Chapter 140
When the Wang family walked out of the Library, they were all in a daze.
They had clearly agreed last night to use divorce as a scare tactic against Wu Xiaoling. She absolutely could not be allowed to attend university; otherwise, with no one to cook or do laundry at home for several years, wouldn’t it have been a waste to marry this daughter-in-law?
But, but they had only agreed to scare her. They hadn’t agreed to actually get a divorce. How did it end up in a divorce?
They wanted to make a scene, but several burly men from the Armed Forces Department were standing right there. Although the Gang of Four had been crushed and the movement had ended, the marks left on people by those ten years of movement would not fade away for a while. Even though they wanted to, they ultimately didn’t dare to actually make a scene.
Clutching the divorce certificate, they walked out in a stupor. Wang Jianshe had inexplicably become single. The Wang family had inexplicably lost their daughter-in-law. Even now, they hadn’t figured out what happened or how things turned out this way.
Inside the Library, Librarian Zheng Ai had persuaded everyone else to leave and cleared the area. Only Wu Xiaoling and her parents remained.
“Please stop crying,” Qiao Wei comforted Wu Xiaoling’s Mother. Wu Xiaoling’s Mother was sobbing uncontrollably. Her daughter was now a divorced woman; how could she not cry?
“The two of you actually want Little Ling to go to university, right?” Qiao Wei said. “I could tell.”
“But you cannot have your cake and eat it too. You both saw that the Wang family was ready to go down with the ship just to keep Little Ling. Little Ling, show your parents your hand.”
Only then did Wu Xiaoling’s Mother see Wu Xiaoling’s hand wrapped in gauze. She couldn’t even bother to cry anymore and exclaimed, “What happened to this?”
Wu Xiaoling lowered her head. “To keep me from going to university, they locked me up. I broke the glass and climbed out. My hand got cut.”
Wu Xiaoling’s Father said hatefully, “How could they do this! Is there anything that couldn’t be discussed properly?”
Qiao Wei smiled faintly. “If a slave I raised wanted to run away and refused to work like a beast of burden for me, I would lock that slave up too.”
Wu Xiaoling was silent. Wu Xiaoling’s Father was also silent. Wu Xiaoling’s Mother began to sob.
“I know that everyone is used to treating divorce as a huge deal.” Qiao Wei leaned back against the large desk, standing with her arms crossed. “Is it really that serious?”
Wu Xiaoling’s Mother didn’t dare to face this strong-willed woman; it was she who had single-handedly orchestrated the quick and decisive divorce for Wu Xiaoling just moments ago.
“Auntie, please stop crying. Just think about it: besides the fact that she won’t be able to handle housework and have children for these few years, what else is there to the Wang family not letting Little Ling go to university?”
Wu Xiaoling’s Mother stopped sobbing and looked up. Wu Xiaoling said, “They said that if I went to university, I wouldn’t be able to settle down and live a life with Wang Jianshe anymore.”
Qiao Wei scoffed and laughed. “Look, the Wang family knows exactly what’s going on. Once Little Ling goes to university and graduates, she will be a college graduate. The school will assign her a better job, she will earn a higher salary, and enjoy better benefits. In the future, she will be faster than others at getting promotions and salary increases. The whole Wang family understands that by then, Wang Jianshe won’t be good enough for Little Ling.”
Wu Xiaoling’s Mother and Wu Xiaoling’s Father both looked at her. People in this era could not escape the marital views of the time. If a woman wasn’t wanted by a man, her parents would feel like the sky had fallen. There was no such thing as the idea of remaining single and independent; even if there were, it was a tiny minority. The mainstream orthodox ideology was still to enter into marriage.
Therefore, Qiao Wei could only soothe Wu Xiaoling’s parents according to the logic of mainstream thought. She really couldn’t stand their sorrowful appearance, as if Wu Xiaoling had died. She had only gotten a divorce.
“Don’t worry. Give Little Ling time to finish university.”
“Once she has a degree, gets a good job, and earns a high salary, just wait and see if there are plenty of men and their parents who would despise Little Ling for being divorced, or if they would be lining up to go on blind dates with her.”
“People are the most realistic of all.”
In the evening, Division Commander Yan followed up about Wu Xiaoling. After all, a grown person had suddenly moved into their home yesterday, and he wanted to know the follow-up. Qiao Wei told him about what happened during the day. Division Commander Yan looked a bit subtle.
“What’s wrong?” Qiao Wei asked, holding Yan Fu in her arms and teasing her. Yan Fu was five years old. But Yan Fu didn’t have the conditions Yan Xiang had back then to be glued to her mother every day. Since Yan Fu was four, when the Gang of Four fell and the correction of past wrongs began, Qiao Wei was no longer a slacker; she actively threw herself into work and became busy. Most of the time, Yan Fu was with the nanny, who took care of her. Only when they returned home from work in the evening could mother and daughter have time together.
Division Commander Yan chuckled. “You just… got them divorced like that?”
“What else could I do?” Qiao Wei said. “They locked her up. She is a person, she has her own will; she is not meat that the Wang family bought back from the vegetable market. She is a living person.”
Division Commander Yan said, “If you can avoid divorce, it’s still better not to.”
Qiao Wei glanced at him. “A low-quality marriage is not as good as a high-quality single life.”
“Besides, if Little Wu still wants to get married, once she graduates from university and improves herself, she will definitely be able to find someone better than her ex-husband.”
Even just for her salary and future prospects, there would be many men willing to marry her. In fact, men are just this realistic. There wasn’t the term “gold-digger” at this time, but in eras with or without such a term, men have always been this way from beginning to end. Don’t look at those men who often put the label of “gold-digger” on women; in reality, they are more realistic than anyone. Those men who only talk to you about love and not about bread understand deeply that they cannot afford the bread, so they use love to fool you and trap you. When you are single-mindedly pursuing love, he is calculating whether having you as an extra labor force can earn him half a loaf of bread.
Division Commander Yan was a bit absent-minded. When it was time to sleep at night, Qiao Wei went to tell Yan Fu a story. This was also the most intimate moment of the day for mother and daughter. When Qiao Wei returned to her bedroom, Division Commander Yan hadn’t slept yet and was waiting for her. At this time, the times had progressed, and the “three rounds and one sound” had replaced the “thirty-six legs” of the past. People’s living standards had improved a lot. There was a sofa and a dressing table in the house.
Qiao Wei sat at the dressing table combing her hair, looking at him through the mirror. “What are you holding back? Speak your mind.”
Division Commander Yan coughed and asked, “Why didn’t you take the exam?” He quickly added, “If you passed, I would definitely support you going to school.”
Qiao Wei chuckled and turned around. “Goodness, you must have been holding this in for a long time, right?” He had probably been keeping this in his heart ever since the state announced the resumption of the college entrance examination. The admission notices had already been sent out, and only now did he ask.
Qiao Wei lifted the quilt and crawled into bed. “The matter of going to school serves only two purposes.”
“One is to acquire knowledge.”
“Two is to obtain a degree as a stepping stone for work.”
“I don’t need either of these.”
After turning off the lights, the two lay down. After a while, Division Commander Yan propped himself up and asked, “Qiao Wei, what is university like?”
Qiao Wei thought for a moment. “In the teaching building, there are classrooms one after another; you have classes during the day, and they can also be used for self-study at night.”
“I don’t know how many people share a room in the dormitory building, but at night when the lights go out, people chat in the dark, talking about everything under the sun.”
“The Library is a place for study; if there are many people, you have to rush to grab a seat.”
“There’s no need to mention the Cafeteria, right?”
Division Commander Yan suddenly leaned over and kissed her. Qiao Wei giggled. Division Commander Yan sighed, “You really…”
Qiao Wei admitted, “Yeah.”
With the growth of his age, status, and vision, Division Commander Yan had gradually broken the filter he had for “high school students” when he was young. But at the same time, he also understood more and more that Qiao Wei’s vision and level of knowledge were definitely not something a high school student could reach. She was indeed someone who had attended university. She was a college graduate. Division Commander Yan felt burning all over. No less than in his younger years. At this age, he and Qiao Wei understood how to release even more. Like fish and water, playing and blending together.
Yan Xiang had been gone for three years. At first, he wrote home every month. Now it was noticeably less. Qiao Wei said to Division Commander Yan, “He hasn’t written a letter in half a year.” Qiao Wei sighed. She understood this situation; the earlier a child leaves, the less common language they have with their parents.
Division Commander Yan also understood. He left home at fourteen, only two years older than Yan Xiang when he left home. After leaving home, the outside world was vast. He saw things he hadn’t seen before and understood things he hadn’t understood before. Looking back, he found his parents were still in the fields. You tell them, and they don’t understand. He also often didn’t go home for years at a time. Unless there was a major event, such as the birth of Yan Fu, he would take the initiative to write home. Otherwise, it was always the family writing letter after letter to him. Basically, it was all complaining or asking for money. Of course, he and Qiao Wei wouldn’t be like that. But Yan Xiang’s situation was special. He entered the adult world directly, working with many adults several times his age.
“Will he be lonely?” Qiao Wei seemed to be talking to herself, but quickly denied it. “No, he will be very happy.” That was the world that belonged to him. Because of the special nature of the world setting, those people might not be able to keep up with him in terms of IQ, but they were also realistic geniuses. There, what he said, someone could understand. His happiness was something someone could share. Before, when he was in the Library, he calculated complex equations and would look up with joy, wanting to talk to someone about it. But although everyone liked him and took care of him so much, no one could understand why that equation made him so happy. He couldn’t find anyone to share it with. He must have been somewhat disappointed, right?
Looking at it this way, Qiao Wei now felt that in the original text, Yan Xiang becoming a taciturn youth might not be entirely Lin Xixi’s fault. Lin Xixi only had an elementary school education; how could she possibly understand those things of Yan Xiang’s? Yan Xiang couldn’t find the group he should belong to; as time went on, he would naturally become silent, right?
“I’ve actually always wanted to…” Qiao Wei said, “You say, how does a child like Xiangxiang view ordinary people like us in his eyes?”
“Could it be like humans looking at monkeys? He lives with a large group of monkeys alone?”
Division Commander Yan: “…”
“Peh peh, I am not a monkey.”
Qiao Wei, “I am his mother.”
Division Commander Yan thought about it; Yan Xiang had always recognized his father’s authority since he was a child. “Neither am I.” He said readily. Yan Fu was even less so. Yan Fu was the apple of Yan Xiang’s eye; he had been carrying her around to show off since she was little. The couple, by coincidence, suddenly thought of Jun Jun. “…”!
