1979: My fiancée is a goddess

Chapter 362: Distant Relatives, Inspiration Flashes

At two o'clock in the afternoon, bursts of shouting were heard from downstairs.

"Is Sister Wan at home?!"

On Daowai Street in the afternoon, outside the red lacquered wooden door of an old and elegant Russian-style house.

A woman, probably in her thirties or forties, wearing a thin green military coat, was standing at the door with a bamboo basket in her hands, her neck hunched and shivering.

A pigtail hung behind her head, and her dry and cracked face was pale and bloodless due to the street wind, and her exposed hands were frozen blue and purple.

The whole person looks like a tree covered with ice and snow in winter, which may drop into small pieces all over the ground at any time.

"Bang bang bang!"

The woman's hands, which were covered with frostbite and frozen in the cold wind, were banging on the door.

As no one responded after she knocked for a long time, she had to withdraw her hand, took a few steps back, and shouted a few times hoarsely towards the upstairs.

But there was still no movement.

"Hoohoo... maybe he's taking a nap or visiting relatives and friends during the New Year."

The woman sighed, returned tiredly to the door and sat on the steps, huddled in a corner holding the bamboo basket in her hands to preserve the remaining body temperature.

Her shivering body finally warmed up a little. She put her hands in her sleeves, held them in front of her, and blew hot air into her sleeves to keep warm.

But this warmth was fleeting and turned into white water vapor and dissipated.

Fatigue and cold made her eyelids heavy as lead, and before she knew it, she slowly closed her eyes.

About a quarter of an hour later, the door creaked open.

"what……"

Her body suddenly lost balance, and her frozen body was extremely stiff, so she naturally fell backwards in a mess, causing the middle-aged woman to suddenly wake up and scream.

Before I could even look back, I was quickly supported by a pair of hands.

"Cui Lan?!"

Jiang Wan exclaimed as she looked at the face in front of her that looked both familiar and unfamiliar.

This turned out to be her cousin Jiang Cuilan, the daughter of the aunt who adopted her and her sisters when they were young.

We haven’t seen each other for more than ten years. Why are you here suddenly?

I was thinking about him in the morning for some unknown reason, but I didn't expect him to come in the afternoon.

"Sister Wan..."

Jiang Cuilan shouted out, half surprised and half embarrassed.

"Come in quickly, it's cold outside."

Jiang Wan quickly helped the woman into the house. The warm air blew on her face, immediately making Jiang Cuilan's pale face a little rosy.

After a while.

The whole family came downstairs to welcome this distant relative who had suddenly visited.

"This should be my mother's cousin. I remember hearing my aunt say when I was a child that they lived with an uncle when they were young. Later, the uncle died young, and it was that aunt who took them in for a year or two."

Liu Xiaoli noticed that Cheng Kaiyan was a little curious, so she leaned over and whispered in her ear to explain the relationship.

"I see."

Cheng Kaiyan was stunned. It turned out that Aunt Wan and her younger aunt had been fostered in other people's homes since they were young.

The parents...

"Well, grandma and grandpa passed away a long time ago. My aunt was only about five or six years old when they passed away. It was very pitiful."

Liu Xiaoli bit her lip. Even when she thought about it now, she still felt a little sorry for her mother and aunt. She was glad that the two of them were able to grow up safely and healthily.

"They live in extreme poverty. Although they are not hungry or cold, they are not well fed or well clothed. They always wear the rags and patched clothes of their children. They have never bought new clothes. I don't like their family anyway."

At this point, even the kind-hearted Liu Xiaoli looked at the woman drinking hot tea on the sofa with an unhappy expression.

"Hey……"

Cheng Kaiyan couldn't help but outline the childhood of Aunt Wan and her younger aunt in her mind. Such an unfortunate childhood would take a lifetime to heal.

Both parents died, the family fell into poverty, and I had to live under someone else's roof...

I'm afraid that both Aunt Wan's and my aunt's personalities are more or less influenced by their childhood.

Especially my aunt, she looks so cold.

Thinking of her childhood, Cheng Kaiyan felt soft in her heart, and felt a sense of empathy and distress. No wonder... she always said that she was very similar to her.

The two of them were whispering to each other, while Aunt Wan and Uncle Liu were carefully entertaining this cousin whom they hadn't seen for decades.

"My mother's health has not been good over the years. I have been taking care of her while she is lying in bed. Xiaohu is useless. I finally used the money from that time to marry a wife, but she has a bad fate. She died last month after having heavy bleeding during childbirth, leaving behind two children, one big and one small..."

Jiang Cuilan sat on the sofa with her shoulders hunched, feeling awkward. Her tone was as stiff as her frozen hands. She spoke of her experiences over the years in difficult words, her sunken eyes red and moist.

"Ah."

Jiang Wan's face darkened slightly, and she nodded indifferently, but her attitude was still gentle.

"call……"

Jiang Cuilan took a long breath and looked at her cousin in front of her with complicated eyes. She had a ruddy complexion and an extraordinary demeanor.

I felt both envy and inferiority in my heart. I still remember that more than 20 years ago, when they were still little girls of 11 or 12 years old, I proudly showed off to them the new emerald red jacket I bought at the market during the Spring Festival.

Thinking about it now, I was really ignorant.

Jiang Cuilan felt bitter in her heart. Thinking of the purpose of her visit today, she handed over the bamboo basket that she had treasured and carefully guarded along the way, and said carefully:
"This time it came suddenly. These are a dozen eggs laid by my hens, plus a broiler chicken..."

"You came all this way, what kind of New Year gifts are you bringing..."

Liu Jianshe shook his head and said in a deep voice.

"This this……"

When Jiang Cuilan saw that they refused to accept it, her face turned red and she didn't know what to do.

"Okay Cuilan, just tell me what you want to talk about this time."

Jiang Wan said calmly.

"This... Sister Wan, I'm going to be shameless and say this. I came here to borrow money from you."

Jiang Cuilan didn't dare to look at her cousin's expression. She lowered her head in embarrassment and spoke hesitantly.

"How many?"

"Fifty... We're running out of rice at home... Twenty is fine."

"Huh... I'll get you a hundred later, and you can take your things back."

Jiang Wan let out a long breath and said in a deep voice: "If there are things you can't control, just don't worry about them. Take care of yourself first."

"I know what I'm doing. I'll write an IOU for the money and I'll definitely pay it back to you later."

……

I gave this distant cousin a hundred dollars and sent her away, but I ended up keeping the eggs and chickens.

"Hey……"

Jiang Wan leaned on the sofa, looked up at the ceiling in a trance, and murmured to herself: "If it weren't for..., I wouldn't have fallen to this point."

"If not what? Mom, what are you talking about?"

Liu Xiaoli came over and asked curiously.

"Speaking of the past, if our family had not been harmed by a villain, your aunt and I would not have had such a hard life.

In addition, my distant uncle is also a remarkable person. If he could live to this day, he would be an old hero in his sixties or seventies, and my aunt's family would not be living such a miserable life.

This branch of theirs used to be the stewards of the Cao family, a scholarly family in Shanghai during the Republic of China.

My mother often lamented his misfortune and early death.

My uncle was born into a romantic and knowledgeable family. When he was fifteen or sixteen years old, he went to study in England with the eldest daughter of the Cao family. The two of them fell in love with each other. Later, the son of a wealthy businessman from Jiangsu and Zhejiang came to propose to the eldest daughter.

My uncle was also slandered for some bad things and unfortunately was thrown into jail.

Later, during the Anti-Japanese War, he was pulled out of prison by the Republic of China military government and became a soldier. He participated in the Battle of Songhu and the Battle of Nanjing...

Later, at the age of 26 or 27, he was promoted to the commander of the National Army, but he died in the anti-Japanese battlefield without knowing why..."

Jiang Wan's pretty face was full of memories. She also heard it from her mother when she was young. Later, she was fostered in her aunt's home and learned more from her aunt.

Everyone listened attentively, and Cheng Kaiyan was also immersed in the story told by Aunt Wan, lamenting the early death of such a person, and lamenting the era of the Republic of China when Shanghai was both beautiful and the land of China was in decline.

A flash of inspiration came to my mind, and I suddenly felt like I had grasped something, but it was gone in a flash.

Cheng Kaiyan's dark brows were deeply furrowed, making him upset.

"What exactly is it?"

(End of this chapter)