Chapter 24: Driven Insane
“Huang Guixiang from Room 211, come down and collect your parcel!”
At six in the morning, Huang Guixiang had just gotten out of bed and was preparing to wash up when she heard someone shouting downstairs.
Under the curious gazes of her neighbors, she hurriedly made her way downstairs.
She took a burlap sack from the mail carrier and signed her name in the small notebook he pulled out.
Parcels and money orders were typically delivered directly into the recipient’s hands by the mail carrier, whereas regular letters were all left in the reception room.
“Guixiang, who sent you a parcel?”
“Exactly! You’ve been married into this compound for so many years, yet this is the first time we’ve ever seen you receive a parcel!”
“Your maternal family lives right in the suburbs, which isn’t far at all. If they have anything for you, they can just bring it over. Why spend money to mail a parcel?”
“What’s packed inside?”
A crowd of old women swarmed around Huang Guixiang, questioning her inquisitively.
Huang Guixiang’s first impulse was to lash out and curse them, but the thought of her daughter and son-in-law instantly crossed her mind. She forcefully swallowed the profanities down her throat and managed to squeeze out a smile. “I reckon it was sent by Wanwan’s biological paternal aunt. She was sent down to the countryside in Heilongjiang Province.”
The return address on the parcel explicitly stated Heilongjiang Province.
“Now that Wanwan has found a boyfriend, I sent a telegram to her aunt, asking her to help procure some decent things we can present to the boyfriend’s family!”
Huang Guixiang fabricated a blatant lie right on the spot.
In truth, she felt this parcel was highly likely sent by Old Lin’s childhood friend. There was absolutely no way it came from that wretched vixen, Lin Guizhen!
Her relationship with her sister-in-law was terrible. Back when she married into the Lin family, the Lins had all looked down on her for being a peasant. Her sister-in-law, Lin Guizhen, had not only treated her with absolute contempt but also loved stealing her things, even going so far as to deliberately trip herself up just to complain to the elders that Huang Guixiang had pushed her.
When Huang Guixiang gave birth to Wanwan and lacked breast milk, Old Lin, aching for his daughter, had written to his childhood friend in the army to secure some milk powder for Wanwan. That wretched woman had actually stolen and eaten it! She had straight up tipped the bag into her mouth to eat it dry. It was a wonder she hadn’t choked to death!
In short, she was far from a decent person!
As for why she assumed it might have been sent by Old Lin’s childhood friend—back when Old Lin was still alive, that friend constantly loved mailing him local specialties, claiming they were wild goods and game he had personally gathered and hunted on the mountains. As for her current address, Old Lin’s friend must have asked around to find it.
Huang Guixiang’s logic was completely self-consistent. A perfect closed loop.
When she returned home, the members of the Zhang family were all awake. They were equally curious about who had sent the items to Huang Guixiang and what exactly had been mailed.
Huang Guixiang stuck to the exact same rhetoric, then brought the sack into Lin Wan’s bedroom to open it.
Lin Wan was awake too. The moment the bedroom door shut, she spotted the shipping slip on the sack, which she had personally filled out using her left hand.
Once Huang Guixiang snipped the sack open, a cloth bundle inside was revealed. Lin Wan had packed it herself.
Opening it up, it indeed contained all the goods she had retrieved from her space: dried wood ear mushrooms, dried monkey head mushrooms, dried hazel mushrooms, pine nuts, hazelnuts, and the like.
Everything was set!
“Wanwan, have Little Huo mail these things back to his family. Consider it your gift to them!” Huang Guixiang was absolutely ecstatic; these items felt like a total windfall. “Your Uncle Wen is truly something else, never leaving a detailed address. It leaves me at a loss on how to return the favor even if I wanted to.”
He truly was incredibly considerate, saving her from spending a single cent.
“Come to think of it, back when he came back on family leave to drink with your father, he got completely hammered and arranged a childhood betrothal between you and that little fat brat, Wen Jianhua.”
“Later on, when your father came back, I gave him a ferocious tongue-lashing.”
“Your father claimed that words spoken while drunk didn’t count, and I reckon your Uncle Wen forgot all about it once he sobered up too.”
Lin Wan: “…”
“If there’s an opportunity in the future, we can mail something back to Uncle Wen.”
Lin Wan divided the items in the bundle, handing half over to Huang Guixiang. “Mom, keep these. We can eat them ourselves later!”
“I’ll just take half to give to Huo Xiao.”
After a brief thought, Huang Guixiang didn’t object either. She merely instructed Lin Wan to store the items in her wardrobe for the time being, intending to bring them out to eat only after the household split was finalized. Lin Wan had no objections.
After finishing the bowl of vinegar-broth egg noodles Huang Guixiang had cooked for her, Lin Wan slung her canvas military satchel over her shoulder and headed out the door!
Not long after stepping outside, she noticed the public bus was about to arrive, so she hurriedly sprinted to catch it.
However, as she ran past the entrance of an alleyway, a hand suddenly shot out and violently yanked her inside.
Thud… Lin Wan was thrown roughly against the wall.
Her mouth was firmly muffled, and both her hands were pinned tightly above her head.
A stinging surge of pain flared from her back and the backs of her hands. The back of her head throbbed painfully too, making her head feel heavy and swollen.
She clearly recognized the man pinning her down—it was Guo Xuyang!
Guo Xuyang’s face was mere inches away, his eyes gleaming with a chilling light. “Lin Wan, I’m warning you. If you dare stir up trouble again in the future, I will never agree to let you off for Qinqin’s sake again!”
Lin Wan lifted her leg, attempting to deliver a vicious kick straight to his crotch.
However, he dodged it cleanly.
Regaining her freedom, Lin Wan’s eyes turned crimson with pure rage. “Guo Xuyang, are you out of your goddamn mind?!”
“If you’re sick, go get treated! Why the hell do you keep pestering me?!”
“You won’t let me off? I’m going straight to the authorities right now to report you for committing hooliganism!”
“Damn it!”
“Did I murder your entire family or what?!”
“To make you hound me this relentlessly!”
Lin Wan ripped her canvas satchel off and swung it ferociously toward him.
Guo Xuyang instinctively reached out, grabbing Lin Wan’s hands once more and pinning them behind her back against the wall.
“You had Jin Cuicui drug me! If Qinqin hadn’t begged me, do you really think I would have let you off?”
“Lin Wan, you have crossed my baseline!”
Lin Wan wanted to use her electric baton. But this was Guo Xuyang. She didn’t dare expose her secrets right in front of him; as the original male lead, he possessed a more or less bizarre plot armor around him.
“Guo Xuyang, are you an absolute moron?”
“You believe absolutely anything that spills out of Jin Cuicui’s mouth?”
“The time, the location, the parties involved—did you even question her? Did you bother to conduct an investigation?!”
“Is this how you act as a leadership cadre?”
“Believing rumors without a shred of proof—leading troops with an attitude like yours will sooner or later steer the whole squad right into a ditch!”
“Comrade Lin Wan!”
“You filthy thug, unhand Comrade Lin Wan!” Right at that moment, a young man wearing glasses happened to pass by. Witnessing the situation, he scooped up a rock and charged inside, swinging his hand to smash it directly toward Guo Xuyang’s head.
Guo Xuyang delivered a swift kick that sent him flying backward.
“Sun Zhi!” Lin Wan’s eyes widened. This man was one of the fish in her pond… no, he was Sun Zhi from the cotton mill.
Sun Zhi curled up on the ground in excruciating pain, his mouth stretched wide, yet he couldn’t muster a single sound.
“Sun Zhi, hurry up and report this to the public security!”
Hearing this, Guo Xuyang’s expression shifted abruptly.
He took a giant stride forward, pinning down Sun Zhi who was struggling to scramble up, and pulled out his military officer credentials. “Comrade, I am an active-duty military officer. You attempted to assault me just now. If I choose to press charges, you will spend your days rotting in a prison cell!”
Sun Zhi: “!!!!”
Enduring the pain, he scrambled up, casting a profoundly apologetic glance at Lin Wan. “Comrade Lin Wan, I’m sorry, I…”
Lin Wan understood in an instant. Sun Zhi was thoroughly terrified by Guo Xuyang and didn’t dare go to the police, fearing he would implicate himself.
Lin Wan could comprehend his fear. “Hurry to the hospital to get checked out. Whatever the medical expenses turn out to be, I’ll reimburse you later!” After all, the man had been dragged into this entirely because of her.
Sun Zhi shook his head repeatedly, looking at Lin Wan with an anxious, uneasy gaze.
Guo Xuyang: “Lin Wan, are you certain you want to discuss the matter between us right in front of him?”
Lin Wan was driven completely insane. She shrieked hysterically, “Guo Xuyang, if I hadn’t saved you, your ass would have been thoroughly violated by someone else!”
“And now you return my kindness with enmity!”
“Who the hell do you think you are? The Qing Dynasty fell ages ago—there is no emperor anymore!”
“I don’t need any pleas for mercy from Zhang Qin. Let’s report it to the public security!”
“We will follow standard criminal investigation procedures. If I am guilty, I’ll take the blame. If I am innocent, you just wait to have your military skin thoroughly stripped off!”
Guo Xuyang frowned as he stared at Lin Wan, his state of mind profoundly complicated. He couldn’t tell whether Lin Wan was merely putting on a theatrical display to terrify him into backing down, or if she truly hadn’t committed the deed and thus harbored absolutely nothing to fear.
Guo Xuyang questioned himself—did he dare to gamble?
At this exact moment, he felt a wave of deep regret. He regretted failing to control his temper and physically handling Lin Wan. He truly hadn’t anticipated that Lin Wan would turn out to be this incredibly fiercely defensive and difficult to deal with.
(Lin Wan: Difficult to deal with, my foot! Who exactly is the one hounding whom here?!)
