The moment Qin Zhifeng said that he would pay Shen Jiao alimony, Du Lingxiang completely stopped objecting to the divorce.
However, before she went to retrieve the household-registration booklet, her eyes darted thoughtfully.
“How much alimony are we talking about, and when will it be paid?”
“Five hundred yuan in total. Shen Jiao and I agreed that I would hand over the money when we received the divorce certificate.”
Five hundred yuan?
Du Lingxiang snorted inwardly.
Shen Jiao really was spineless. No wonder she had been unable to hold on to her man’s heart.
She looked down upon herself, so how could she expect anyone else to value her?
If it were Du Lingxiang, she would never agree to a divorce without receiving at least one thousand yuan. Even if she had to drag the matter out indefinitely, she would make the other party suffer.
“Only five hundred yuan? Are you trying to dismiss a beggar?”
She glared at Qin Zhifeng.
“You’re a university student. In the future, you’ll hold an iron rice bowl and become a government cadre. Aren’t you afraid that people will call you stingy for giving your former wife only five hundred yuan after divorcing her?”
“One thousand yuan. Not a single cent less.”
“Sister-in-law, Shen Jiao and I already agreed on five hundred yuan. It isn’t as though we’re buying and selling goods. You can’t simply name an outrageous price.”
Qin Zhifeng was becoming increasingly irritated and disgusted by Du Lingxiang’s repeated demands for money.
As expected, rural people lacked refinement. All they could see was money.
They could never compare with a well-educated city woman like An Qing.
When An Qing learned that he was facing difficulties, she had taken out her private savings without the slightest hesitation.
People truly could not be compared.
“Shen Jiao, we agreed on five hundred yuan. You can’t change your mind at the last moment.”
He turned towards her sharply.
“Don’t think that doing this will stop me from divorcing you. I have no feelings for you. This marriage is ending no matter what.”
Shen Jiao rolled her eyes dramatically.
Did he truly think he was some irresistible treasure?
Why would she refuse to divorce such an ungrateful scumbag? Was she supposed to keep him around for the New Year?
However, if he expected her to help him deal with Du Lingxiang, he had seriously miscalculated.
Du Lingxiang was the sort of person who clung desperately to money. Shen Jiao certainly had none to give her.
As long as Shen Jiao was not the one paying, she was perfectly happy to stand at the side and enjoy the show.
In fact, she was beginning to regret asking Qin Zhifeng for so little.
“That five hundred yuan is merely the alimony you owe me,” she said calmly. “As for any compensation you owe my family, the two of you can negotiate that yourselves.”
Qin Zhifeng gritted his teeth.
He felt that everything he had just said had been foolish.
Shen Jiao was a daughter of the Shen family. Naturally, she had inherited the same shamelessness as the rest of them.
To complete the divorce as quickly as possible, Qin Zhifeng had no choice but to drag Du Lingxiang aside and negotiate with her.
Shen Jiao did not know what the two ultimately discussed.
In the end, Du Lingxiang entered the house and retrieved the household-registration booklet from their room.
As for the marriage certificate, Shen Jiao had kept it herself. She only needed to collect it from the western wing.
When she entered the western wing, the disorder nearly made her explode with anger.
The rooms were no longer as clean and tidy as they had been before the original Shen Jiao left.
All three rooms were packed with miscellaneous items. There was barely even enough space to place one’s feet.
Just how much did Du Lingxiang hate the original owner?
How desperately had she wanted to sweep her younger sister-in-law out of the house?
The original Shen Jiao had only been gone for three or four days, yet her rooms had already been turned into storage.
Shen Jiao shook her head with a bitter smile.
Her resolve grew even firmer.
After the divorce, she would not return here to live.
It would be even better if she could completely sever her ties with the Shen family.
With such selfish relatives, who knew how much trouble her brother and sister-in-law might cause her in the future?
She carefully stepped over the random objects scattered across the floor and reached the heated brick bed.
Inside the cabinet built into the kang, she found the marriage certificate tucked inside an old biscuit tin.
Marriage certificates in this era truly were crudely made. They did not even include photographs of the husband and wife.
Once they had collected the household-registration booklet and marriage certificate, Shen Jiao and the others headed towards the village brigade office to obtain a letter of introduction.
Getting divorced in this era was truly troublesome.
As her older brother and sister-in-law, Shen Chunshan and Du Lingxiang accompanied them.
While they walked, Shen Jiao stared thoughtfully at the household-registration booklet in Du Lingxiang’s hand.
According to Gu Xinguo, household-registration management was exceptionally strict in this era and was directly linked to one’s grain and cooking-oil rations.
If her registration remained under Du Lingxiang’s control, wouldn’t that woman continue sucking her blood for the rest of her life?
She needed to find a way to transfer her household registration out of the Shen family.
However, the most urgent task was still ending this wretched marriage.
Over the past two years, there had been far too many cases of educated youths entering university and divorcing the rural spouses they had left behind.
Therefore, when Shen Jiao and Qin Zhifeng arrived to obtain their letter of introduction, the captain of the Shenjia Village Production Brigade was not especially surprised.
“Jiaojiao, are you truly certain you want this divorce?”
The brigade captain looked at her worriedly.
“Life is not easy for a divorced woman.”
The brigade captain was an uncle of Shen Jiao’s from within the same extended clan.
Whether speaking officially or personally, he naturally favoured Shen Jiao.
Back when she first married Qin Zhifeng, he had advised her father against it.
An educated youth was not a local. They did not know his family background or true character, which made him unreliable.
However, Qin Zhifeng had behaved too perfectly at the time and successfully deceived both Shen Jiao and her father.
Now the worst possible outcome had become reality.
Whether as her uncle or as the captain of Shenjia Village, he had to consider the immediate interests of his younger relative and fellow brigade member.
“Uncle, thank you, but I’ve thought it through carefully.”
Shen Jiao’s tone was firm.
“If a man’s heart can no longer be kept, forcing him to remain tied to me won’t bring peace to either of us. I simply want to live a quiet and stable life.”
Seeing that Shen Jiao was determined, the brigade captain began asking about the alimony and other arrangements.
After all, the woman generally suffered more in a divorce.
He wanted to help Shen Jiao fight for as much as possible so that her future life might be easier.
After learning that they had already settled the financial arrangements, and since the young couple had no children, there were few obstacles remaining.
The brigade captain issued their letter of introduction immediately.
By the time they left the brigade office, it was already noon.
The fragrance of cooking drifted from houses throughout the village.
However, Du Lingxiang had absolutely no intention of inviting anyone to eat.
Their grain had not blown in on the wind. How could she possibly bear to feed outsiders with it?
“Chunshan’s wife, where are all of you going at midday?”
It was the same auntie who had stopped them when they first entered the village.
Her family lived near the village entrance. Since the midday sun was pleasant, the entire family was sitting outside their front gate with bowls in their hands as they ate.
When she spotted Shen Jiao and the others approaching from a distance, she called out cheerfully.
“Could it be that your son-in-law has returned and is taking all of you into town to eat at a restaurant?”
Du Lingxiang walked straight past her without responding.
Shen Jiao intended to say something, but Du Lingxiang cut her off the moment she opened her mouth.
“Hurry up! Haven’t you embarrassed us enough already?”
Although Du Lingxiang had agreed to the divorce, she genuinely believed that a divorced woman was disgraceful.
Fortunately, she had already thrown Shen Jiao out.
At least Shen Jiao would not damage the reputation of their household.
Shen Jiao gave the auntie an awkward smile before quickly following Du Lingxiang.
Behind them, the auntie and her husband began muttering to each other.
Wasn’t Qin Zhifeng supposed to have returned to take Shen Jiao to the city to enjoy a better life?
That was a good thing.
Why did none of them have even the slightest smile on their faces?
“Perhaps Qin Zhifeng didn’t return to take Shen Jiao to the city,” the husband said after a moment. “Maybe he came back to divorce her.”
“Who would have thought that even Shen Jiao’s father could misjudge someone?”
The auntie clicked her tongue.
“That can’t be true. Qin Zhifeng used to treat Shen Jiao so well. How could they suddenly divorce?”
“What else could it be? He became successful and decided she was no longer good enough for him.”
The auntie still found it difficult to believe.
Fortunately, it was not long before someone else arrived with a bowl in hand and confirmed the gossip.
Shen Jiao truly was getting divorced.
They had just visited the village brigade office to obtain a letter of introduction.
The news created an enormous uproar.
Among the girls of her generation, Shen Jiao had always been someone others envied.
She had possessed loving parents and later married an educated youth who was considerate and knew how to cherish her.
Although her parents’ deaths had left her at the mercy of her sister-in-law for a year, her educated-youth husband had finally returned.
Everyone had believed that her bitter days were ending and that a sweet life awaited her.
Only moments earlier, they had been sour with jealousy.
Who could have expected that Shen Jiao was about to get divorced?
They should have felt delighted that she was not receiving a happy ending.
However, upon hearing the news, some of them discovered that they were not as pleased as they had imagined.
Still, those people were only a minority.
Far more villagers immediately began slandering Shen Jiao.
“Shen Jiao must have done something shameless. Otherwise, why would Educated Youth Qin divorce her?”
“He treated her so well before. There’s no way he would have asked for a divorce without a reason.”
“Exactly. Shen Jiao has always looked like a seductive little fox. It wouldn’t be surprising no matter what she did.”
The entire village was buzzing with discussion.
Shen Jiao knew nothing about it.
Even if she did not hear the words herself, however, she could easily imagine that no one would have anything pleasant to say about her.
That was yet another reason she did not wish to remain in Shenjia Village.
When the group reached the village entrance, Du Lingxiang saw An Qing.
In particular, she noticed how intimately An Qing and Qin Zhifeng behaved towards each other.
What else was there not to understand?
Qin Zhifeng had become a modern-day Chen Shimei.
**Nomad: Chen Shimei = cultural byword for a faithless husband**
No wonder he wanted a divorce.
Had Du Lingxiang known earlier, she would have demanded far more money.
Judging from the clothing and appearance of Qin Zhifeng’s new woman, she certainly did not seem poor.
However, Du Lingxiang had already accepted Qin Zhifeng’s offer, and the letter of introduction had been issued.
She did not know whether it was too late to change her mind.
Back at the Shen residence, Qin Zhifeng had negotiated a deal with her.
Once the letter of introduction had been obtained, he would give her the five hundred yuan he currently carried.
Then, when the divorce certificate was issued, he would give her another two hundred yuan.
However, this meant that the alimony he had originally promised Shen Jiao would no longer exist.
Shen Jiao remained completely unaware that she had been schemed against.
The group boarded a bus and travelled to the county town.
By then, not only Shen Jiao but everyone else was starving.
Qin Zhifeng and An Qing had money and therefore felt confident enough to eat at the state-run restaurant.
They even invited Du Lingxiang and Shen Chunshan to join them.
Only Gu Xinguo and Shen Jiao were left behind.
Shen Jiao felt the single yuan and two grain coupons remaining in her pocket.
She did not even possess the confidence to invite the man who had saved her to a meal.
It had been many years since she had felt so humiliated by a lack of money.
“Comrade Gu, um… why don’t we go and eat too?”
Even as Shen Jiao spoke, she could feel her face heating with embarrassment.
At worst, she would not eat anything herself and would use her money to buy Gu Xinguo a bowl of noodles.
Qin Zhifeng was truly petty.
He was even miserly over a single meal.
“Wait here.”
After saying that, Gu Xinguo left briefly.
When he returned, he was holding two steamed buns and a canteen filled with hot water.
“They went to the restaurant, but there’s no need for us to join them,” he said. “Eating together would only be awkward and ruin our appetites.”
Shen Jiao accepted the steaming bun and almost burst into tears from emotion.
Gu Xinguo was the first person who had shown her warmth and offered her genuine help since she arrived in this unfamiliar world.
A sudden thought entered her mind.
If she truly could not find a job that would allow her to support herself, perhaps she could simply marry him.
He was about to get divorced and would soon be single.
From what she had observed over the past two days, he was upright, dependable, and responsible.
He also possessed the sort of iron-rice-bowl job that everyone in this era envied, meaning he would have no difficulty supporting a family.
Moreover, his appearance suited her tastes perfectly.
He struck every one of her weak points.
The only question was whether he would be interested in her.
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