Chapter 134
Regarding the matter of Lin Xixi and Lü Tianze getting married, Yan Lei was probably the angriest, and perhaps the only person who was angry.
Regimental Commander Zhao and Sister Yang were not angry.
They didn’t have the chance to be.
Division Commander Pan had personally visited as the temporary guardian for the groom’s side. Once he explained his purpose, both Regimental Commander Zhao and Sister Yang were dumbfounded.
Xixi and Tianze?
Regardless of age, personality, or anything else, these two were people who, in their minds, could never possibly be linked together.
Before they could even get angry in their state of shock and confusion, Division Commander Pan told them: “The old lady called me personally.”
The old lady already knew about the girl’s situation, and she expressed her approval.
She promised that no matter what the future held, as long as this girl married Lü Tianze, regardless of whether Lü Tianze could be rehabilitated in the future, or whether the girl could bear Lü Tianze children, as long as she married him, she would have a share of the family assets in the future.
She would never let her be left without a place to land.
In normal times, neither the old lady nor Lü Tianze would ever have considered a rural girl like Lin Xixi.
But these were not normal times.
The old lady had seen too many people in Beijing who could not endure and committed suicide. The old lady only hoped that her son could live well. She had already lost one son; she could not lose her last one.
As long as he could live well, nothing else mattered.
In Division Commander Pan’s eyes, it was about the same.
Moreover, nobody knew how long the current situation would last. Maybe ten years? Maybe twenty years? Maybe it would never end?
In that case, Lü Tianze needed a woman to take care of him.
This care included both daily life and physical needs.
At this time, Lü Tianze was [censored] of his status. Coincidentally, Lin Xixi was a descendant of an eighteenth-generation poor peasant family, with deep roots and red seedlings.
Lü Tianze needed someone to take care of him. Coincidentally, Lin Xixi was hardworking, virtuous, and best at serving others.
Lü Tianze had a man’s needs. Coincidentally, Lin Xixi was young, beautiful, and had the youthful vitality of youth.
Everything was just right.
In an era of dislocation, two people who were not a match found that their needs for each other interlocked like gears.
Regimental Commander Zhao and Sister Yang had extremely complicated feelings.
They both knew that the money the old lady sent from Beijing every month was much higher than an ordinary worker’s salary.
They could even guess that with their limited knowledge, they probably couldn’t even estimate that share of the “family assets” in Beijing.
But, but, they just felt that Tianze and Xixi… it seemed…
Division Commander Pan saw their hesitation. He pondered for a moment and asked: “If you don’t choose Tianze, what kind of person can you find for Little Lin in the future?”
Regimental Commander Zhao and Sister Yang looked at each other.
Find what kind of person?
No matter what kind they found, they wouldn’t find anyone like Lü Tianze.
That girl had high aspirations and was set on finding a city person. Of all the city people she would meet in her life, probably no one could compare to Lü Tianze.
This was the ceiling.
If they missed it, it was gone.
If they found someone worse than Lü Tianze for her in the future, would she resent them for the rest of her life?
Sister Yang said hesitantly: “That has to… has to be asked of her herself…”
Division Commander Pan smiled slightly: “I have already asked.”
“Tianze took her to see me, and she is willing.”
When Qiao Wei heard this news, she found that she was not surprised.
Or rather, when she learned that Lü Tianze’s ex-wife had remarried, she already had a vague premonition.
This was because Qiao Wei’s social circle overlapped with Lin Xixi’s. Or rather, it shouldn’t be called overlap; it should be said that Qiao Wei’s social circle covered Lin Xixi’s social circle.
Among the people they could come into contact with, when Lü Tianze appeared before Qiao Wei, a thought flashed through her mind—this person… among the people they could come into contact with, was the only one who met Lin Xixi’s requirements besides Yan Lei.
Sure enough.
Therefore, Yan Lei became the only person angry about this matter.
“I should have given him a good beating, I shouldn’t have been so easy-going,” he said angrily. “It’s also because I’m not Little Lin’s real elder. Since Old Zhao agreed, I have nothing to say.”
Yan Lei was quite a bit younger than Regimental Commander Zhao, but he treated Regimental Commander Zhao like a brother.
A brother’s niece was, for all intents and purposes, his own niece.
Lü Tianze was also his brother.
Lü Tianze, this uncle, had taken a liking to his niece; how could he not be angry!
Qiao Wei persuaded him: “Both of them are willing, and both families are willing, so you should stop interfering.”
“Interfere, I can’t even interfere. He was never a good bird, I knew that long ago.” Yan Lei was still fuming.
But no matter how angry he was, there was nothing he could do, because Lin Xixi was truly willing herself.
Lü Tianze told him.
He asked Lü Tianze how he could take a liking to Lin Xixi.
The girls who used to write letters to Lü Tianze were all eloquent. They were not on the same level as Lin Xixi.
Lü Tianze smiled lazily.
“She is a sensible girl, I like that about her,” he said.
“What do you want to get from me?” He asked Lin Xixi directly.
Lin Xixi had designs on him. Although she didn’t dare to act out, what she thought in her heart couldn’t be hidden from his sharp eyes. Lü Tianze had always known.
But she had always been honest, so he didn’t expose her.
Until now.
The basin in Lin Xixi’s hand fell to the ground. Dirty clothes scattered.
She scrambled to pick them up in a panic.
Lü Tianze was very patient, waiting for her.
Lin Xixi collected all the dirty clothes into the basin, steeled her heart, and looked up.
“I want to live a good life.”
“I hope you can be rehabilitated in the future and take me to Beijing.”
“Even if you aren’t rehabilitated, a camel that dies is still bigger than a horse; following you is not a loss.”
“I… I am very good at taking care of people. I can take good care of you.”
“I can also serve your mother well. When she gets older, I guarantee I can serve her comfortably and cleanly.”
“I can also bear you children, I can have a lot.”
“I just want to go to Beijing with you, live in a big house, ride in a small car, and be an official’s wife!”
“Anything else, I don’t care!”
“Her mind is very clear, she knows what she wants,” Lü Tianze said to Yan Lei. “Just this point alone is better than many people.”
Not to mention she was young, beautiful, and her uncle was a regimental-level cadre. Living with them, she could barely be considered a child of a semi-cadre family.
In the future, she could treat her uncle’s family as her maiden home.
Everything was, just right.
Too early or too late, too much or too little, too fast or too slow, probably none of that would work. Just now, just now, it was just right.
“By the way, what does ‘the red flag at home doesn’t fall, the colorful flags outside flutter’ mean?” Yan Lei asked Qiao Wei for advice. “I didn’t understand.”
Lü Tianze refused to explain it to him; he smiled mischievously and said: “If you don’t understand, it’s best not to understand.”
What the hell.
Qiao Wei guessed it: “Xixi said that?”
Lü Tianze said Lin Xixi said she didn’t care.
“Yes,” Yan Lei asked, “How did you know?”
How did Qiao Wei know? Because this phrase only appeared later, and the current era did not have the context described by this phrase.
At this time, lifestyle issues were a big problem.
Losing one’s position was light; one would also be [censored]. When [censored], the woman would have a pair of worn shoes hung around her neck.
Of course, there were still people who would do it, but ultimately compared to later generations, it was a very small minority, and it was done sneakily, not daring to be flashy. Unlike later generations, where “men go bad when they have money,” and “the red flag at home doesn’t fall, the colorful flags outside flutter.”
Yan Lei couldn’t make any connection from this sentence, and he couldn’t understand it as soon as he heard it like Lü Tianze.
Qiao Wei smiled: “If you don’t understand, it’s best not to understand.”
Yan Lei: “…”
What is wrong with everyone!
And so, Lin Xixi married Lü Tianze.
She moved from her uncle’s house to the small courtyard at the northwest end and quietly began her life as a wife with Lü Tianze.
In another timeline, she didn’t get pregnant for a year after marrying Yan Lei, until she went back to Yan Village with Yan Lei, which made Yan Lei stand completely on her side, and not long after they returned, she got pregnant.
In this timeline, she married Lü Tianze in October, and in December, she was found to be pregnant.
When Qiao Wei brought a gift to see her, her face was beaming with happiness.
The child’s grandmother had someone send a lot of things from Beijing, including a large sum of money. That money was designated for Lin Xixi.
Lin Xixi gently stroked her belly, knowing that the child in this belly was her meal ticket for the rest of her life.
It was settled.
Another New Year’s Day passed.
Spring Festival, Women’s Day, Youth Day, Labor Day, Children’s Day, the Party’s birthday, Army Day… Time was like flowing sand through fingers, and also like an unstoppable river.
In September, a major event happened, and the overall situation changed, affecting many, many people.
For example, Division Commander Pan was promoted to Army Commander, and Yan Lei beat out other regimental-level cadres and was promoted to Division Commander.
For example, Meng Zuoyi, with the help of comrades-in-arms and relatives who had been running around for years, was finally rehabilitated.
Now the organizational structure was different from before; it used to be the County Party Committee and County Government, but now it was all the Revolutionary Committee.
Meng Zuoyi was rehabilitated and restored to his position. Originally, his superiors wanted to arrange for him to go to another county, but Meng Zuoyi refused. He entered the Bocheng County Revolutionary Committee with the rank of deputy department head and the position of deputy director.
In December, the then-director of the Bocheng County Revolutionary Committee, Huang Zengyue, was ousted.
It was exposed that he was not a descendant of the working class with deep roots and red seedlings. His grandfather had been a capitalist, and only after he went bankrupt did he hide in the ranks of the working class.
Actually, Qiao Wei’s grandmother was similar, but not as serious as Huang Zengyue’s.
Mainly because she was a woman. At this time, a person’s status still followed the husband or the father.
Of course, the most critical thing was that no one knew at all.
Huang Zengyue’s case was much more serious because it followed the father and the grandfather.
Meng Zuoyi was promoted to Director of the Revolutionary Committee.
He was quite lenient toward Huang Zengyue; he didn’t lock him in a cowshed and gave him personal freedom.
It was just that every day he had to be dragged out of his home to be paraded through the streets or subjected to a mass struggle session.
Another New Year’s Day.
On this day, Huang Zengyue had returned home, when someone came pounding on the door and took him away.
His family watched numbly as he left with those people.
This situation was common.
But that night, he didn’t come back very late.
His family was worried and went with flashlights to ask for him. The person on duty said impatiently: “He was released and sent back a long time ago.”
His family had a bad premonition and looked everywhere for him, finally finding him on a small road near their home without streetlights.
The once glorious Department Head Huang was hanging from a tree.
Meng Zuoyi held on for five years.
Huang Zengyue didn’t hold on for half a month.
Everyone watched this great drama and sighed with emotion.
Yan Lei accompanied Qiao Wei to that small road.
It had been six or seven years since Yan Lei brought Qiao Wei back from the provincial capital, and this was the first time he saw the description “lost and soul-less” on Qiao Wei.
The first day Qiao Wei heard the news of Huang Zengyue’s death, she was in a state of being lost and soul-less.
Yan Lei was very worried about her.
Qiao Wei stood under that tree for a long time, murmuring.
Yan Lei was beside her, vaguely hearing some things.
“I know you are not such a weak person…” she said.
“I’m sorry…” she said.
He didn’t know why she was apologizing.
She asked him for a cigarette, lit it, and took a puff.
Yan Lei never knew she could smoke.
She stuck the cigarette into the soil under the tree, the fire facing up, white smoke curling up.
It was considered a memorial.
After Yan Lei was promoted, all his benefits were increased.
They moved to a higher-class two-story building in the Residential Compound. Yan Lei had a guard beside him, and his own driver and car.
But Qiao Wei hadn’t been able to sleep for the past few days.
On the night after paying respects to Huang Zengyue, Yan Lei woke up and found Qiao Wei was not in bed.
He went downstairs to the living room and found her staring blankly in the dark.
“What’s wrong?” he asked, “Can’t sleep?”
Qiao Wei looked at him, her eyes strange.
“Yan Lei, do you know what the butterfly effect is?” she asked.
Yan Lei shook his head.
“A butterfly flaps its wings, and a hurricane blows on the other side of the ocean. It is a metaphor for a small variable triggering a huge change.”
“Yan Lei, do you believe that if there was no me in this world, Lin Xixi would have married you.”
“You would still live very well, you would still be promoted, and you would have more children.”
Yan Lei stared at her in the dark.
Borrowing the darkness, Qiao Wei seemed able to speak freely.
“If I hadn’t been meddlesome, perhaps Director Meng wouldn’t have been able to hold on until now, and would have been tortured to death by those people in the first two years.”
“But if that were the case, Zengyue wouldn’t have died.”
“Yan Lei, Zengyue is not that kind of person; he wouldn’t have hung himself up.”
“Perhaps I shouldn’t exist,” she said. “There shouldn’t be me in this world.”
Yan Lei stepped forward and asked: “How could you not exist?”
Qiao Wei looked up at him and suddenly smiled.
Eerily.
“Perhaps, that year in the provincial capital,” she said, “I already died, believe it or not.”
