Chapter 33: Second Update

"Has Lin Xuexia been fired by the factory? That's impossible, isn't it? Didn't she send home the most money? Who said that? Isn't she the most outstanding female worker?"

"Xie Yingzi said it herself! She just came back from there."

"When asked why, she was evasive and wouldn't say."

...

Lin Xuexia fired from the factory? This news caused a massive uproar in the Lin household. Lin Yuxia, who was supposed to return to school, decided to wait at home for a few days. She had to get in touch with her older sister, Lin Xuexia; otherwise, she wouldn't be able to settle down at school.

Lin Yongfu and his wife were like headless flies. Thanks to their second daughter's reminder, they thought of reaching out to Liu Xigui. He was the one who had made the introduction in the first place, and perhaps he would know Lin Xuexia's whereabouts.

Lin Yuxia and her parents went to town to make a phone call. It cost money to call from town, but they couldn't care about that now. After much effort, they finally reached Liu Xigui.

"Xuexia? Xuexia is doing very well. She lives next door to me now and is working with my wife."

"She's earning even more than she did at the factory. Don't worry."

...

Upon hearing this, Lin Yuxia and her parents breathed a sigh of relief. They asked Liu Xigui to pass a message to Lin Xuexia to call them back.

Liu Xigui agreed and quickly rode his bicycle back, just in time to stop Lin Xuexia as she was heading out to buy clothes.

"Xuexia, your family wants you to call them to let them know you're safe. You should contact them soon; they're still waiting, and your sister is there too."

Lin Xuexia was wearing that red dress she had on before, paired with pretty leather shoes, a thin coat draped over her shoulders. Her previously permed curls fell over her left shoulder, and the tea stems she used to wear in her ears had been replaced by small silver studs. This look was incredibly charming and beautiful.

Her hair was of excellent quality—thick and jet-black—not limp at all. Such hair was perfect for perming. Many people with soft, limp hair found that perms didn't work well or hold their shape, but Lin Xuexia's hair held curls beautifully.

It was the first time Liu Xigui had seen Lin Xuexia like this, and he was stunned.

"Alright, Uncle Liu, I'll return the call." Lin Xuexia’s red lips parted, her expression full of allure. She had become stunning, elegant, and possessed an air of great confidence.

Lin Xuexia calculated the time; it was around the date she usually sent money, and her sister Yuxia was back home. Perfect—now was the time to reconnect with her family.

Drawing on the experience of her past life, Lin Xuexia loathed initiating contact with her family. Eventually, she had realized one thing: the more one eagerly reached out to their family, the more one was just asking to be treated like dirt, trampled upon by people who took that devotion for granted.

By not reaching out and letting them come to her, these people would instead lower their posture, terrified that she might truly cut them off.

In this life, she didn't need to scramble to prove herself to her parents. The engagement to Zheng Yukang was even more ridiculously absurd; she was no longer that naive, ignorant country girl.

What era was this? She was an adult. If she didn't want to marry, no one could force her.

It would be best if the Zheng family caused a scene so loud that every village for ten miles around knew about it. Once she returned, she would go straight to the township officials to transfer her household registration to Pengcheng. If the village cadres refused, she would go to the Women's Federation and make a scene.

As long as there was a place willing to accept her, she could move her and her sister's registration out.

Men in the village might hesitate to move their household registration, but women like them, who had no land to begin with, wouldn't feel a shred of regret or heartache about leaving.

Fu Wei came to pick her up on a motorcycle. He stopped at the bottom of the building, dressed in black from head to toe. With a quick, practiced motion, his black-gloved index finger unbuckled his helmet. He took it off, revealing a handsome face.

His bright, sharp eyes stared at Lin Xuexia without blinking, filled with awe.

Seeing Lin Xuexia dressed like this again, Fu Wei had originally assumed she wouldn't wear this outfit anymore, which was why he had never brought it up.

Today, when he said he would accompany her to buy clothes, she had dressed like this, and Fu Wei couldn't help but let his imagination run wild.

Lin Xuexia sat on the back seat without hesitation, wrapping her arms around his waist. "Don't go buy clothes yet. Accompany me to make a phone call first."

Fu Wei didn't ask questions. "Alright," he replied.

Lin Xuexia pinched his side. "Do I look good today?"

Thinking of her family, Lin Xuexia had felt a bit heavy-hearted, but feeling Fu Wei’s body tense up beneath her—and remembering him running away in the rain—she couldn't help but tease him.

"Stop it," Fu Wei said, focused on driving. He was truly terrified of the high-voltage box behind him; this little live wire was leaking electricity more and more severely, leaving him unable to cope.

"I'll pay for today's clothes myself," Lin Xuexia said, pressing her face against Fu Wei’s back. "How about you buy me a lipstick?"

Fu Wei smiled. "Okay."

When they arrived at the public phone booth, Lin Xuexia dialed the number Liu Xigui had given her. It went through an operator; dialing was often chaotic back then, requiring manual adjustments.

"Lin Yuxia? Is Yuxia there?"

Lin Yongfu answered the phone on the other end, gripping the receiver tightly. "Xuexia! Oh, it's a disaster, a disaster! What sin have we committed in this family? Why has our life fallen so low? How are your mother and I supposed to face anyone? We only had three daughters, and look at them—each one like this. Sigh, perhaps I should have just accepted this fate long ago."

"You've fallen into such a state, Yuxia has developed this kind of personality, and don't even get me started on Yuexia."

"Our family is cursed with a 'lowly fate.' We should just accept it. How could we ever compare to others..."

...

Here it was again. Lin Xuexia pulled the receiver away from her ear. Even with full mental preparation, hearing her father’s words still made her blood pressure rise. It was precisely this kind of talk that had stimulated her and her sisters time and time again.

Lin Yongfu was servile outside; no matter what happened, he would be the first to bow his head, claiming it was his daughters' fault. When they were bullied, he wouldn't stand up for them, and he wouldn't let them stand up for themselves.

It was because he and Zhang Yuqin were always sighing at the three of them that it ignited their defiance. They wanted to win face for their parents and for themselves, refusing to accept the "lowly fate" their father spoke of.

Why were they born "lowly"?

Her second sister chose to be a doctor who saved lives, but Lin Yongfu didn't care about her medical skills; he only cared about when she would become an official, what cadre position she held in the hospital, and how that could make him show off in the village.

And the second sister, with her upright character, was the last person who wanted to be an official; she was devoted solely to her medical research.

Lin Yongfu started on his usual spiel again—that having daughters was useless, that they couldn't be officials like boys. He started rambling about who-knows-who becoming a female cadre, sighing all day that even though his daughter had gone to college, it was useless since she wasn't a cadre.

"I hoped you'd go to college, and this is what it amounts to? I even had your fortune told; you were supposed to have the fate of a mid-level cadre, and this is it?"

"Sigh, so disappointing. A college student like this isn't even as good as her older cousin. Although he has no great prospects, he farms at home, got married early, and had kids. That is a fulfilled life."

"If I had a son like that, I'd wake up laughing in the middle of the night."

His logic was absurd. He didn't dare to speak up outside, letting himself be oppressed, but in front of his children, he ruthlessly suppressed and belittled their value. Because he couldn't hold his head high outside, he wanted his children to be unable to hold their heads high either.

Lin Yongfu used his own values to belittle his college-educated second daughter, comparing her unfavorably to a cousin who farmed at home, which only served to provoke the second sister's defiance and resentment, eventually trapping her in a mire of trying to prove herself.

Lin Xuexia looked at the receiver, then at the glass window on the side. It reflected her image—a vibrant, fiery red dress, stunning and unparalleled. The woman in red looked straight ahead, her gaze calm, neither servile nor overbearing.

She gave the woman in the red dress a confident, generous smile. She was not of a "lowly fate."

"Dad, you and Mom might have a 'lowly fate,' but I don't, and neither does my second sister. In math, there's the principle of negative times negative equals positive. You two are 'lowly times lowly equals positive.'"

"Good bamboo can grow from bad shoots, isn't that how the saying goes?" Lin Xuexia drawled, half-mocking.

Lin Yongfu on the other end of the line was stunned. The voice coming through the receiver was clearly his eldest daughter, Lin Xuexia, but how could his gentle, obedient daughter say such things?

Lin Yuxia, standing next to him, was startled at first, but then, for some reason, she wanted to laugh out loud.

Lin Yongfu asked in disbelief, "Xuexia, how can you say such things?"

"What did I say? Am I wrong? You and Mom say you're 'lowly' every day. As your daughters, we obviously know you think you're 'lowly,' but we aren't. Your 'lowliness' is your own business."

"You are low to the bone, so low that your own daughters look down on you."

Lin Yongfu and Zhang Yuqin’s faces burned with shame and anger. They felt deeply uncomfortable. Before, when they complained and called themselves "lowly" every day, they never felt there was anything wrong with it.

But now that their daughter had actually opened her mouth, using "lowly" to describe them and attempting to draw a line between them, they felt as if their faces had been ruthlessly trampled into the dirt.

"Yuxia and I are about to start living a good life. Now, I'm just worried that my parents' 'lowly fate' will ruin our happiness," Lin Xuexia said with a smile, looking at her cherry-pink nails.

Saying these words out loud filled her with joy; she felt like she was soaring.

She thanked the heavens for letting her be reborn to this moment. She could scold the parents who had failed her without a shred of psychological burden.

Weren't they just asking to be scolded? Come on then, your eldest daughter is here to scold you herself!