"Liang Hongmei?" Liang Hongmeiâs words hit Qiu Hualanâs heart directly, successfully provoking her. She lost control of her emotions and angrily slammed the table, standing up. "Who cares about your sympathy? I, Qiu Hualan, need your pity the least in this lifetime... Yes, I am jealous of you. Who told you to find a good man? Why? I am younger than you, my father is the village secretary, why do those men surround you all day? Why was I abandoned after happily finding a partner? While your man is devoted to a woman who doesnât recognize a single character. Why do I, with a middle school level education, have to marry a drunkard? Why is heaven so unfair. Why..." Qiu Hualan let all the jealousy pent up inside her burst out, and as she spoke, she started crying. Eventually, she sadly covered her face and sobbed.
"These things, you shouldnât ask me why, you should ask yourself. You are the one who did these things, you have a brain, have thoughts, no one forced you, everything was agreed upon by you. If you have to blame someone, blame yourself. Back then, Wu Guodongâs desire to leave the village was so obvious, no one in the village was blind, everyone knew, yet you still threw yourself at him, getting fooled by his few sweet words. You, a big girl unmarried, went to bed with a man, this can only be blamed on your own wrongdoing."
"Stop making it sound so nice. After acting all holier-than-thou, I donât believe you didnât sleep with Lin Guozhi before marrying him."
Liang Hongmei gave her a disdainful look, firmly saying, "Although I didnât go to school, my parents taught me the principles of a womanâs self-respect from a young age. Compared to you, a middle schooler, Iâm more conservative."
"You..." To be honest, this surprised Qiu Hualan greatly. Back then, who among the village girls didnât know that Liang Hongmei was always chasing after Lin Guozhi, just one step away from giving herself to him, thinking they definitely tasted the forbidden fruit.
"Wu Guodong was never a worthy person, he left, let him go. Life is long for a woman. Although your body isnât clean anymore, itâs not impossible to marry well. Thereâs plenty of excellent men who lost their wives or are too poor to marry. The ones who cherish their wives are plentiful. You donât need to worry about not finding a good one. But you... you admire vanity. Back then, many people proposed to you, some were good, but you only saw the superficial, taking a liking to Ye Weijun with his job in the brigade. You rushed to marry him as soon as you two agreed. After marriage, your life was poor, who can you blame? Arenât these all paths you chose yourself!"
"Wuwu... yes, itâs all paths I chose myself, itâs all my fault for being arrogant, disregarding consequences. I regret it, but thereâs no medicine for regret in the world. I want to go back but heaven doesnât give me the chance... Those years, the village peopleâs gossip pressed down on me, making it hard to breathe, I hated them. If it werenât for them dwelling on Wu Guodongâs incident every day, Ye Weijun wouldnât have slowly begun to resent me. At most, after we got married, heâd be considered lazy and fond of drinking. The first few years after marriage, although not great, were bearable. Speaking of which, I got my retribution for hiding your letters. That day, I went to the village chiefâs house to borrow something, just happened that Li Fugui wasnât home, Li Xinghua helped me. When I went into their room, I accidentally saw a letter addressed to Liang Hongmei. At that time, I didnât know who wrote it, besides Lin Guozhi who was away, there shouldnât be anyone else, so I casually asked, did Lin Guozhi write again. Who knew Li Xinghua seemed not to know about this thing. She said no. I didnât know why but when she wasnât looking, I hid the letter. When I got home, I secretly opened it to look. Seeing the sweet words from Lin Guozhi for you, my heart burned with anger, jealousy unbearable. I got so angry that I nearly tore the letter inside, but I held back. I hid the letter. Later you didnât hear from Lin Guozhi for a long time, so you went out to find him. Seeing how sad you looked when you came back, I couldnât bear it in my heart, but I intended to return the letter to you. But after hearing the village gossip about you, I held back. Suddenly I felt, this was good, the village people had new topics to discuss, their eyes wouldnât be all on me, and compared to me, you seemed worse off, at least I didnât have a child with Wu Guodong, now Iâm remarried. And you, you had two children for the educated youth, and even if you marry again later, it wonât be much better.