The poor girl from the 1970s was forced to kiss by the damp educated youth.

When Chen Zhi's family was having dinner, it suddenly started to rain, and the ashes from the grass and wood at the door were washed away by the rain.

The uncle looked at the rain outside the door and frowned. "This rain came without any warning."

Auntie thought it was normal, saying, "That's how summer rain is, it starts and stops just as suddenly."

"What do you know? This rain is different from usual. The Liang family said they're cremating Widow Yu tonight—" The eldest uncle's voice suddenly stopped. "Eat, eat, eat, you didn't hear anything."

The people at the table looked at each other, then lowered their heads.

In this area, burial is the preferred practice. Families with better means prepare coffins well in advance, and place coins and silver ornaments inside during the burial. Even infants who die young are expected to be born intact and die intact. Only those who commit heinous crimes are cremated.

The fact that Widow Yu was cremated surprised the Chen family.

She doesn't deserve this.

The sudden rain tonight had an inexplicably eerie feel to it.

With the rain so heavy, the cremation can't proceed, right? What will happen to Widow Yu's body?

In the educated youth settlement, everyone was eating fish in a lively atmosphere. Xi Lang, who was just a wall away, stood under the eaves, looking up into the distance. His dark eyes were unfathomable, more profound and mysterious than the night sky.

He remained expressionless as he watched the black "qi" grow increasingly dense under the nourishment of the heavy rain, eventually taking on a faint human shape.

Xi Lang's sharp eyebrows furrowed slightly, then relaxed abruptly. "There's a cause for every wrong, and a debt for every debt. Don't mess with people you shouldn't."

The black mist churned, and a faint laugh could be heard.

Xi Lang chuckled softly, "You can't mess with her."

She is no longer someone who can be easily taken advantage of.

Chen Zhi, who was washing dishes, sneezed and muttered, "Who's insulting me?"

It rained heavily all night, and the rain subsided in the morning. While Chen Zhi was still in bed, her uncle told her, "The water in the river has risen, and many people are taking fish traps and nets to the ditch to catch fish."

"Dad, do you have any fish?" Chen Da asked.

"Yes, I saw some small fish and shrimp in your uncle's bucket. I came back to get a bucket and tools; I need to go out now," the uncle said hurriedly, sounding somewhat impatient.

"Dad, wait for me, I'm coming too." Chen Gui said as he put on his clothes and came out of the room.

Chen Da, Chen Fu, and Chen Mu all chimed in, "I'll go too."

"Put on a hat, so your head doesn't get wet." Grandma brought out a bamboo hat, which was heavier than a straw hat, but it wouldn't get wet in the rain. Straw hats would easily get moldy and rot if they got wet in the rain.

When Chen Zhi got up, only Chen Dongqing was left in the house.

Chen Dongqing brought Chen Zhi a hat, "Little aunt, why don't you go fishing too?"

Chen Zhi wore new clothes today and didn't want to get wet in the rain, so she refused, saying, "I'm not going."

"Why don't you go?" Chen Dongqing asked, puzzled. "Wouldn't it be better to go play in the water?"

He really wanted to go, but his family disagreed.

Chen Zhi: "It's not fun, I want to rest."

Chen Dongqing became anxious, "But if you don't go, the fish that Grandpa and the others catch won't be enough for the family to eat."

Now, Chen Zhi has become the person Chen Dongqing thinks is the best at fishing and hunting.

Chen Zhi: "We still have fish left at home, so we're not short of fish."

"Is there anything else at home?" Chen Dongqing looked towards the kitchen.

"Yes. If we don't finish it soon, the fish will go bad." Chen Zhi said loudly on purpose, afraid that Ding Fangfang in the kitchen wouldn't hear her.

Chen Zhi couldn't rest at home either, as the women in her family had to twist straw ropes and weave straw sandals.

Grandpa and Uncle cut this grass a few days ago, and it was left to dry in the shade for two days. Now it's perfect for making straw ropes and straw sandals.

"Zhizhi is getting whiter and whiter. Look at these tender little hands. She doesn't look like she's been doing hard labor since she was little," said Auntie.

Upon hearing this, the eyes of several women in the house all fell on Chen Zhi's hands. The once dark "chicken feet" had been transformed, now white and tender, comparable to the scallion segments.

"How did Zhizhi develop such beautiful hands?" The eldest sister-in-law's eyes flashed with jealousy.

Chen Zhi lowered her eyes and said, "I work every day, going up the mountain and down to the fields. Where would I find the time and money to raise them?"

"If you don't have money, how did you get these clothes?" From the moment Chen Zhi woke up until now, her sister-in-law's eyes had hardly left Chen Zhi's clothes.

Why should a sinner in the family be allowed to wear new clothes?

Neither her son nor her daughter are wearing new clothes!

Chen Zhi: "Hunting, trading prey with others."

"We haven't separated yet. The game you hunt belongs to the family, to everyone. Am I right, Grandma?" The eldest sister-in-law looked at Grandma Ding Fangfang.

Ding Fangfang hummed in agreement.

"I have no clothes to wear. My family won't make me any, so I have to earn my own way." Chen Zhi sneered. "You won't make me clothes, but I earned my own. What's wrong with that?"

Eldest sister-in-law: "Of course you're wrong, you broke the family rules."

Chen Zhi: "Then you should separate me out."

When Chen Zhi spoke, the women were all stunned and looked at her incredulously. What family would separate an unmarried girl to live alone when dividing the family property?

"You guys don't like me, so go ahead and separate me out." Chen Zhi said nonchalantly.

"Send you away?" Ding Fangfang sneered. "What do you think you are? What do you think you can take from this family? We raised you, and you think you can just pack up and leave? No way!"

Aunt stared at Chen Zhi's face, seemingly lost in thought.

Chen Zhi didn't refute it; no matter what, it was true that her family was raising her.

If they don't separate her from her family, they'll marry her off. The only question is what kind of man they'll find for her. Will they sell her to a mentally challenged, lame, or old man for a high dowry?

Chen Zhi thought about what she had experienced over the past ten years and felt that her family was very likely to do that.

She couldn't just sit and wait to die; that would be too passive.

You still have to find someone yourself and marry yourself.

At that moment, Xi Lang's cold and sharp face suddenly appeared in Chen Zhi's mind. She froze, how could this be—

Chen Dongqing sat on a small stool, looking towards the front door. "Mom, why aren't Dad and the others back yet?"

"I don't know," the eldest sister-in-law said without looking up.

Just then, the door opened, and the eldest uncle led the four Chen brothers in hurriedly. They slammed the door shut, carrying fishing tools in their hands. The bucket was empty, without a single shrimp.

Chen Fu was soaking wet and looked disheveled, as if he had fallen somewhere.

The others, though not in such a sorry state, still looked shaken.

"What's wrong?" Ding Fangfang asked.

"Liang Song drowned!" the uncle said.

"He's not far from us, in a small ditch. The water is so deep," Chen Da gestured to his thigh. "There's no way he could climb out of that deep water."

"What's even more frightening is that Chen Peng, Chen Ergou, and Chen Xiaoshuai tried to pull him up, but they couldn't budge him." Chen Guiqing said, his face pale.

"We all watched helplessly as Liang Song drowned." Chen Mu's expression was on the verge of tears.

Chen Fu was crying and sniffling. "I heard a strange laugh, like a woman laughing in my ear. I was so scared that I fell into the field, and all the fish in the bucket escaped."

Chen Da: "It wasn't just Xiao Fu; we all heard that laughter. It sounded like... like Widow Yu's voice."

"......"

quiet!

Everyone was so frightened that they even began to breathe cautiously.

After a long while, Grandma Ding Fangfang was the first to come to her senses and instructed, "Little sister, go boil some water. Eldest sister, go pick some pomelo leaves from the doorway and bring them back. They can use the pomelo leaves to bathe in later. I'm going to find your father. Don't go out until I get back. Oh, and sprinkle some wood ash around the doorway. Not just the front door, but every door in the house, and the windows too."

Ding Fangfang took small, quick steps to go out.

"Mom, I'll go with you," the uncle said.

"No, you stay home." Ding Fangfang stopped her, glancing through the crowd before finally fixing her gaze on Chen Zhi. "You're coming with me."

Chen Zhi: "..."

After leaving the house, Ding Fangfang instructed Chen Zhi, "Go to your second uncle's, third uncle's, and seventh uncle's houses, find your grandfather, and then come back with him."

Chen Zhi: "What if we can't find it?"

Ding Fangfang gritted her teeth, "If you can't find it, keep looking. Go to the houses your grandfather frequents; that will be faster."

Chen Zhi pursed her lips. "If I can't go back, will you come looking for me, Grandma?"

"You're tough, you'll be fine." Ding Fangfang glared at her. "Stop arguing, let's get going."

Watching Ding Fangfang walk away, Chen Zhi gave a mocking smile and headed to her second uncle's house first.

The families of her second, third, and seventh uncles were the closest to the Liang family, and her grandmother truly "trusted" her, assigning these three families to her.

Perhaps it was the news of Liang Song's drowning that made the pedestrians hurry along the road, and the banging of doors slamming echoed in Chen Zhi's ears. Chen Zhi couldn't help but quicken her pace toward her second uncle's house.

My second great-uncle's house was also closed. Not only was wood ash scattered at the doorway, but pomelo leaves were also stuck in the cracks of the door.

Chen Zhi stepped forward and knocked on the door, but there was no sound from inside. Chen Zhi paused for a moment, then called out, "Second Uncle, it's me, Chen Zhi. Is my grandfather at your house?"

"Not here," the second uncle replied, a brief two-word answer that showed no intention of opening the door.

Upon hearing this, Chen Zhi turned around and continued to the next store.

Then, footsteps could be heard in the rain; there were quite a few, probably a dozen or so people.

Just as Chen Zhi was about to look up, a dark figure blocked her way. "Don't look."

The person in front of her was soaking wet, his voice was trembling, and his body was shaking slightly. He seemed to be quite frightened, but he stood firmly in front of her.

Chen Zhi looked up and saw Chen Peng's pale face, which was tinged with blue, with raindrops dripping from his chin onto her shoes.

Chen Zhi recalled that when Liang Song drowned, Chen Peng tried to pull him up, but couldn't.

So, these dozen or so people are carrying Liang Bai's body?

Chen Zhi shuddered, and a sense of fear crept into her heart.

"Don't be afraid," Chen Peng said softly.

Chen Zhi didn't dare to move or speak. She was not only afraid of Liang Song's corpse and the thing that drowned Liang Song, but also afraid of Chen Peng, who had touched Liang Song.