Chapter 320 - He could barely walk on his way back. (1)
The aunty took the two children back to school and Shu Yan and Feng Zeyu were left by themselves.
The two hadn’t sat around and chatted for a long time. Shu Yan looked at Feng Zeyu and looked for subjects to talk about. “How come that girl just came to apologize out of the blue?”
Shu Yan wasn’t going to buy that she would do that out of her own consciousness. It was too overly dramatic.
“A buddy of mine located her.”
Feng Zeyu wondered about that as well. He found out later on that Mao Weiping looked for her and made her an offer that he would give her a sum of money if she would apologize to Feng Zeyu publicly and, the bigger the scene, the better. Yin Xueqin, who was at the end of her rope, accepted his offer. Apologizing could alleviate some of her guilt and made her a sum of money. She had no reason to turn it down.
And she did a good job at that – getting down on her knees and bawled, even dragging her own mother with her. And it worked like a charm. Nobody within 10 miles and 8 villages badmouthed Feng Zeyu anymore. Now everyone’s focus had been turned toward Feng Zeyu’s stepmother.
As for Yin Xueqin, with the money given to her form Mao Weiping, she was long gone with her mother. With her look and qualification, all she needed to do was to move to a city or province that was a little bit distance away and she would be able to get a decent job and marry a nice man.
Shu Yan nodded. She took a look over at Feng Zeyu and pulled a pillow into her arms. “My family valued boys over girls. They wouldn’t let me go to school any more after third grade and I had been home helping out my parents working in the farm and around the house. The year I turned 17, a few individuals came to my house with marriage proposals. Old Man Ye from the village next to us offered the highest betrothal money so my parents picked them. I’ve only met him once before we got married. Two months after that, he said he wanted to give it a shot outside. I only learned that I was pregnant after he had left. My in-law family was valued boys over girls just like my own family. They didn’t even give me my one-month rest after I had JingJing. My ex-husband worked as a general contractor in constructions and needed someone to cook for him. He remembered me and had me go cook for him, which was how we ended up with Tianbao. When I was too pregnant to cook, I returned to the village. And then, he ignored me for months when he wanted to marry the other woman. He started picking on me and fighting with me. I was tired of living with life like that so I divorced him.”
Shu Yan didn’t feel that that was anything wrong with her telling him that. The more she tried to avoid that, the more it would become an issue between the two of them. She was better off just telling him upfront. In addition, she also wanted him to know that she had no feelings for her ex-husband. The two of them were just paired up randomly.
Feng Zeyu understood what Shu Yan was trying to tell him. She would not have shared that with him had she still had feelings for her ex-husband.
That and pleasantly surprised Feng Zeyu. Truth was, he wasn’t worried about being a stepdad. He worried more that she could not walk out from the pain of her last marriage.
“I think you have heard some about me as well. My father was an educated youth who was sent to countryside and ended up in the village that my mother was in. Life was hard so he wooed my mother to marry him. The educated youths were allowed back into the cities in the 80s and he disappeared. My mother scrounged up every penny and brought me with her to look for him in the city. Not surprisingly, he had remarried in the city. My mom did not take me back with her but left me here.” Feng Zeyu’s eyes flickered a little when he talked about how his mother was dumped. “I understood why my mom did what she did. I am a boy. Anyone who wanted to marry her would have to save up money to build a house for me to find a wife. Who would want to do that? Not to mention that she couldn’t support me on her own either. It was better off to leave me in City Nan. At least I won’t starve to death. Besides, having a household register in the city will still allow me a better future than back in the village.”
Shu Yan listened to him quietly and couldn’t imagine how he felt when he was abandoned by his own mother at such a young age.