Chapter 16: Rural Absurd Past Events Chapter 16: Mountain Gully Village 16

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Protagonist:

Li Xiulan

Wang Changgen returned home with a heart full of anger, empty-handed.

"What's going on? Did you buy the salt?"

Seeing Wang Changgen's expression was off, Li Xiulan asked this.

But before she could figure out the situation, Wang Changgen suddenly stepped forward, grabbed her neck with one hand, and made her feel suffocated in an instant!

Li Xiulan was immediately stunned, her eyes wide, her face full of panic and alarm!

She had never seen her husband look so terrifying and hideous!

She wanted to speak, wanted to figure out the situation, but she couldn't even catch her breath, let alone talk.

"Did you seduce Yang Dafu or not?"

Wang Changgen's eyes were bloodshot, and he gritted his teeth, asking this question word by word.

Li Xiulan's tears flowed uncontrollably; she suddenly felt half her heart turn cold, and was no longer so afraid, revealing a sorrowful cold smile.

She never imagined that one day her most trusted husband would doubt her loyalty because of village gossip from outside!

"Tell me, did you or not!"

Wang Changgen roared hoarsely, questioning her again.

He had become uncertain in his heart.

He desperately needed Li Xiulan to give him a clear answer.

"I am your wife, I bore you two sons, and I am now pregnant with a third!"

Li Xiulan's heart was broken, and she choked out these words with difficulty.

Wang Changgen's head buzzed; only now did he realize he had lost control. Even if he doubted Li Xiulan, he shouldn't have choked a pregnant Li Xiulan.

He hurriedly let go of her hand, but did not stop questioning:

"The statement posted on the bulletin board at the village entrance says you took the initiative to seduce Yang Dafu, and it has your own handwritten signature—I recognize your handwriting!"

A marriage of long separation brings not only physical loneliness, but also greater spiritual estrangement, so that even a slight disturbance can make one like a frightened bird.

Moreover, what Wang Changgen faced now was not just a slight disturbance, but rumors and gossip like a bursting flood; now everyone in the village knew his wife had taken the initiative to seduce Yang Dafu!

"Do you think I wanted to sign that statement? I did it all for you! If I hadn't signed it, Yang Dafu wouldn't have given you a letter of understanding, and you would have had to go to prison! To keep you from going to prison, I even had to go to the hospital and take care of that bastard Yang Dafu for seven days. Do you know how much I suffered!"

Li Xiulan roared out.

At that moment, she vented all the emotions she had long suppressed, and instead felt much better in her heart.

Wang Changgen's heart suddenly shrank; at this moment all his doubts were cleared up. It turned out his wife had signed such a black-and-white-reversed statement only to keep him from going to prison.

He should have known his wife was innocent, because when he was previously detained at the police station, his wife had told him the conditions for Yang Dafu issuing a letter of understanding, one of which was that his wife must take the initiative to admit she was the one who seduced him.

It was just that those village gossip that deeply stung his male pride clouded his head, causing him to lose his reason and basic judgment.

"Wife, I was wrong, I misunderstood you! I'm sorry!"

Wang Changgen pulled Li Xiulan into his arms and sincerely apologized to her.

Li Xiulan still had tears in her eyes, sobbing incessantly.

For this poor family, she had endured too much grievance in her heart.

"I am your wife, how could you not believe me, and instead believe the village gossip of those outsiders!"

Li Xiulan punched Wang Changgen's back hard with her fist, crying out loud.

Wang Changgen held her tighter, silently saying nothing.

The two children at home hid in the bedroom, watching all this through the door crack. They neither cried nor made a scene, just watched blankly, not knowing what had happened.

The misunderstanding between Li Xiulan and Wang Changgen was considered resolved, but the rumors in the village remained unsolved, and grew more and more excessive as they spread.

Now Li Xiulan was considered by the villagers to be a promiscuous modern Pan Jinlian, an undisputed fact in their hearts.

Li Xiulan didn't care about those village gossip, but Wang Changgen was tormented by them.

He still felt that Li Xiulan should never have signed that black-and-white-reversed statement in the first place!

He had told Li Xiulan long ago that he would rather choose to go to prison than let Yang Dafu slander her innocence!

But now that things had come to this, he could no longer change anything, so he could only silently endure all the rumors and gossip.

Because of this, Wang Changgen became increasingly silent and withdrawn, out of place with the other people in the village. When other villagers greeted him on the road, he didn't respond; he kept his head down, pretending not to hear, and hurried past, because he always felt others were mocking and ridiculing him.

Li Xiulan persuaded Wang Changgen many times because of this, but Wang Changgen just couldn't get over that hurdle.

This actually couldn't be blamed on Wang Changgen; which man in the world could tolerate his wife being called a modern Pan Jinlian?

That night, Wang Changgen tossed and turned, unable to sleep.

He got up and walked outside to the living room, rolled himself a cigarette, and smoked it to himself.

After smoking a full three cigarettes, Wang Changgen suddenly went to the firewood room, picked up a machete, and began sharpening the knife under the moonlight.

"Husband, what are you sharpening the knife for in the middle of the night?"

Li Xiulan slept very lightly, and the sound of sharpening outside startled her.

She got up in the dark, came out and saw her husband sharpening a knife in the middle of the night, and immediately her face was full of alarm; she hurried over to stop him.

Only then did she suddenly realize: her husband had an unsolvable knot in his heart. The root of this knot did not lie in whether she had taken the initiative to seduce Yang Dafu, but in those increasingly excessive rumors and gossip in the village.

"Husband, why don't we leave this village!"

Li Xiulan embraced Wang Changgen; her heart was like being cut by a knife. She couldn't bear to see Wang Changgen suffer such torment, nor was she willing to see him do anything irrational again.

"Leave the village? Easier said than done. Where can we go?"

Wang Zhanggen was expressionless.

"Go work in the big city, find work in the county, or go live at my maternal home — anywhere is fine, as long as we leave here!"

Li Xiulan tightly embraced Wang Zhanggen, saying this while shedding tears.

Wang Zhanggen, however, shook his head:

"Our third child is about to be born, we have no savings now, the cost of living in the city is so high, we have so many children, we simply cannot support them; additionally, I also don't want to go live at your maternal home, making it seem like I married into your family, I would be laughed at!"

Li Xiulan was heartbroken:

"I told you not to care about the village gossip, yet you cannot do it, what to do is good?"

Wang Zhanggen's face was weathered and tired; he threw the machete in his hand, turned around, and went back into the room:

"The matter of going into the city, let's talk after the child is born."

To tell the truth, if Li Xiulan had not gotten up to stop him tonight, he might really have taken the machete and gone to chop off Yang Dafu's head.

Because the root cause of all this was caused by Yang Dafu.

He believed that as long as he killed Yang Dafu, all rumors and gossip would naturally come to an abrupt halt.