The leaves in the yard rustled, as if asking her: Shi Meilan, have you come back as a ghost?
Standing in the house, she shakily stretched out a hand.
The scorching sunlight beat down on her. She was alive.
She wasn’t a ghost.
She had come back! Like a mountain spirit or wild monster, buried in the earth, she had reached out from her muddy grave and crawled back among her enemies!
She still looked human, but what flowed under her skin was no longer blood, but surging hatred.
As she stood in a daze, she heard footsteps in the courtyard. Shi Meilan trembled, looking up.
She saw a figure come out from the main hall, back to her, carefully hopping from their yard over the wall into the neighboring courtyard.
That was Li Jianye.
In the whole village, only Li Jianye liked to wear white shirts and black pants, with a pair of black leather shoes bought from town, always polished, and a pair of gold-rimmed glasses—refined, with hands that never touched dishwater.
Li Jianye!
Shi Meilan’s hand snapped back, her nails digging into her flesh, nearly drawing blood!
The courtyard wall was built of bricks, about as tall as a person. For a bookish man like Li Jianye, climbing it was hard work, and he didn’t notice Shi Meilan had come out.
The neighboring courtyard belonged to Widow Wang’s family.
As she saw the roof of Widow Wang’s house, the confusion in Shi Meilan’s eyes faded, and memories surged up.
She remembered now—it was June, four months before she’d get tuberculosis, a month before her eldest son’s college entrance exam, and a month before Hu Honghua would marry in.
She wasn’t sick yet, not seriously ill, but judging by Li Jianye’s practiced way of climbing the wall, this was clearly not the first time.
So, even before she got sick, this pair of adulterers had already gotten together. She had been lost in her own happiness and worries, completely oblivious.
No wonder, in her past life, as soon as she fell ill, Li Jianye was desperate to marry someone new.
She wanted nothing more than to rush over now and slap that pair of scoundrels, but she held herself back.
Her hatred for them was already too deep—simply exposing them wouldn’t be enough. She wanted them to be utterly ruined!
Standing where she was, Shi Meilan gritted her teeth, choosing not to explode in anger, but to quietly move to the base of the wall and listen to the conversation next door.
“Li Teacher, you didn’t let your wife find out, did you?”
Rustling voices, muffled by the wall, drifted into Shi Meilan’s ears.
At the same time, on the other side, Li Jianye was just starting to talk to Wang Yulian.
Wang Yulian was standing up.
Her real name was Wang Yulian. She’d placed a small chair by the wall in her yard for Li Jianye to use as a step. At this moment, Wang Yulian was holding the chair steady, helping Li Jianye down.
“No, she’s a heavy sleeper at noon, she won’t wake up.” Li Jianye’s voice was gentle, tinged with guilt. “Ah, Yulian, it’s my fault, making you suffer for me.”
Li Jianye and Wang Yulian had been together for a month.
At first, it was because Lin Xinran was a student at Li Jianye’s school, and Wang Yulian would occasionally exchange a few words with him.
Wang Yulian wasn’t like Shi Meilan, an uneducated woman. She could read, knew poetry and music, and could even discuss classical poetry with Li Jianye, which delighted him. Wang Yulian was gentle, and never raised her voice at him—she would just softly smooth her hair and greet him, “Hello, Li Teacher.”
Li Jianye was enchanted by the way she played with her hair, making his heart itch.
Later, Wang Yulian’s husband returned to the city, leaving Wang Yulian and Lin Xinran behind. Wang Yulian cried at night and had no strength for farm work during the day; even Lin Xinran couldn’t concentrate on her studies. Li Jianye’s second son, Li Tianfu, ran over every day to help with plowing.
Li Jianye thought, since their families might become in-laws, he might as well help out in advance.
Helping here and there, the two of them secretly got together.
Since it was a secret, it couldn’t see the light of day. So, they could only meet in secret at noon, when no one would notice—when Shi Meilan was asleep, the eldest son was at school, and the second son was working in the fields. Only then could Li Jianye be his true self.
Only after climbing over this wall did he reach his own private paradise.
Hearing Li Jianye say she’d suffered, Wang Yulian just lowered her head and smiled faintly, not complaining at all.
What could she complain about?
At first, she was the child her parents abandoned. They couldn’t bear to part with her brothers, so they sent her, a girl, to the countryside. For the first two years, there were still letters, but later, even if she wrote home, there was no reply. She was like an exile, left to die in this land.
Later, she was the woman her husband abandoned. He got one spot to return to the city, chose to leave alone, and left her and their daughter behind in this poor, backward place, to endure gossip and both open and hidden bullying. The bitterness was hidden in every corner of the house, beneath the stones, on the tip of people’s tongues—unseen, yet everywhere.
Her life was imaginable.
She never fit in here.
She was a sent-down youth, her family wasn’t even from here. She’d studied, learned cello, but was forced to stay and deal with outhouses herself. She hated everything here, but was forced to remain.
If she wanted to survive, wanted a better life, she had to find someone to rely on.
At least, Li Jianye was better than those yellow-toothed smokers and drunkards who couldn’t find their way home. At least, Li Jianye was a man willing to provide for her.
She held Li Jianye’s hand, her palm sliding up to his chest as she leaned into him, speaking softly, “With you, I don’t feel wronged at all. It’s just my daughter who worries me.”
Wang Yulian’s voice carried a hint of anxiety: “She’ll never get into college. Sending her to school is pointless. I was thinking of finding her a job—the town just opened a factory, you know? They’re hiring for office jobs, iron rice bowls, and even giving out apartments. I heard from the manager that as long as you’ve finished high school, you can get in, but if you pull strings, it’s easier. You have to give a gift—one hundred yuan per person, two hundred for both of us. I don’t have that much money.”
By the end, Wang Yulian was sobbing, “She’s my only daughter, and as a woman, I can’t do anything.”
Seeing Wang Yulian cry, Li Jianye panicked and quickly said, “I have the money! I’ll pay! Use it to buy jobs for you and your daughter. You’re educated, you should work in an office.”
He was a henpecked husband, but he truly liked Wang Yulian. The moment she cried, he lost his mind and let his lower half do the thinking.
“This, this isn’t right,” Wang Yulian said, eyes red, shaking her head. “It’s not proper—so much money. How will you explain it to that tigress at home? How could I bear to see you bullied by Shi Meilan?”
“Don’t worry, I can handle it!” Li Jianye patted his chest in assurance.
Wang Yulian was nothing like Shi Meilan. Shi Meilan lived in his house, took his salary, bossed the kids around every day, but Wang Yulian had nothing—of course he had to give her more.
He was a man! How could he let his woman live a hard life?
The two clung to each other, and Li Jianye snuck his hands around, but only just touched her here and there.
Though they were together in secret, there was still a thin layer between them. Wang Yulian was shy and reserved, always pushing him away, not daring to go all the way. Plus, noon was short, so the most they did was kiss.
When they kissed, Li Jianye pressed Wang Yulian to the ground.
She was completely different from Shi Meilan—gentle, delicate, pitiful, her lips reddened from his kisses, her soft moans when he squeezed her, those hazy eyes—all of it made Li Jianye intoxicated.
Wang Yulian felt light as air.
Blue sky, white clouds, green grass, clean hems dragging in the dirty dust—yet it felt strangely refreshing, like ripping off a scab. Wang Yulian looked up at the sky, and the anger in her chest finally rushed out.
Her husband had let her down, the villagers bullied her, always mocking her as a “capitalist’s daughter,” and saying, “no matter how aloof you are, no man wants you.” She’d always carried this resentment.
She wasn’t a widow—her husband wasn’t dead. Maybe he’d miss her someday and come back for her. But everyone insisted on calling her a widow, forgetting her name, nailing her to that humiliating label.
Only when another man pursued her did she forget the pain her husband caused; only when she got money did she feel happy. Life was like sugar laced with poison—deadly, but so sweet.
Li Jianye’s affair was simple greed, but for Wang Yulian, it was the weight of her shackles, the helplessness of being trapped and abandoned, the resentment of being left behind.
These complex emotions pressed on her, turning her into a madwoman locked in a cage. Only when she did “bad things” could she feel alive, not crushed by this rotten life. Beneath her gentle exterior was a pit that could never be filled.
The rough, backward countryside was a man’s world. They didn’t have to hide their ugliness—just pull down their pants. If they succeeded, it was their skill; if not, it was the woman’s fault. For women, it was a long, damp rainy season. They had to endure the moldy, rotten life, drag their aching legs, rummage through filth for something to eat, and try to make life a little better.
Moments of happiness were brief. When it was almost time for Shi Meilan to wake up, Li Jianye reluctantly got up and climbed back over the wall.
Wang Yulian saw him off with a gentle face.
The wooden chair creaked under his weight, and Li Jianye, hands weak and legs trembling, scrambled clumsily over the wall into the other side—the Li Family Courtyard.
Landing, he glanced around nervously.
The Li Family Courtyard was big. Inside the gate, a cowshed stood on the left, and on the right, vegetables and a grapevine grew. As he hunched and jumped down, the afternoon was silent, the grapevine swaying in the yard, and not a soul in sight.
He’d just breathed a sigh of relief and straightened up, when suddenly someone at the gate called out, “Uncle Li, has Aunt Shi woken up?”
Who was that?
Li Jianye jumped in fright, whipping his head around. He saw a timid, cowering figure at the door. When she noticed him looking, she forced out a fawning smile.
It was Hu Honghua, his eldest son’s fiancée, who hadn’t married in yet.