Chapter 26 - Making An Example Out of Her (3)
“Yeah, Aunt Guihua, let the rest of us take a look. We want to see how a college student is different from the rest of us,” an innocent-looking young boy said.
The normally stuck-up college student did what now? They may not be able to have her, but they could at least look!
Xiao Fei snuck away while the group was happily looking at the pictures. He still has to head to the neighboring village. Yan-jie said to distribute them to all villages within a 10-mile radius.
Within an hour, everybody knew that the Li’s college-graduated daughter was no good. She slept with someone else’s husband in the city, got caught red-handed by the wife, and these pictures were even sent back to her hometown.
Li Jiaojiao’s grandma passed out when she saw the pictures. Her uncle and aunt were so angry their bodies shook. They both have daughters. With a niece like this, their daughters’ reputation would be ruined too. Especially Li Jiaojiao’s Big Aunt, they were in the process of arranging a marriage for her daughter. She wasn’t sure if that would still happen now that this had happened.
When Li Jiaojiao’s parents returned from the mountain, they just felt that everybody was looking and pointing at them. They were a little baffled. Everybody had always been friendly with them as they have a college student in their family. Now, they looked like they wanted nothing to do with them at all.
When they arrived at their front door, they just saw a sea of people blocking the entrance. Their hearts sank. What had happened at home?
Looking at the photos, Mother Li passed out immediately. After much hustle-and-bustle, she woke up, but sat on the ground, smacked her own thighs, and bawled, “How am I going to live? How am I going to live….”
Father Li sat to one side, smoking. He wasn’t crying, but looked much more upset than Mother LI.
While all these were going on at the Li’s, Li Jiaojiao wasn’t having it any better either. She just walked into the factory and found everybody pointing and gossiping at her. All her colleagues that she used to hang out with was avoiding her like she was a leper. Wang-jie, who had always been nice to her, looked at her with grave disappointment.
“Wang-jie, what happened?” Li Jiaojiao’s heart was pounding. She felt that something terrible was about to happen.
“Jiaojiao, you? Aye!” Wang-jie’s face was beet red but was too embarrassed to bring up the subject.
“Li Jiaojiao, the director wanted to speak to you.” Another girl, who had started here at the same as Li Jiaojiao, said. There had always been a tension between the two of them. As soon as she saw the pictures this morning, she snuck some of them to the factory director right away.
Seeing the pictures, Li Jiaojiao felt that all her blood had frozen, and she collapsed onto the floor.
“As you can see, we can’t possibly keep you after something like this had happened,” the factory director said meaningfully. “You’ve been to college. It wasn’t easy for your family to put your through school. And you turned around and did something like this? You should go home and do some self-reflection.”
Li Jiaojiao’s whole body was icy cold. It’s over. It’s all over. Her reputation ruined. Her job gone.
When Ye Zhiqiang came back from his work site and saw Li Jiaojiao sitting there listlessly, he asked, concerned, “What is going on? Are you feeling alright?”
“Qiang-ge, my job is gone.” Li Jiaojiao moved her head slightly and looked at Ye Zhiqiang like a drowning woman looking at straw.
“So what if you’ve lost your job? Are you worried that I can’t feed you?” Ye Zhiqiang asked, unconcerned.
That $300 a month wasn’t even enough for her to buy herself a dress. She might as well just stay home and give him a light-colored, chubby, and smart son.
Li Jiaojiao covered up her face and cried, “Our pictures were leaked, and everybody at the factory had seem them. My school too. What am I going to do? I want to die!”
Ye Zhiqiang stood up abruptly. His eyes were blood-shot, and he said, “I need to have a talk with her.”