NOVPUB
Chapter 218: Chapter 211 is so bad
Shen Yunfang furrowed her brows, "Hongjun has been out participating in drills these past few months, basically not at the base, so he hasn’t written to me either. I don’t know about this matter."
"Now that you know, what do you think?" Wang Dan asked bluntly.
Since both were daughters-in-law, when it came to matters of their in-laws and the affairs of their brothers-in-law, these two sisters-in-law should be able to be in agreement, that was Wang Dan’s thought.
"I don’t have any thoughts, I’m happy for Hongqi being able to go to college, but the last time our mother came over, I already gave her fifty yuan. We really don’t have any left at home, so I’m helpless when it comes to Hongqi’s travel and tuition fees," Shen Yunfang rejected the idea quite straightforwardly.
When her mother-in-law came last time, she had already made it clear. She was pleased for her brother-in-law going to college, but raising children was the responsibility of the parents, not hers as a sister-in-law. They shouldn’t come to her for money as soon as her in-laws were out of cash. She hadn’t gotten her money from a gust of wind.
Besides, she saw this as her brother-in-law’s matter. If he had any sense, he wouldn’t have his mother do it for him; he could have come directly to her and her husband. If he truly had no money and showed his willingness to draft an IOU or something, Shen Yunfang wouldn’t have been able to stand by and do nothing. To be honest, if Hongqi offered her an IOU, was she really going to chase him for the money? Most borrowed money ends up being written off.
But now Hongqi won’t step up, instead letting their mother pressure her, his daughter-in-law. She’d given money once, and she definitely couldn’t afford to do so a second time. Nobody runs a bank at home, and there’s no money printing machine. She couldn’t just cough up whatever amount they asked for, could she?
"Alright, I know. I’ll talk to our mother when I get back," Wang Dan agreed readily. "Ah, I’m here chatting with you, sister-in-law, and you, a grown man, are messing around here. Hurry and take the kids out to the yard for a walk."
Li Hongxing said nothing and took the restless kids off to play.
Wang Dan, having sent everyone away, then got down to heart-to-heart talk with Shen Yunfang: "Sister-in-law, we’re family, and there are some things I just can’t keep from you. I might as well speak frankly."
Seeing this, Shen Yunfang quickly responded, "Look at you, sister-in-law, we barely see each other once a year, and when we finally do meet, we should indeed have a heart-to-heart chat. Whatever you have to say, just say it."
Wang Dan was quite pleased and began to speak freely: "Strictly speaking, this is something I, as a sister-in-law, shouldn’t be saying, but I see you haven’t stayed at home for more than a couple of days, and you don’t really understand the people here, so I can’t help but want to remind you of something."
"The three brothers of the Li family have three different temperaments. Our Hongxing is a quiet sort who’s not clever, but he can work without complaint. Hongjun, on the other hand, has ideas, big ones at that, and everything he does seems purposeful; he’s bound to be alright in the future. As for Hongqi, even though he has always been studying in the county, and our mother praises him to everyone for his studies, I’ve heard from others that Hongqi isn’t a diligent student at school."
"I got married into the Li family early, back when Hongqi was just this tall." Wang Dan gestured at her own chest, "He was indeed quite smart as a child, but after interacting with him for a while, I started to sense something. The boy is clever alright, but he’s never used his cleverness for the right things. I’ve noticed many times he tends to spoil things behind people’s backs."
Shen Yunfang was quite surprised internally; this she had indeed not noticed.
"Do you know how he got that college recommendation spot?" Wang Dan inquired.
"I don’t know," Shen Yunfang honestly replied. In Qiu Shuping’s words, it was her son’s ability and the leaders’ discernment that gave him the opportunity.
"What I heard is..." Wang Dan said nonchalantly. Such a person is an ingrate, not to be associated with.
Shen Yunfang suddenly widened her eyes, not expecting Li Hongqi to be such a terrible person. 𝘯𝑜𝘷𝘱𝘶𝑏.𝘤𝘰𝑚
"You couldn’t tell, right?" Wang Dan sneered.
"Really couldn’t." Shen Yunfang nodded.
Seriously though, she only encountered Li Hongqi after she got married and during the days she stayed at the Li family’s house, she didn’t see him much, and her impression wasn’t too deep. But the feeling he gave her was that of a child too detached and arrogant to care about anything. She truly hadn’t expected that the person would turn out to be rotten on the inside, which just goes to show, you can know someone’s face but not their heart.
"That’s right. You only met him a few times, spent so little time with him. Even I was tricked by him several times before I started to see through him. That’s why I say, of the entire Li family, he’s the worst of the lot," said Wang Dan, delivering her final judgment.
"I’m thinking that the last time mother-in-law came to ask you for money, it was him stirring things up from behind."
Shen Yunfang didn’t know about this, as she would not have been surprised if Qiu Shuping asked her for money, but she was quite surprised that her sister-in-law mentioned this to her.
"Also, he started by telling the family that he wanted to give a gift and asked them to prepare two hundred yuan for him. Sheesh, such a young brat and he really dares to ask for money. Two hundred yuan, I’m old and I’ve never seen that much money, yet he just casually wants to give it away. Let’s not talk about this anymore. What was I saying?" Wang Dan rambled for a bit, unable to hold back her dissatisfaction.
"He asked the family to prepare two hundred yuan for him," reminded Shen Yunfang.
"Right, he asked the family to prepare two hundred yuan. The way he talked, if he went to college, he’d act as if the whole Taoshu Village couldn’t contain him anymore. Mother-in-law got completely taken in by his words, she was so bamboozled she forgot which way was up and the very next day, she was scrambling to gather the money for him. That’s why she came to you, right?
I didn’t take it seriously at the time; I had no money to give anyway, no matter who asked. I can hardly provide for my own three sons, never mind someone else.
But I vaguely heard something about ’staying for two days’, and later mother-in-law stayed with you for half a month, which is when I realized what was going on. It must’ve been Li Hongqi stirring things up.
You gave our mother fifty yuan, right? She didn’t say anything good about you when she got home. In the end, Li Hongqi took one hundred and fifty yuan from our mother and it was done.
Afterward, I started to think, and the more I thought about it, the less right it seemed. That money, it’s very likely that Li Hongqi set up a scheme to swindle it away."
"Isn’t there anyone from our village or the nearby villages who is close to Li Hongqi? When he was recommended for college, didn’t you hear anything about it?" asked Shen Yunfang.
"There was someone from the neighboring village who went to the same school as Li Hongqi, and the news about him being recommended for college did come out, but there was no mention of needing to spend money," replied Wang Dan. "So, I’m saying, maybe that money just ended up in his own pocket. He was the one who said they needed to give gifts, and after taking the money, he didn’t let anyone go with him. When he came back, he just said he had handed out the gifts. The more I think about it, the fishier it seems."
Shen Yunfang thought it over, which made sense. Giving gifts was usually done in secret; it wasn’t something that everyone would know about.
