If she accepted this marriage, she naturally could not just watch Lu Heng plunge into the abyss as he had in her past life.
Therefore, Qiao Qingqing said, "Let's meet at the commune entrance at nine o'clock tomorrow morning. You must come. I have things to do today, so I'm leaving."
Lu Heng had not expected a female comrade to be so decisive in her actions. He stood in a daze for a good while, too late to raise any objections.By then, Qiao Qingqing was already far away.
She first went home to get her household registration, then hurried to the Educated Youth Office to sign up for the rustication program, choosing Heyu Village's Hongsheng Production Brigade.
Educated youths who volunteered to go to the countryside received preferential treatment; not only could they collect a stipend, but they could also choose their own location.
The prerequisite was that the chosen place was not "overcrowded with educated youths."
Heyu Village was a small village by the southern sea. As the name suggested, most of the villagers were fishermen.
The state currently mandated that agriculture take precedence, so fishing could only be a sideline.
The locals could only go out to sea to fish during the agricultural off-season.
The Zhou family, into which she was married in her past life, happened to be from Heyu Village.
The Lu family had also coincidentally been exiled to Heyu Village at the time.
Therefore, in her past life, the Shi family had ordered her to take good care of Shi Lanlan, and Qiao Qingqing had done so.
She had looked after Shi Lanlan to the best of her ability, protecting her, and had suffered countless hardships for it.
Yet in the eyes of the Shi family, these sacrifices were far from enough!
There were two reasons for returning there in this lifetime.
First, the Zhou family she needed to exact revenge upon was right there.
Second, in her previous life, she had made her fortune starting from Heyu Village.
Coming out of the Educated Youth Office, Qiao Qingqing took her household registration and went to have an introductory letter issued.
In this era, it was impossible to take a single step without an introductory letter.
When she returned to the Shi family home, it was already past six in the evening, and all four members of Shi Jingye's family were present.
Opening the door to see Qiao Qingqing standing there, Shi Wang's face immediately contorted with anger.
"Shi Qingqing, you still dare to come back!"
Qiao Qingqing suddenly narrowed her eyes and reached out to grab him by the throat. "What are you barking about, dog? Did you not get beaten enough at the hospital?"
Choking Shi Wang as she walked straight in, she shut the door behind her with a backhand motion so she would have no inhibitions when the fight started a moment later.As soon as her hands were free, Qiao Qingqing went straight for Shi Wang’s chubby face.
"Smack!"
A slap to his left cheek.
"Your mother was only responsible for giving birth to you, not for raising you. From the day you were born, I was the one changing your diapers and washing them. When you cried, I was the one soothing you; when you were hungry, I was the one boiling rice water to feed you."
"Smack!"
A slap to his right cheek.
"I’ve raised you for fifteen years. I’m not even asking you to call me sister—calling me your foster mother wouldn’t be wrong—but you refuse both. You insist on calling me by my full name. Tell me, aren’t you ungrateful? I might as well beat a white-eyed wolf like you to death."
She struck him left and right, leaving Shi Wang howling in pain. After struggling to no avail, he opened his mouth to beg his parents for help.
At that moment, Shi Jingye and his wife were busy showing their newly reclaimed biological daughter around the house, deciding on the rooms.
The Shi family’s home had three bedrooms, a living room, and a bathroom. Normally, the couple would take one room, while the daughter and son would each have their own.
However, the Shi family was far from normal. Shi Jingye had turned one of the rooms into a study, and in the corner between the living room and the bathroom, he had hung up a curtain and placed a discarded old bed. That was Qiao Qingqing’s "room."
Now that Shi Lanlan was back, and to prove to outsiders that he was a good father, Shi Jingye had reluctantly agreed to give his study to her. After all, his daughter had been raised by another family for eighteen years; even though she held no grudges against him, he felt it was his duty as a father to make it up to her.
The couple was deep in discussion with Shi Lanlan about how to rearrange the rooms when they heard Shi Wang’s screams and pleas for help from outside.
They rushed out to the living room and saw Qiao Qingqing hitting Shi Wang again. Shi Jingye immediately grabbed a tool and charged at her!
Wang Meifang also rolled up her sleeves, shouting curses at the top of her lungs while preparing to join the fray at any moment.
Shi Lanlan, meanwhile, looked on, her eyes filled with confusion.
Shi Qingqing was acting so strange; she wasn’t like herself at all.
A faint intuition stirred in her heart: Could it be that Shi Qingqing had been reborn, too?Yet Shi Lanlan quickly dismissed this guess.
Impossible. Only those favored by the heavens could be reborn, and she alone was the special one!
Perhaps it was her own rebirth that had caused these changes in Shi Qingqing...
In her past life, there had been no incident of a heart attack sending anyone to the hospital.
In this lifetime, Shi Lanlan had deliberately faked an illness precisely to find an excuse to swap marriage arrangements with Shi Qingqing!
She simply hadn't expected that while she waited for the Shi family to misunderstand Shi Qingqing, Wang Meifang would physically lash out at Shi Qingqing.
That must have been the final straw that broke the camel's back, provoking Shi Qingqing to unleash years of suppressed resentment and grievance from deep within her heart.
And so, an abnormal Shi Qingqing had emerged.
Unwilling to provoke a going-mad Shi Qingqing, Shi Lanlan had simply stayed far away to watch the show.
She had assumed that under the joint efforts of Shi Jingye and Wang Meifang, Shi Qingqing would end up at a disadvantage...
However, the way things unfolded left Shi Lanlan utterly shocked.
Using Shi Wang as a human shield, Qiao Qingqing dodged, and after several blows landed directly on their precious son, Shi Jingye grew too cautious to strike out with the stick easily anymore.
As for Wang Meifang, Qiao Qingqing led her in circles, occasionally kicking over vases and tables in the room, and sometimes Wang Meifang failed to dodge in time and got hit by the flying debris.
The entire living room was in absolute chaos, a chaotic mix of furious curses and miserable screams that drew the heads of neighbors from upstairs, downstairs, and both sides, all leaning out to look.
Someone went to pound on the Shi family's door: "Director Shi, Comrade Wang, what is going on at your place? Do you need help?"
Hearing that voice as if she had seen a savior, Wang Meifang was just about to open her mouth when Qiao Qingqing shoved Shi Wang to the ground and strode toward the door.
Freed from her clutches, Shi Wang crawled weeping to his parents. Shi Jingye hurriedly pulled his son behind him, and Wang Meifang rushed over to inspect her son's injuries, alternating between angry curses and heartbroken tears in a truly lively spectacle.
When Qiao Qingqing opened the door, what everyone saw was a living room scattered with utter wreckage, Wang Meifang and her son crying while hugging each other, and Director Shi standing with a livid expression holding a stick.
"Wh-what happened here?"
The neighbor who knocked asked blankly.
Qiao Qingqing's eyes turned red, and she threw herself straight into the neighbor's arms.
"Auntie Zhang, I can't take it anymore!"
Ever since she was little, Qiao Qingqing had been known throughout this apartment building as an obedient, good, and filial child.
Given the commotion from the Shi apartment just moments before, the neighbors had actually assumed the Shi couple were beating their daughter yet again.
Seeing Qiao Qingqing cry only solidified Auntie Zhang's belief. She hurriedly embraced the girl, patting her back and comforting her just as she had when the girl was small.
"Qingqing, don't be afraid! Tell us whatever is the matter. Even if they are your own birth parents, we cannot just stand by and watch them beat you to death."
That's right—the "qing" in Qiao Qingqing's name was actually the character for "slight" or "light".
Wang Meifang had given it to her: "Shi Qingqing", with the original intent that this name would make her destiny lighter and lighter so she would die sooner.
Shi Jingye, who favored sons and looked down on daughters, considered a daughter unimportant and raised no objection.
As a result, when registering the household paperwork, the staff member made a mistake and accidentally wrote the character for "noble/celebrated qing".
Yet whenever Wang Meifang spoke of this daughter to outsiders, she was always impatient to tell people it was the "qing" for cheap and humble.
Therefore, aside from her schoolteachers and classmates, everyone else called her Qingqing.
Hearing Auntie Zhang's words, Wang Meifang flew into an uncontrollable rage and cursed, "Zhang Ru, open your dog eyes and look—just who is beating whom? This damned girl has completely rebelled! Look at what she's done to my house, look at what she's done to my precious Wang! And you actually have the nerve to feel sorry for her!"