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Chapter 114: Chapter 110 Visiting Relatives (Part 4)
Early the next morning, Shen Yunfang was awakened by the reveille, clinging to her bed, not wanting to get up. In her mind, she muttered how true the saying was, "It’s easy to go from frugality to luxury, but hard to return," she used to get up early every day and never found it challenging, but after sleeping in comfortably for just a few days, it seemed she could hardly leave her bed.
Groggily, she rubbed her eyes, slipping back to sleep, until Li Hongjun came to bring her breakfast and finally woke her up.
"Did you sleep well?" Li Hongjun asked as he put down his own lunchbox on the table.
"Not bad," Shen Yunfang replied lazily. Seeing Li Hongjun’s gleaming eyes, she hurriedly got up from the bed, grabbed her toiletries, and said, "I’m going to wash up." It was too risky to stay in bed any longer.
Li Hongjun looked a bit regretful, but time didn’t permit more, "Okay, have your breakfast after washing up, I’m off to training. If you need anything, come find me."
Before leaving, he couldn’t help but give her some final instructions, "If you’re bored, you can read some books, or go sit with Mrs. Wu."
"Alright, I got it, you don’t need to worry," Shen Yunfang waved him off impatiently.
Once he left, she went outside to freshen up, and then sat down to start her breakfast. The lunchbox was simple, filled with two large steamed buns, under which were a few salty vegetable pickles.
Shen Yunfang pouted; this wasn’t even as good as her usual meals.
Thinking of her body that shouldn’t be wronged, she stood up, closed the door, and then took out a bowl of kelp and egg drop soup from her space, along with two plates of spicy mixed vegetables and a small dish of beef sauce; perfect for dipping the steamed buns.
After finishing a sumptuous breakfast, she cleaned up all the things that weren’t supposed to be there, washed the lunchbox, and then began rummaging through Li Hongjun’s desk.
She absolutely wasn’t invading his privacy; hadn’t Li Hongjun mentioned that if she was bored she could read some books? She was just looking to see what books he had.
What she found was a stack of letters in the drawer. She flipped through them casually; most were her own letters to him, and a few were sent from Taoshu Village. Noting the dates, after October, there were three letters.
Unable to contain her curiosity, Shen Yunfang pulled out the letters to read them.
The writing was rather immature, yet Shen Yunfang clearly understood the contents.
Without any courteous words, the letter immediately inquired if the talk about his 500-yuan debt was true. Then it went on embellishing the story of their two attempts to demand grain from her.
Summing it up, there were no kind words about her, only criticisms; for example, they said she had a bad temper, a mean heart, and after snooping around, found out she was lazy and greedy at home. A woman like that should definitely not be allowed into the Li family’s house, despite the marriage being arranged by Elder Li. It seemed like they were setting the stage for calling off the marriage. She wondered how Li Hongjun felt after reading this letter.
Then she opened the second letter; its tone was even more vehement than the first, mostly castigating Li Hongjun, probably because he hadn’t written his reply according to what the Li family wanted. It also questioned why he stopped sending money home, asking if it was Shen Yunfang who egged him on to do so.
What a misunderstanding; she really hadn’t prompted it at all.
The last letter was essentially a warning. The Li family matriarch had made it clear that Shen Yunfang was disrespectful and undutiful to her future in-laws, so she absolutely could not enter the Li family’s home. If Li Hongjun insisted on marrying that woman, the Li family would act as if they had no such son.
That’s a lie; there was no way the Li family could give up on Li Hongjun as a son, not to mention anything else, but the Elder Mrs. Li could hardly part with Li Hongjun’s meager salary. Shen Yunfang snorted, placing the letters back exactly as they were, then picked up a book at random and started reading on the bed.
This continued until noon when Li Hongjun came back to take her to the cafeteria for lunch.
Shen Yunfang felt a bit embarrassed since her current status was just his partner, or fiancée, and they weren’t married yet. It was awkward when everyone addressed each other during the gatherings.
Li Hongjun, however, had no such concerns. Having already marked her as his own, his future wife would be the same whether called "sister-in-law" sooner or later.
Consequently, under Li Hongjun’s insistence, Shen Yunfang followed him to the cafeteria, and the situation turned out quite well. Several hundred people neatly greeted her with "sister-in-law," to which she managed to reciprocate with a smile, mentally giving herself a pat on the back.
When they returned to the dormitory, Li Hongjun glanced at his desk drawer, pulled out a chair to sit down, and took up a posture suggesting a long talk was forthcoming.
