to break her spirit.
Putting together what he’d learned today, it was highly likely that the Tang family had forced her to marry that elderly widower—trading her happiness for a job for Tang Bing—and that, combined with a series of other setbacks, had ultimately driven Tang Xue to her death.
Although these events can no longer be verified, based on Li Yi’s decades of experience navigating the business world, his reasonable conjectures were likely the truth of the matter.
Thinking that in his previous life he had failed to investigate this matter thoroughly—allowing those scum to live their lives with impunity—Li Yi’s heart was filled with regret.
Fortunately, fate had no intention of letting those bastards off the hook, which is why he had returned.
In this life, he was determined to uncover the truth and ensure those scoundrels received the punishment they deserved.
…….
Tang Xue and several other female educated youth were also unable to sleep.
Tang Xue couldn’t sleep because of what had happened that afternoon.
After she had confided all her unspeakable secrets to Li Yi, Tang Xue had expected him to look down on her.
To her surprise, however, she saw not a trace of disdain or mockery on his face, but rather compassion and heartache.
Beyond that, Tang Xue also saw anger in Li Yi’s eyes—he was deeply moved by her ordeal and felt a burning sense of justice on her behalf!
In that single moment, Tang Xue knew she had made the right decision by staying in the city instead of returning home—this was a man worthy of her trust for the rest of her life!
He might not have a distinguished family background, nor a high level of education; he might even have a rural household registration, with eighteen generations of ancestors who were all “red-blooded” poor peasants and lower-middle peasants.
But he had a heart full of love for her—he truly held her dearest in his heart!
It could be said that Li Yi’s behavior today had completely shattered Tang Xue’s last vestiges of stubbornness!
Meanwhile, the other female educated youths in the dormitory couldn’t sleep, mainly because they were too excited.
That was because, after Tang Xue returned to the dorm that evening, she distributed the earnings from their mushroom-picking the previous day. Aside from Zhang Xinyao, each of the other female educated youth received 2 yuan.
Zhang Xinyao had accompanied Tang Xue to the new house to help out yesterday afternoon, so she hadn’t gone mushroom picking with Feng Qian and the others.
Tang Xue had originally intended to give her 2 yuan as compensation, but Zhang Xinyao refused. Although her family’s circumstances were modest, she was a proud young woman.
She would take what she was entitled to, but wouldn’t accept a single penny she wasn’t supposed to have.
The girls who received the money chattered happily, but Tang Xue couldn’t muster the slightest interest; her mind was preoccupied with thoughts of her future life.
Her unusual behavior naturally caught the attention of the other female educated youths. In the moonlight streaming through the window, Feng Qian suddenly asked, “Xiao Xue, you don’t seem very happy. Did something happen?”
“Nothing…”
Before Tang Xue could finish, Feng Qian cut her off: “Xiao Xue, has anyone ever told you that you’re actually terrible at lying?”
“Huh?”
“You know, when you lie, you start to stutter a bit. We don’t even need to hear the rest of what you say to know it’s all fake!” Feng Qian said.
“Is… is that so?” Tang Xue asked, her face flushing slightly.
“Yes! It’s obvious!”
“Qian’s right—you start stuttering the moment you tell a lie!”
“Haha, I hadn’t noticed before, but now that I think about it, you’re right…”
Hearing her friends all say the same thing, Tang Xue felt like the fool in the fable of “covering one’s ears to steal a bell”—thinking she could fool everyone just by covering her own ears.
But in reality, everyone else could see right through her—except for her.
With that in mind, Tang Xue decided there was no point in beating around the bush. She sighed and said, “Something happened at home!”
“Would you mind telling us about it?” asked Sun Lu, who had been at the educated youth commune the longest.
Tang Xue hesitated briefly, then recounted how her family had recently processed her paperwork to return to the city, as well as their plan to marry her off to that old widower.
After hearing Tang Xue’s story, the young women in the room fell silent.
While they felt indignant at Tang Xue’s plight, what they felt most deeply was a shared sense of sorrow.
As female educated youth sent down to the countryside themselves, no one understood Tang Xue’s current situation better than they did—for every one of them had been abandoned by their families.
According to the regulations, only children were not required to go down to the countryside.
In other words, every single female educated youth present had other brothers and sisters at home.
With the exception of Sun Lu—the eldest daughter who had voluntarily requested to be sent to the countryside to take the place of her younger siblings—the rest had been selected by their parents after careful consideration.
Regardless of whether their parents had their own reasons, the fact remained that, at that very moment, they had been abandoned!
Precisely because of this, they understood Tang Xue’s feelings at that moment all too well!