A Straight Wife Fallen from the Sky - Chapter 47

“I was born in a very poor place. Deep in the mountains and old forests, it took several hours by tricycle to reach the county seat, or a whole day’s walk. Let’s call it a village for now.

“A closed-off village is a terrifying thing. People have never seen the world, never accepted anything new; they only grow more corrupt, breeding more and more malice.

“My mother died when I was born, from complications during labor. To be precise, modern medicine could have saved her, but my family had no money, and the nearest hospital was too far from the village.

“The person who delivered me was an elderly midwife. Later, I heard her say that the man—my father—almost threw me into a urine bucket to drown me.

“…I survived, but my mother died. That man didn’t want to raise me, so he abandoned me in the village. I lived with the midwife, wandering from the entrance of the village to the end. Every house looked the same: brick and tile houses, shoddily built, where a woman’s scream during childbirth could knock over a chicken coop. Every house had men, children, and pregnant women… I couldn’t tell who was who.

“When I was six, the man remarried a ‘foolish’ wife. It was said she came from somewhere else. I didn’t understand why anyone would come to such a village, but perhaps I was the only one who wanted to escape.

“I was taken back by him to look after that woman who did nothing but giggle and knew how to do nothing… Sorry, I won’t talk about those parts; they aren’t important. Anyway, later, the midwife took me away again and sent me to the only school in the village.

“School and home weren’t much different. Both were dilapidated, escaping neither the summer heat nor the winter cold. Even burning coal and charcoal didn’t help; there was just a group of children huddling together for warmth.

“Actually, the village was quite large. We had some crops and traded with the county seat; everyday people would take their fruits and vegetables there. But the school was still run-down. For the entire primary school, we only had two teachers. They had grown up in the village years ago and returned to give back to their hometown.

“But they would hold my hand and tell me over and over about the world outside. They said some cars had wires on their heads, and some cars had no roofs and made a loud noise, but sitting inside, you could see the sky flying by. They said people in the city dressed fashionably and could go to discos. I asked them what ‘fashionable’ was, and what a ‘disco’ was.

“They just looked at me and smiled. Later I understood that it was a lifestyle—an indescribable world completely different from the village.

“Junior high was also spent in that narrow place. There were a few more teachers, but not much difference. I started following the villagers to the county seat, helping them pull carts and calculate money to earn a little change. They praised me for being educated, yet said my education was useless. I thought about fashion and open-top cars. How could education be useless?

“I saw the harvest seasons again, when the women in some families were about to give birth. I followed the midwife to help. If it was a boy, the family might slaughter a pig. If it was a girl, maybe she’d be raised, or maybe she’d be like me, thrown into… hey, don’t cry.”

“Why?”

“I don’t know. It’s okay, it’s all in the past… sweetheart, don’t cry. Do you still want me to continue?”

“Yes… please, I’m sorry…”

“It has nothing to do with you. It was just those people. Now, they and I are not even from the same world.”

“In short, they tried to stop me, wanting me to stay. When I was fourteen, the man found a ‘husband’ for me. He first took my neighbor… and then almost… no, never mind. Anyway, I fled to the school and didn’t dare leave the dormitory again. At least the teachers would only ‘kindly’ advise me that I wouldn’t have enough ‘stamina’ for high school and wouldn’t make it, but they wouldn’t try to shove men into my dorm room.

“The year I entered high school, the teacher who taught me in primary school got pregnant. She wasn’t married, and it caused a huge scandal. I didn’t know. That summer, I was hauling bricks in the county seat, cutting my hair short to pretend I was a tough kid, even getting into fights so no one would bully me. I saved enough for the first semester’s tuition and hid in the high school dormitory… I didn’t know about the teacher’s situation until she died.

“I never went back to look. I only knew that I absolutely could not stay. If I stayed, I might end up like her, or like my mother. Perhaps every woman in the village ended up the same. I couldn’t stay.

“I forgot to mention, in the high school entrance exam, I ranked third in the county. They said since I wasn’t first, going to high school was useless, and that I’d eventually be overtaken by the boy who ranked fourth, so they tried everything to hinder me. I ran away anyway, without looking back.

“Later? Later, the family of the boy who ranked fourth became nouveau riche, and he didn’t even finish high school. He didn’t show up at the ten-year class reunion either; supposedly the family went bankrupt again, and with no education, he almost couldn’t even get a job as a security guard.

“And the one who ranked first was at the same school as me—she was a girl. The one who ranked first in the whole city was also a girl, just at the neighboring high school. Our high school was a key city school. On my first day, I was foolishly wondering what a ‘city’ even was.

“Sorry, I might be talking too much nonsense.”

“Don’t be sorry. I… I want to understand you, Mumu, everything about your past… as long as you are willing to speak.”

“Alright then. High school… actually, there isn’t much to say. I spent all three years studying. Of course, I didn’t do well every single time.

“I had study methods, but in terms of resources, I was too far behind the city kids. I tried desperately to make up for it. On the first monthly exam, I still only scored slightly above the average. My ranking was hideous; I had never had such a ranking or such a score.

“So my teacher came to talk to me. She taught math, wore glasses, and was quite old-fashioned and strict. In your terms, she was probably a ‘Nun Extinguisher’ type.

“She encouraged me, but I… because of the things I heard growing up—those voices saying I wasn’t good enough, that I lacked stamina, advising me to return to the family—I shrunk back in confusion. I also wondered if I just wasn’t suited for studying.”

“How could that be… they meant because you’re a girl, you’re not suited for studying?”

“Yes. Don’t you think it’s similar? You are a girl, you are a succubus, so you aren’t suited for studying. How ridiculous is that?”

“…Ha, yeah. How ridiculous.”

“The teacher scolded me like that too. She really scolded me for a whole afternoon. I was scolded until I cried. Don’t laugh at me; I was a kid once too, I could cry… I don’t anymore, I’m an adult now. What are you expecting?

“Cough. Afterward, I wiped my tears and walked toward the dorm, her words still imprinted in my mind, along with her eyes that had turned red from anger while scolding me.

“I thought to myself: even if just for the sake of her words, I couldn’t give up. And… if I didn’t study, I’d have to go back to that corrupt village.

“The process of studying isn’t much to talk about. I was just like you, up early and back late, staying up or pulling all-nighters just to finish a paper or clarify a knowledge point. My classmates were the same. That girl who ranked fourth in the county became my friend; we stayed in the same dorm, grinding through problems, reviewing, supervising each other, and occasionally being each other’s little teachers.

“Looking back, high school life was hard, but simple and happy. I didn’t manage to get the rank of number one like I aimed for, but I got into a school with a status similar to your Dongwei University.

“This all seems to have nothing to do with my fears… I’ve wandered too far off.”

“No, Mumu… I, I can hear it. That… ‘husband’…”

“But actually… I actually beat him off and ran away. He just… he just makes it so that every time I sleep, I have to lock the doors and windows tight, even propping a chair against the door and putting a glass cup on it just to feel at ease. Not a big deal, right…?”

“How is that not a big deal! …I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to shout at you, but, but! Mumu, you can’t keep acting like it’s nothing… you clearly…”

By the faint moonlight, Sang Zhancheng saw the smile on Mu Jiahui’s face.

It was clearly very gentle, yet it felt like a sharp blade, stabbing her heart with such pain.

But she didn’t know what to do either.

She had never noticed these things and truly didn’t know that lately, at night, Mu Jiahui would move the dining table to the door and place a glass cup on it, so that if someone broke in, the sound of the glass falling would wake her in time.

Mu Jiahui ruffled her hair. “Really, it truly doesn’t matter. Just putting an extra thing there is fine, it doesn’t affect anything.

“Hug me… hug me again. I’ll keep talking.”

Sang Zhancheng hugged Mu Jiahui tightly.

“After graduating from university, I joined a company. Originally, the position I applied for wasn’t a secretary, but the boss personally came to invite me. I thought… it would be a good job. Just like I thought life would get better since I had already escaped that village that gave birth to me but didn’t raise me.

“But he… that boss, he was a pervert. He liked finding female university students who had just graduated and knew nothing to be his secretaries, and then… to, to…”

“I understand… you don’t have to say it.”

“…Yes. So I ran again, leaving that city without daring to take a single penny with me. He was truly terrifying. That hotel room, that group of people surrounding me…”

Mu Jiahui couldn’t speak anymore. Sang Zhancheng was already sobbing uncontrollably.

She held Mu Jiahui tightly, yet she was the one trembling first.

Perhaps she shouldn’t have made Mu Jiahui speak. If they didn’t do ‘it’, really, nothing would happen.

But by uncovering Mu Jiahui’s scars like this, Sang Zhancheng was also in pain.

Yet she knew that no matter how much her heart ached or how sad she was, it could never compare to Mu Jiahui, who had actually lived through it all.

She didn’t dare think about it. Without parents or sisters to rely on, how did Mu Jiahui manage to escape all by herself?

No wonder Mu Jiahui was so unwilling to be intimate, even being able to resist a succubus’s magic… damn it, she shouldn’t have used spells to entice her or pressure her.

No wonder she couldn’t bear to waste even a single grain of rice and would split a penny in half to spend it.

When she was a child, or after she fled that city, she must have been starving and cold.

And no wonder she was so capable of learning and so diligent.

If she relaxed, she really would face a situation of eternal damnation.

Sang Zhancheng thought about her own current situation; perhaps it was the same.

She no longer had a family to rely on; Mumu had said they would work hard together.

“Mumu…” Sang Zhancheng had no words to comfort Mu Jiahui.

She could only call Mu Jiahui’s name over and over, then hold her a little tighter, and then tighter still.

Mu Jiahui really didn’t shed a single tear.

She just leaned in Sang Zhancheng’s arms, her gaze distant.

…A long time later.

“It’s okay. Actually, he didn’t manage to do anything to me. Thanks to running all over the village when I was little, I ran quite fast.” Mu Jiahui lowered her eyelashes, took Sang Rancheng’s hand, and smiled.

“Really, it’s okay… don’t cry. When you cry, it hurts me to watch.” She had such a girl who loved her so much now; she was very happy.

Some wounds, if not uncovered, will never heal.

Mu Jiahui cut away the decayed flesh, waiting for new flesh to grow.

Sang Zhancheng tried her best to suppress her sobbing, her arms still trembling as she held Mu Jiahui.

The winter wind whistled, and the winter night was cold and silent.

But a lover’s embrace is always that warm.

Mu Jiahui actually felt a slight longing for skin-to-skin intimacy with Sang Rancheng.

It wasn’t dirty or ugly; it was just a naturally occurring desire, a normal thought.

She had, perhaps, truly moved on.