CTF 0023

Xu Yin couldn’t help rolling her eyes when she saw Xu Jianjun pawing all over her bicycle as soon as he arrived. 

“Cousin, are you here to fulfil your bet, or are you here to mess with my little electric donkey?”

“Hehe, both, of course. Is ‘Little Electric Donkey’ your nickname for it? Let me ride it first, and I’ll go plant the rice seedlings after, alright? It looks really interesting. By the way, how is this thing electric? How does that work? Does the electricity make the wheels turn automatically? And how do you put the electricity in? I haven’t seen any electricity source in your house… Hey, Yinyin, wait for me…!”

“…”

After Xu Jianjun discovered Xu Yin’s little secret and rode her electric bike once, he kept showing up from time to time to her house. He made their courtyard much livelier than it used to be.

Xu Yin got fed up with his incessant probing questions and handed him a stack of modified drawings based on the electric bicycle’s characteristics.

“Figure it out for yourself!”

“Alright! Thanks, Yinyin!”

After fulfilling the bet, Xu Jianjun happily rolled away with the design drawings. Despite being a bit dumb, he was generally a reliable person.

Xu Yin hoped that he would use these drawings to contribute to the country on her behalf. 

If even just one person managed to spot what was unusual about the electric bicycle’s design, it’d make solar panels available to many more people much sooner. 

She could consider it her indirect contribution to the country, right? Xu Yin mused secretly. 

However, her thinking inevitably led to her worrying. If the design was truly given to the government, could they trace its origin back to her? Would they realise that she was a unique existence? 

She discreetly touched the projection of the system interface. They shouldn’t, right? The design could just be credited to her intelligence, right?

Xu Jianjun hadn’t come again since Xu Yin had given him the stack of design drawings. Her third grand-uncle, who liked to relax in the shade of a big locust tree, said that Xu Jianjun had gone to the county city to attend night school there. He had obtained some design drawings that he wanted to understand, so he convinced his parents to pay for his tuition and enrolled there.

For this, Xu Jianjun’s mother scolded vigorously for several days. She was, in fact, still sulking at home. Otherwise, considering her personality, she would have been out and relaxing under the tree long ago.

Xu Yin: “…”

It wasn’t her fault, alright? 

Xu Yin also found out that Xu Jianjun’s highest education before this was primary school… More precisely, he had only attended school for three years and obtained a primary school diploma somehow.

Well, even if she had known at the time, she probably would have given him the drawings. After all, he had been incessantly probing with questions, and who could have anticipated this outcome?

In the blink of an eye, the summer break came to an end.

Mother Xu took a few chunks of pickled vegetables from the cellar and prepared to make some pickled vegetable pancakes. She also boiled a few salted duck eggs. She was getting everything ready for her daughter’s return to school.

She not only prepared food but also gave Xu Yin ten yuan. 

“Mom, I have money,” Xu Yin protested. 

She hadn’t even spent much of the income she’d made from selling the clothes that her sister-in-law made. 

“Take it! You’re in your last year now and you have to study hard. Buy some of your favourite snacks to keep your energy up. Don’t hesitate to spend it. When you run out, come back home, and Mom will give you more money.”

Mother Xu was quite well-off now. 

Besides the money that her son sent home, she had also received the lion’s share of the income from her daughter-in-law’s clothing business. She didn’t mind spending money on her daughter one bit.

Xu Yin was touched. 

No matter how domineering and unreasonable her mother appeared in the original plot, she loved her daughter just like most mothers in the world. In fact, she might even love her daughter a bit more.

“Mom, I’ll work hard and try my best to get into a good university and bring honour to our family.”

“Good. Just try your best, that’s all I ask.”

Mother Xu hadn’t learned about her daughter’s academic performance. The Xu family had never produced a scholar, and they weren’t known for being academically inclined. 

She didn’t care if her daughter made it into a good university because her eldest son would surely take care of her.

After reporting back to school, Xu Yin had half a day of free time in the afternoon. She went to the post office and sent a package her sister-in-law had prepared for her older brother. 

She had been saving for a few months and had plenty of pocket money.

She saw a new batch of stamps arriving at the post office and bought one of each. Perhaps they could become family heirlooms one day. 

While she was leaving the post office, a woman walked towards her. She kept talking to the person behind her and didn’t even look at the road. Xu Yin took a quick step back to prevent them from bumping into each other.

However, the woman very unreasonably told her, “Why aren’t you looking at the road when you walk? Don’t you have eyes?”

Xu Yin: “…”

Shouldn’t she be the one saying that? 

“Come on, Sister. Let’s get on with the important stuff,” a middle-aged, moustached man standing beside the woman urged. 

“Didn’t we agree to meet at 2.30? Being late won’t leave a good impression. By the way, why isn’t Yunjing here? Weren’t you planning to arrange a marriage for her? It’s understandable if Yunfei can’t come, but why can’t Yunjing come? They’re going to want to meet her first.”

“It’s not that I didn’t want her to come, but you know what her temper is like. She’s a stubborn one, that one. She refused to agree to an arranged marriage. She said that even if she had to be sold off to become someone’s wife, she’d still choose her groom herself. She’s driving me crazy…”

The two continued to mutter as they walked away. Xu Yin stood there, unable to snap out of her shock. 

Yunjing? Yunfei?

Weren’t those the names of the female protagonist and her disabled older brother from the original plot?

Xu Yin was shocked. Oh my gosh! She had no clue that the plot already progressed this far.

The female protagonist was being pressured by her family to agree to an arranged marriage, even though she wasn’t interested in her prospective groom. 

Well, a smart and promising man wouldn’t want to enter a marriage where the older sibling’s fate was tied to the younger sibling’s.

However, if Zhu Yunjing didn’t get married, then how would the Zhu family be able to afford Zhu Yunfei’s bride’s marriage dowry?

Zhu Yunfei had a physical disability. His looks were also not particularly remarkable. And yet, he had high standards and insisted on finding a young, attractive bride who had a good reputation. 

His parents had always cherished him. If they didn’t, they would never have sacrificed their daughter’s future happiness to secure a good wife for their son.

Zhu Yunjing also resisted her family’s plans in the original plot. She stubbornly refused to marry the man they arranged to marry her, as she considered the practice a remnant of feudal thinking. Even if her family insisted on selling her by telling her how much it’d help the family, she insisted on choosing the person she’d be sold to. 

Honestly, if the female protagonist had nothing to do with her, Xu Yin would have admired her courage to confront arranged marriages and parental authority. 

But now, she just wanted to stay as far as she could from the female protagonist. 

She feared that the female protagonist’s halo would be so radiant that the plot that she’d painstakingly changed would be pulled back onto its original track.

Thinking of the miserable fate of her sister-in-law, her nephews, her parents, and herself sent shivers down her spine. By the time the plot unfolded, Xu Yin wouldn’t even have a place to complain to anymore. 

She patted her cheeks. She steadied and encouraged herself.

Things would be fine! Her sister-in-law would be fine, too. Xu Yin would pick her up in advance as her due date approached, and she’d give birth in the county hospital. There shouldn’t be any complications, either. As long as Xu Yin’s sister-in-law was fine, Zhu Yunjing wouldn’t marry my older brother, and the rest of the plot wouldn’t happen.

With that thought in mind, she turned back to the post office and wrote a letter to her older brother. 

She told him that her sister-in-law was pregnant and that her estimated due date was at the end of the year. If he had any time off, he should come home to visit her. 

She also mentioned that the package she had sent had been specially prepared by her sister-in-law. Her sister-in-law had made the shirts and the dickie collars. Likewise, her sister-in-law had fried the chilli sauce and the pickled vegetables. All of them were from her!

Xu Yin stressed the importance of remembering the hand that fed you. Since her sister-in-law had fed him, he’d better always remember how wonderful she was!