Shen Yan withdrew his gaze and glanced at her lightly.

“If you have time to tease me here, you might as well hurry and go to work.”

Shen Pingping pouted. “It’s still early anyway. I didn’t even eat breakfast just to watch the excitement.”

Her third brother had always been indifferent to everything, but today the sun really seemed to have risen in the west—he actually came to join the commotion because of his fiancée.

Shen Pingping added, “Third Brother, I like this sister-in-law. Hurry up and marry her home.”

Compared to Shen Yan’s previous fiancée Jiang Yujiao, she liked Jiang Ling much more as her third sister-in-law.

She had disliked Jiang Yujiao for a long time.

Jiang Yujiao had been spoiled by the Jiang family into a lazy, arrogant woman who looked down on other girls. Shen Pingping couldn’t understand how her mother had ever arranged such an engagement for her brother.

Good thing the fiancée had been switched.

That day she had even seen Jiang Ling pin Jiang Yujiao to the ground and beat her up—she had felt incredibly satisfied watching it.

She liked this kind of decisive, ruthless sister-in-law. Very compatible with her third brother.

Shen Yan’s throat moved slightly at her words.

In a few more days, he would be able to marry Jiang Ling.

Right now, the most important thing was to heal his leg injury.

He was only temporarily back in the village on medical leave. If his left leg could not recover properly, he would be forced into permanent discharge.

He didn’t want Jiang Ling to be mocked in the future for marrying a cripple.

Shen Yan’s eyes darkened slightly. After work in the evening, he would go up the mountain.

He needed to find medicinal herbs.

Whether they worked or not, he had to try.

…

Jiang Ling returned home with the Jiang family.

After last night’s chaos, everyone was visibly exhausted, though they still had to go out to work later.

The eldest sister-in-law and Li Chunmei quickly slipped into the kitchen to make breakfast, afraid that Old Madam Jiang would make them pay compensation for that wretched girl.

Although the incident was caused by Yujiao, Li Chunmei felt her daughter had done nothing wrong.

She had already told Old Madam Jiang that their branch had no money. If anyone was going to pay, it should be the old woman herself.

On the way back, Jiang Yujiao felt that something was off.

“Jiang Ling, did you secretly hide the money yourself? They searched everywhere and still couldn’t find that six hundred.”

Jiang Ling rolled her eyes. “How would I know? Maybe they hid it somewhere themselves. You’re the one who arranged it—shouldn’t you know better than me?”

Jiang Yujiao exploded in anger.

She increasingly felt like she had fallen into Jiang Ling’s trap. Otherwise, why did it feel like she was constantly sending money to her?

Old Madam Jiang was annoyed by their arguing and just wanted to marry them off quickly so she could get peace and quiet.

She entered her room and locked the door.

After a while, she walked out with a dark expression, her cloudy eyes fixed tightly on Jiang Ling.

“Ling girl, this is the last compensation I’ll give you. Not a single cent more!”

Jiang Ling took the wad of loose bills from her hand, counted them, and found three hundred yuan.

As expected, this old woman still had hidden money.

Free money was free money.

Just how much money had her parents actually given this old hag? Besides the 1,500 yuan compensation, plus her father’s monthly military allowance, there must have been even more.

Otherwise, Old Madam Jiang wouldn’t have been so “generous.”

Jiang Ling pocketed the money and said,

“Where’s the other three hundred? You’re not planning to renege, are you?”

Old Madam Jiang lifted her chin. “There’s no more. My room has been searched clean. Where would I get money from?”

“Then save up. Or borrow it. The Jiang family has so many people—you can’t possibly not scrape together three hundred. Write me an IOU.”

Jiang Ling had no intention of letting them off easily.

“You!” Old Madam Jiang choked in anger.

Li Chunmei raised her hand to strike. “You little brat, don’t go too far!”

Jiang Ling easily dodged the slap and said coldly,

“If you don’t write the IOU, I’ll report you to the police right now and say you all worked together with a thief to steal my six hundred, only returning three hundred.”

Old Madam Jiang’s face turned extremely ugly. After staring at her for a long moment, she finally gave in and wrote the IOU.

Everyone watched helplessly as Old Madam Jiang handed over the three hundred and wrote the IOU. Their hearts bled.

Li Chunmei nudged her husband.

Only then did the man step forward.

“Mom, our room was also robbed of more than fifty yuan… that was Jiaojiao’s bride price…”

Before he could finish, Old Madam Jiang shot him a glare.

“And you still have the nerve to say that? If your daughter hadn’t brought thieves into the house, would our money have been stolen?!”

Even her long-maintained dignity had been ruined.

Before morning ended, the entire village already knew that the Li family brothers were so shameless they even stole this old woman’s undergarments.

She didn’t even have the face to go to work anymore.

Li Chunmei and the third son of the Jiang family dared not speak, swallowing their resentment.

They couldn’t let their daughter marry into the Zhou family for nothing. Li Chunmei urged Jiang Yujiao to go threaten Zhou Qianming to increase the bride price—or cancel the engagement.

Jiang Yujiao’s face turned pale.

“So many people saw me kissing him… if we break off the engagement, who else would marry me?”

Li Chunmei poked her head.

“You’re stupid! I’m not telling you to really break it off. Just scare him. If he truly cares about you, he’ll find a way to get money.”

Jiang Yujiao pressed her lips together, her brows tightly furrowed.

…

Jiang Ling returned to her room happily with the money and IOU.

Last night she had quickly moved everything from Old Madam Jiang’s room into her space, just to see if anything was missing.

And she really did find something—a letter hidden at the bottom of a box.

It was a letter from her father to Old Madam Jiang, simply instructing her to take care of Jiang Ling.

Strangely, only half the letter remained. The other half had been torn off.

Jiang Ling read it twice before carefully putting it back into the envelope.

Her memory of her father was vague. She only remembered his tall back as he handed her over to Old Madam Jiang and then hurried away.

No matter how much she cried, he never once looked back.

When she was little, she asked about her parents. Old Madam Jiang always dodged the question, saying her father was in the army and her mother was accompanying him.

“They’re working hard. Don’t ask too much.”

Year after year, Jiang Ling waited—until she finally received news of their “accidental deaths.”

She placed the money, the letter, and the gold bangle into a box.

The gold bangle had the character “Yu” engraved on it. Old Madam Jiang’s original name was Li Xiuying, so this bangle clearly didn’t belong to her.

She didn’t know where the old woman had stolen it from, but Jiang Ling had no intention of returning it.

Then she took out Zhou Qianming’s IOU.

Just as noon approached and people were about to return from work, she needed to intercept him and get her things back.

The sun was directly overhead, baking the dirt road until it shimmered with heat. The moment Jiang Ling stepped on it, the soles of her shoes felt like they were burning.

The production team whistle sounded twice as workers straightened up and headed home with hoes on their shoulders.

Jiang Ling quickened her pace toward the fields. A passing auntie called out,

“Ling girl, work’s already over. What are you still doing out there?”

“I’m looking for Zhou Qianming.”

The aunties exchanged looks.

Wasn’t she already switched to another marriage? Why was she still looking for the educated youth?

Out of curiosity, they followed behind her to watch.

At the fields, Zhou Qianming wiped the sweat from his forehead, just about to head to the canteen, when a fellow educated youth shouted excitedly,

“Zhou, Jiang Ling is here looking for you!”

Zhou Qianming’s expression remained calm.

He already knew it—Jiang Ling still couldn’t let him go.

She must have missed him so much that she couldn’t hold back anymore and came looking for him.