The beloved but ungrateful girl is reborn: This time she has truly changed.

Tang Yaozong and Tang Yaozu had snot and tears all over their faces.

"Dad, I'm hungry..."

"Dad, we want to go home..."

Tang Aijun looked down at the two children, a feeling of inexplicable irritation welling up inside him.

"You all stay at the hospital and look after Grandma!" he snapped. "I'm going back to raise the money!"

After saying that, he ran away without looking back.

The two children were left standing in the hospital corridor, looking lost and helpless, and then burst into tears.

Tang Aijun rushed out of the hospital and ran wildly in the cold wind.

He wants to go back to the family compound of the harvest committee.

Although my father is under investigation, the family should still have money.

My mother must have some savings.

Yes, he asked his mother for money.

He will definitely be able to save Grandma.

It will definitely work...

He kept telling himself this in his mind, as if he were encouraging himself.

But for some reason, the unease in my heart grew stronger and stronger.

It was like a huge rock pressing down on him, making it hard for him to breathe.

This winter is so cold.

The cold was so intense it was almost unbearable.

.

When Tang Aijun ran all the way to Building No. 3 of the Revolutionary Committee's residential compound, his eyes were already seeing stars.

He went from the hospital to the neighborhood office, then from the neighborhood office to the courtyard, and then pushed a cart from the courtyard to take Sun Xidi to the hospital. Now he ran back from the hospital. The whole day's running around had almost exhausted all the strength of this young master who had never suffered or exerted himself.

Building No. 3 is in the best location in the residential compound, facing south and receiving plenty of natural light.

Tang Qu, as the director, was assigned room 302, a three-bedroom, one-living room room with a separate kitchen and bathroom.

These were quite good conditions in Beijing in 1975.

Tang Aijun stood in front of room 302, leaning against the cold wall, panting heavily.

A metallic taste rose in my throat, and my chest burned with pain.

He raised his hand and used his last bit of strength to pound on the door.

"Bang bang bang! Bang bang bang!"

The knocking on the door was loud and urgent, echoing in the quiet hallway.

"Mom! Open the door!" he shouted, his voice hoarse and strained, choked with sobs.

The door to apartment 301 across the hall opened a crack, and a middle-aged man wearing glasses poked his head out to look at him. His eyes were complicated, filled with curiosity, scrutiny, and a hint of something else... schadenfreude.

Seeing Tang Aijun turn to look at him, the man immediately turned back and slammed the door shut.

After quite a while, the door to room 302 opened a crack.

Zhang Qingtian's chubby, white face peeked out.

She was wearing a navy blue wool coat, and her hair was neatly combed, but her eyes were red and swollen, and her eyelids were puffy, so it was obvious that she had been crying.

Upon seeing Tang Aijun, she paused for a moment, then frowned, her thin lips pursed, and she muttered a curse:

"What are you wailing about? No one in our family has died yet!"

Tang Aijun's mind cleared up for a moment.

He suddenly remembered that his mother, Zhang Qingtian, and his grandmother, Sun Xidi, had been at odds for many years.

The conflict between the mother-in-law and daughter-in-law is deep. Zhang Qingtian looks down on Sun Xidi for being from a rural background, uncultured and crude. Sun Xidi, on the other hand, dislikes Zhang Qingtian for being spoiled and putting on airs like an official's wife.

That's why he went to great lengths to win over the small courtyard that Grandpa Qi had prepared for Qi Weiwei when he got married, and then took his grandmother to live with them, thus avoiding a direct conflict between the mother-in-law and daughter-in-law.

For this, Zhang Qingtian often scolded him for being "heartless" and "only recognizing his grandmother and forgetting his mother."

Now, it's almost impossible to get money from Zhang Qingtian to pay for Grandma's medical treatment.

This thought was like a bucket of cold water poured over Tang Aijun's anxious heart.

He swallowed his words and didn't mention money immediately.

The door was opened a little too wide, and Zhang Qingtian pulled him inside, then quickly closed the door and turned the lock.

The room was still the same as before, clean and tidy, even somewhat deliberately so.

The octagonal table was polished to a shine, and a portrait of the leader and several certificates of merit hung on the wall.

But there was a suffocating atmosphere in the air, along with a faint smell of tobacco—Zhang Qingtian didn't smoke, so the smell could only have come from Tang Qu.

"Look at that bastard across the street!"

Zhang Qingtian didn't ask her son why he came. She plopped down in the wicker chair, pointed outside the door, and started cursing.

"Your dad was taken away no sooner than he started making sarcastic remarks in the hallway!"

They said things like, "Director Tang probably won't be coming back this time," and "Embezzlement and bribery are punishable by death!"

Pah! What a load of crap!

Your father isn't even dead yet, and their family is already trying to hog me!

She grew angrier as she spoke, her voice becoming shrill and spittle flying everywhere.

Tang Aijun could only obediently sit down on the wooden stool next to him, listening to his mother nag about the neighbors across the street, cursing that "bastard" for kicking someone when they were down, and cursing those who used to fawn over their family for turning their backs on them.

His mind was a mess.

Grandma is still in the hospital waiting for her life to be saved.

The two sons were still hungry.

He didn't have a single penny in his pocket.

But Zhang Qingtian didn't care about any of that.

She was immersed in her anger and resentment and needed to vent, and her son was the best listener.

"...I said it before, that idiot surnamed Qi is not good enough for you!"

Coming from a humble family, they are ignorant and ill-mannered!

But you insist on marrying me!

Now look what's happened! She ran off with the money, your dad got arrested, our whole family is finished!

After cursing her neighbor, Zhang Qingtian started cursing Qi Weiwei, Tang Aijun, and the injustice of fate.

Tang Aijun lowered his head, his fingers picking at the hole in his pants—it was torn when he was pushing the cart earlier.

He dared not look up, dared not interrupt, and could only listen.

The clock on the wall ticked away.

Time passed by, second by second.

Finally, during Zhang Qingtian's pause to drink water, Tang Aijun managed to interject with a sentence:

"Mom, give me two hundred yuan."

"What?" Zhang Qingtian put down the enamel mug, her eyes widening. "Nothing!"

Her narrow eyes, so similar to Tang Aijun's, were now filled with wariness and impatience: "You heartless little brat, your father's already under investigation, what are you planning to do with all this spending now? Is it that little vixen, Tang Tiantian, asking you for something again?"

Zhang Qingtian doesn't like Tang Tiantian, and of course, she doesn't like Qi Weiwei either.

She was the kind of mother-in-law who was naturally an enemy of her daughter-in-law, and she had an extremely strong possessiveness towards her son.

In her eyes, any woman who gets close to her son is a "little vixen" trying to steal him away.

"It's not Tian Tian." Tang Aijun gave a bitter smile, his voice hoarse. "Mom, that idiot stole all the money in the house. Your two grandsons need to eat..."

"Eat?" Zhang Qingtian interrupted him, sizing Tang Aijun up and down with eyes like knives. "You don't have a single penny left in your pocket? That little vixen Tang Tiantian emptied it all out?"

She didn't care whether her grandson was hungry or not; after all, her grandson wasn't close to her.

But no matter how close they are, he's still her grandson, and I'll have to take care of him in his old age and see him off when he dies.

She only cared about money, and whether Tang Aijun had given all the money to Tang Tiantian.

Tang Aijun felt a chill in his heart.

But he had no choice but to go along with Zhang Qingtian's words: "Mom, you've misunderstood. Tiantian, she..."

"What misunderstanding?!"

Zhang Qingtian got agitated again and started cursing at Tang Tiantian.

"That little slut, she's been clinging to you since she was a kid!"