Windfall

This program was produced by Tomato Listening.

Lin Yuzhu was speechless. Thinking of how such a lonely little girl had been bullied, she did feel a little sorry for her. "When I left home, the system only gave me ten yuan. What about the other twenty?"

Sigh, she had kept suffering, had not even borne any children, and who knew how she had survived those days of enduring bandits? Even eating candy tasted bitter, and whatever money she had was taken away by her mother.

Only later did I find out that Doctor Luo usually went up the mountain to gather herbs, yet he never charged the villagers for treatment.

"Then did you break up with him?"

"Everyone in the village said I was shamelessly trying to cling to him. He was going to become the son-in-law of a town girl. How could he possibly fancy me?"

At this point, Wang Xiaomei gritted her teeth and said, "Only later did I find out he already had someone in the town."

"I almost, almost..." Before she could finish, she threw her arms around Lin Yuzhu and wailed.

Lin Yuzhu patted Wang Xiaomei absently. Why did this gossip make her a little angry?

The rest of the story was all too predictable. That village lad eventually married the town girl, inherited his father-in-law's job, and went to work as a miner. He went from scratching out a living in the fields to eating from the public coffers. When one person rose to power, even their chickens and dogs ascended to heaven.

Once the father-in-law died, his parents immediately moved into town. Whenever the neighborhood committee cracked down on vagrants, they went back to the village. When the inspections stopped, they returned to town. After several rounds of this, the neighborhood committee could not be bothered with them anymore.

Lin Yuzhu figured that the town girl probably did not have an easy life either. With such an awful mother-in-law, it was easy to imagine.

The little bit of ambiguity between Wang Xiaomei and that young man had not spread around. His family had likely covered it up on purpose, afraid the town family would find out. If Wang Xiaomei had not held her final line of defense, she might have ended up losing both her money and herself.

In the latter half of the night, Huang Xiaomei developed a slight fever again. Lin Yuzhu mixed some warm water and fed her fever medicine. Her fever did not return, and they slept well through the night.

When they got up the next morning, Wang Xiaomei was already able to bounce around twice.

Young people really did recover well!

After getting dressed and folding her bedding, Lin Yuzhu pulled over a stool and sat down, speaking with great authority.

"Come on, Wang Xiaomei. Let's settle the score."

Wang Xiaomei was speechless. They had finally gotten a chance to rest, yet the Educated Youth were all heading to town.

Huang Xiaomei was sick and did not want to go. Seeing that she was fine, Lin Yuzhu went with everyone else.

There were quite a few people on the road, as though everyone were hurrying to town together.

Lin Yuzhu's heart burned with excitement. She wanted to go to the Black Market to sell goods, but her gaze drifted to Li Xiangwan. After some thought, she decided against it. The Black Market still did not seem very safe at the moment.

After taking the Ox Cart into town, Li Xiangwan could not even be bothered to make an excuse. She simply left, looking utterly carefree.

Lin Yuzhu claimed she was going to mail a letter and slipped away too.

Zhao Xianglan stared at the two departing figures, her eyes gleaming maliciously as she said in a strange tone, "When you had a fever, he did not even come to take a look at you. But look at Wang Xiaomei yesterday. Even someone like her was specially taken to town for treatment. Who knew how much money he spent on her? Could someone like Wang Xiaomei ever pay him back?"

"Who knows what he sees in her."

"You know, if the people in the village see this, it'll look like you're not even as good as Wang Xiaomei."

Thinking of how that person had claimed to have no money when she borrowed money during the autumn harvest, Zhang Yanqiu clenched her fists, her face full of hatred.

The Dong Sisters sneered inwardly. They exchanged a glance, found an excuse, and split off from them.

Not long after leaving, they began complaining.

"Pah!"

Zhang Yanqiu spat in the direction of the Dong Sisters. She no longer cared that she was becoming increasingly crude. All she could think was that there was not a single good person in the Educated Youth Dormitory.

Zhao Xianglan stared coldly at Zhang Yanqiu, thinking the more she hated them, the better. It would be best if she hated them so much that she went mad.

Lin Yuzhu was not in a hurry to sell her goods. She first went to the post office and mailed the letter she had written to Lin Jia.

She had originally planned to get some walnuts, hazelnuts, red dates, or pine nuts to mail home after some time. But after thinking it over, she decided to send a letter first. Given Lin Mother's personality, she must have been waiting anxiously for her reply. If she did not write back soon, Lin Mother would probably worry every day that the package had been lost in the mail.

When she bought stamps at the post office, Lin Yuzhu's thoughts paused. She hated that she knew nothing about stamps. Otherwise, heaps of money would have been waving at her.

So she decided to cast a wide net and catch plenty of fish. Every time she came to town, she would buy some stamps, no matter how much room there was for appreciation.

She had not expected that once she started buying, she would keep at it for years. After she died, her descendants would continue passing down her stamp collection.

After mailing the letter, Lin Yuzhu remembered that she still had an unread letter.

It was fine when she had forgotten about it, but now that she remembered, not reading it made her unbearably curious.

So she sat outside the post office, opened the letter, and read it carefully, her eyes racing over the words.

Based on her many years of reading novels, Lin Yuzhu could more or less guess Qiu Ming's identity.

This Qiu Ming might have been something like a childhood sweetheart of the Lin Family's little brother. He might even have been a bamboo-horse sweetheart.

Lin Yuzhu had looked through the original owner's belongings and had never seen any letters. The original owner must have hidden them somewhere, so Lin Mother could not find them, and neither could she.

Qiu Ming's letter was full of grievances. He had never received a reply from her. Could it be that she had changed her heart?

Unwilling to accept it, Qiu Ming sent a letter to a childhood friend and asked him to look into it. Only then did he learn that Lin Yuzhu had gone to the countryside. After many twists and turns, he found out the address of the place she had been sent to, so he specially wrote this letter. It was simple: he asked what she meant. Did she have some difficulty, or had she changed her heart?

At least she should say something. She should not leave him waiting endlessly, waiting until he could neither eat nor sleep, becoming thin, even his stomach growing thin.

The rest was all something Lin Yuzhu had imagined out of thin air. She truly had not expected someone like this to appear.

Lin Yuzhu felt a little awkward and did not know what to do next. While she was thinking, she inadvertently looked up and jumped in fright. There was another head above hers.

"Hm?"

"Aren't you going to deliver the mail?"

When had this guy appeared behind her? How had she not heard a thing?

And had he... had he been peeking at her letter?

Shen Bojun rubbed his nose and said with slight embarrassment, "I just collected the newly arrived mail. I was about to deliver it."

Shen Bojun was only embarrassed for a moment. Soon, he spoke as though they were old acquaintances. Lin Yuzhu blinked. "Then... take care. I won't see you off."

Seeing the little girl across from him looking like she was trying to chase him away, Shen Bojun chuckled. In a cool, clear voice, he said, "Do you need to borrow a pen and paper to write a reply?"

Lin Yuzhu had only ever heard the phrase that when a beauty smiled, a hundred charms came to life. She had never known a man could have the same effect. Reining in her thoughts, she shook her head. "Ah, no. How am I supposed to reply to this letter?"

She really had not considered it. This was difficult.

What was she supposed to do? The crucial issue was that the handwriting would not match. Thinking about it, the highest form of breaking up was vanishing from the other person's world.

Yes, that was it. She would not reply. She would ignore him.

Shen Bojun stared at the little girl still squatting on the ground. He began pondering again, then shook his head and rode away on his bicycle. Even after cycling a long distance, he was still thinking about it.

Shen Bojun smiled to himself. That little girl whose feathers had not even grown in was already considering breaking up, while he, a young man in his twenties, had not even managed to get a girlfriend. He was far behind these young kids. What could possibly make a person happier than earning money?

Putting aside her current troubles, Lin Yuzhu wandered into an empty corner. No one passed by here. There was a wall behind her, and this side was a dead end, making it very safe.

After checking the area, she was about to enter her space when she seemed to hear approaching footsteps, as though they were coming from behind the wall.

Before she could listen more closely, a backpack fell from the sky and struck her squarely. At the same time, the system's voice sounded in her ear: "Danger detected. Host, please enter the space immediately."

The backpack fell too suddenly. By the time Lin Yuzhu reacted and tried to dodge, it was already too late. It struck her off-center. She figured there was definitely a bump on the side of her head. Suppressing her cry of pain, she cursed inwardly as she clutched the bag and quickly flashed into her space.

It had only taken an instant. Two men climbed over the wall, and when they landed and saw the empty ground, they were stunned.

"Chu He, you threw the bag here just now, right?"

"Big Brother, I threw it right behind this wall. That's right. Where's the bag?"

The two looked confused and somewhat angry. Some little brat must have carried the bag away.

Looking at the empty alley with not even a shadow in sight and hearing the footsteps of people chasing after them, they looked conflicted.

"Go!"

The two men ran off as though the wind were beneath their feet.

Not long after they ran away, several more people climbed over the wall. Seeing the men fleeing into the distance, Zhang Dayou, who was leading them, shouted.

"Damn it, those bastards can really run!"

The man using the alias Li Goudan was panting from exhaustion.

"Quit talking nonsense and hurry after them. Those two sons of bitches really are something."

Wang Dazhu cursed profusely.

"Uh, don't let them really get away!"

Chen Fatty said worriedly.

"Make it look more convincing. Chase them a little longer."

Then the group howled past. Lin Yuzhu, hiding in her space, did not have time to check the bump on her head. Instead, she quickly opened the backpack in her hands.

There was something unusual about this backpack. It was bloodstained, and when she opened it, golden light gleamed out, nearly blinding her.

Lin Yuzhu thought that it was truly fortunate she had not been smashed to death.

Luckily, luckily, she had dodged a little and been hit off-center.

If it had hit her properly, she might have become the first woman in the world to be beaten to death by a bag of gold.

She was not in the mood to count the gold bars right now. Lin Yuzhu was more concerned about what was happening outside.

After the system investigated the situation outside and reported back, Lin Yuzhu felt she might have encountered a case of thieves robbing thieves. Her mind raced as she analyzed the situation. The two men who had thrown the backpack were very likely carrying all their belongings as they prepared to flee. Because pursuers were behind them, they had no choice but to abandon the search for the backpack and leave. But there was no guarantee they would not come back to look for it after shaking off those people.

So it would be best for her to leave the space and run far away at once, lest she run into them head-on. She could not even spare the time to disguise herself. Rather than waste time on that, she might as well run.

By the time Lin Yuzhu returned to the town's main street, ten minutes had passed.