Fan Damei pushed Xing Yueya in. The old man next to Grandma Jinxiang reached out and pushed Jinxiang, indicating her to look outside. At this time, Grandma Jinxiang also saw Xing Yueya.
She feel no embarrassment of being caught speaking ill of others. She rolled her eyes and threw out a card: "Eighty thousand." It was not right for the next player to draw the card, nor was it right for her not to draw the card.
Xing Yueya was trembling with anger. Fan Damei thoughtfully handed her her tea and, after she drank, gently patted her on the back. If Lin Shuyue hadn't known that Fan Damei's guilt score was 50% and Xing Yueya's was 30%, she would have been touched by Fan Damei's thoughtfulness.
Xing Yueya finally recovered. She pointed at Grandma Jinxiang and said, "Jinxiang, you are shameless."
Xing Yueya had great difficulty saying these four words.
Grandma Jinxiang stopped playing cards and asked her nurse to help her. She walked up to Xing Yueya and put her hands on her hips. "No matter how shameless I am, can I be more shameless than you?"
"It would be fine if I just met you at the Yunzhou Sanatorium, but how come I still see you at another sanatorium? It's such bad luck. Since you call me shameless, I'll have a good argument with you to find out who is the shameless one."
"In 1967, a new intern named Bai Yu joined Old Zhao's unit. Because of her excellent work, your Old Wei praised her. Not long after, she was reported and sent to Shuhe Farm. She was even forcibly married to a scoundrel there. Tell me, are you responsible for this?"
"In 1969, Huang's younger sister came to visit her family and dropped off some gifts. The things she was carrying were too heavy, and your husband, Old Wei, happened to be back from work and helped her out. As a result, she didn't even stay at her sister's house for two days, and then news of her misconduct spread."
"She couldn't hide even when she returned to her hometown, causing her husband to think she was having an affair. He beat her every other day, and finally she couldn't stand it anymore and jumped into the river."
"I'm just curious, why does every woman who has any connection with your Old Wei never have a good ending? They all either marry thugs or men who have bad behavior."
What Grandma Jinxiang said was not an isolated case. Basically, there are countless cases like this where the women have some involvement with the men in Xing Yueya's family and the ending is the same.
No one is a fool. One or two things are coincidences, but how can they not see the abnormality if three or four things happen?
The women in the family compound didn't like Xing Yueya to begin with, and in the end, they even avoided her. Furthermore, they also spread rumors about Xing Yueya's behavior.
It's also very strange. Ever since the woman started to avoid Old Wei, this kind of thing has stopped happening.
"I won't go into too much detail. Just tell me about those three friends from your youth. Do you think their affairs don't have anything to do with you?"
Xing Yueya's face turned pale and blue. The old men and women who were playing mahjong stopped playing.
They all came from that era. Apart from anything else, the words "poor conduct" could ruin a person in that era. (TL's Note: "poor conduct" / "bad work style" in Chinese is '作风不好' / 'zuòfēng bù hǎo' means behaving improperly, having questionable conduct, or being morally corrupt.)
Women, in particular, would have a hard time if they were even slightly exposed to these words. Those with weaker mental endurance would likely end up like the ones described by Grandma Jinxiang.
The two old ladies who had been getting along well with Xing Yueya these days now had their brows furrowed so hard that they could have pinched a fly to death.
Grandma Jinxiang snorted, "You can't say it, right? Do you really think you did these things perfectly?"
"This is hilarious. Besides his good looks and work aptitude, Old Wei doesn't have any other advantages. Not every woman likes him, but in your eyes, as long as someone is female, you treat them as an enemy."
"You're like a dung beetle guarding cow dung, treating it like a treasure. Xing Yueya, why did your daughter never come home after turning eighteen and going away to study? She didn't even attend Old Wei's funeral?"
After saying this, Grandma Jinxiang returned to the mahjong table and said, "Come on, play mahjong, don't get angry with this kind of person."
"Come to think of it, we've also caught up with the right time. If Old Wei hadn't died and had come to our sanatorium, we wouldn't have had much fun. I'm afraid some people would have been paralyzed on one side and would have stood up to compete with us."
Grandma Jinxiang's words were so funny that everyone present laughed. Everyone's eyes turned to Xing Yueya intentionally or unintentionally, and Xing Yueya felt very embarrassed.
Lin Shuyue looked at Xing Yueya. She finally understood why Xing Yueya's sin value was so high. It was a waste of her nice name.
"Go back, go back." Xing Yueya gritted her teeth. Fan Damei pushed her out. Before she left, she turned around and glanced at Lin Shuyue. Lin Shuyue looked at her. Fan Damei turned around and pushed Xing Yueya away. After they left, Lin Shuyue went outside to call Du Xueli.
Du Xueli promised on the phone that she would go to Xing Yueya's room and provide her with psychological counseling.
As soon as Xing Yueya left, everyone's mood was ruined. In addition, it was time for lunch, so the people playing mahjong dispersed. When Lin Shuyue and others returned to the fourth floor, they heard voices coming from Xing Yueya's room at the end of the corridor, and Fan Damei was standing at the door.
Lin Shuyue's lunch was served by her aunt. The dishes were delicious and the taste was outstanding. After lunch, Lu Xiangcao wanted to take a nap, and her aunt also wanted to take a nap. Lin Shuyue was about to leave. At the stairs, Lin Shuyue saw Fan Damei.
Lin Shuyue walked into the elevator, and Fan Damei also walked in. The two of them occupied the left and right corners of the elevator respectively, maintaining the safest social distance.
The elevator slowly descended. When Fan Damei reached the second floor, she asked, "Are you a reporter? Or a reporter who has a good relationship with the police?"
Lin Shuyue was quite surprised and turned her head to look at Fan Damei. Fan Damei tucked her scattered hair behind her ears.
"Madam, do you know me?" Lin Shuyue felt that her acting skills had always been amazing. For example, now her performance was definitely Oscar-level.
Fan Damei chuckled. "There's no point in pretending to be stupid. I know you're investigating me, and I also know why you're here today. Are you interested in talking to me?"
Lin Shuyue was silent. With a ding, they arrived at the first floor.
Fan Damei straightened her sky blue nursing uniform and walked out.
Lin Shuyue followed her, and the two of them walked to the pavilion beside the artificial lake.
The rain was still falling and the wind blew with a hint of chill.
"If I'm not mistaken, someone has already tracked down my grandparents' house. It won't be long before I'm caught, right?"
Fan Damei's words surprised Lin Shuyue even more. She quietly took out her cell phone, placed it under the stone table, and blindly typed a message to Wu Dongyan.
Fan Damei saw her little action, but she didn't care.
She looked at the lake, which was covered with ripples due to the wind.
"I grew up with my grandmother." Her voice was soft and gentle. "My grandmother had a bad life all her life."
"Her father was a student, but before he could pass the imperial examination, Manchukuo was destroyed. He said he had no way to realize his ambitions, so he became addicted to alcohol and tobacco." (TL's Note: 'Manchukuo' (滿洲國) was a Japanese puppet state in Northeast China (1932–1945), ruled in name by the last Qing emperor Puyi but controlled entirely by Japan.
"In just two years, he had completely wiped out our family's wealth. He even sold my grandmother to Shengyuan Cloth Shop to work as a servant."
"Because she could read a few words, she entered the courtyard of the old lady of Shengyuan Cloth Shop and served. When she was fifteen, she was very beautiful and graceful, so the master of the cloth shop took a fancy to her and forced her to become his concubine."
"She gave birth to my mother when she was seventeen. My mother was her entire life's hope. During the land reform, Shengyuan Cloth Shop collapsed, and she brought my mother out of the shop. After spending her entire life and taking many detours, she finally got my mother into the dance troupe. My mother was determined and seized the opportunity to join the art troupe."
"When the news got back, my grandmother said it was the happiest day of her life. She felt she would have no regrets even if she died."
"She never thought of climbing the ladder of Captain Wei. Her wish, like my grandmother's, was to live her life with her head held high and well."
"But it's so hard for a good person to survive. My mother met Xing Yueya, and because of that man, Captain Wei, her life was ruined."
"My father is a bad boy. He has no skills and loves to beat people. After my mother married him, she was often beaten. My birth didn't change anything. He still loves to beat people. He is not good to me. He never hugs me and is unwilling to say any warm words to me."
"Before my mother passed away, she found my grandmother and entrusted me to her. Maybe you don't know, but before my mother passed away, she took my father away with her as well."
"I went to my grandmother's house. She was very old and in poor health. For so many years, I was raised by her picking up trash."
"She didn't finally rest in peace until I was sixteen. She had many regrets in her life, one of which was the year Shengyuan Cloth Shop collapsed. The owner of Shengyuan Cloth Shop distributed a lot of his wealth, but never left a portion for her children. She felt resentful."
"She's not greedy for that little thing, she just feel that she's didn't do well for my mother."
The old and shriveled old lady seemed to appear in front of Fan Damei again. Before she died, she was still worried about her daughter and kept calling her mother's name.
And all she left for her granddaughter was one sentence: "Live a good life."
Fan Damei used to live a good life. She had no education and worked in an illegal factory. She worked fifteen or sixteen hours a day and earned about two hundred yuan. She lived a good life.
"After I left my job at a small factory, I became a nanny. It's not a hard job. As long as I do my job carefully and don't talk about the host family's right and wrong, I'll be fine."
"It wasn't until I was 20 years old that I heard my employer's guests talking about Shengyuan Cloth Shop. They said that they had gained a lot of good things by reporting Shengyuan Cloth Shop."
"And after the Fan family broke up, how did they kill the Fan family? It wasn't until then that I realized that my mother being abuse by my father wasn't an accident."
"Someone bribed my father to ruin her reputation. They were afraid that my mother, who had slipped through the net, would be seen by the senior officers in the army and turn the tables, so I investigate what happened back then."
"What a proud person my mother is, because of the calculations of these people, she went from being a fairy in the sky to mud in the swamp."
"It's funny to say that my mother, a weak woman, has attracted the attention of so many people. Besides Zhu Xianjun and Liu Xiaojuan, there's also Xing Yueya."
"When my mother was in a particularly good mood, she would tell me about her time in the army, and the person she talked about the most was Xing Yueya. She said that Xing Yueya was just proud, but not a bad person. She said that when they were together, although she was the one who indulged Xing Yueya more, Xing Yueya was also very good to her."
"She also said that Xing Yueya only had her as a friend. After she left, she didn't know what was happening to her. She also wrote letters to Xing Yueya, but Xing Yueya never replied. She didn't think Xing Yueya was unwilling to reply. She always felt that those letters were hidden by my father and not sent out."
"How funny! My mother's best friend turned out to be the one pushing her into this abyss. She found my father and started the rumors in the army. Among the letters reporting my mother, there was one from her."
"It wasn't until I started working as a caregiver at her house that I realized, ah, that for so many years, my mother had been living under her surveillance. Whenever there was a problem happening in our family, my father would write to her to report it. She would mail my father fifty yuan a year."
"She was afraid that my father would betray her in the future, so she even saved the ticket stubs that were mailed to him." Fan Damei smiled, but there was no smile in her eyes.
"Do you think my mother is stupid?" Fan Damei has never been liked by her father in her life. Her mother sometimes likes her very much and sometimes hates her, just like her feelings towards her mother.
She was saying her mother was stupid, but she still started to avenge her many years later.
"Apart from Liu Xiaojuan and Zhu Xianjun, are there any other people?" Lin Shuyue asked after a long time after hearing what she said.
Fan Damei looked at the plainclothes police and the manager of the hot spring villa who came running in, stood up, and smiled: "Maybe there is, maybe not. You go and check it out."
Fan Damei followed the policemen, and Lin Shuyue gave the recorder of the conversation she had just had with her to the plainclothes policemen who came to arrest Fan Damei.
The fact that Fan Damei was taken away by the police was not publicized. To the outside world, the hot spring resort said that something unexpected happened at her family and she had to ask for leave.
No one said anything about this, but Lin Shuyue was invited into the office by the owner of the hot spring resort. Afterwards, all expenses for her grandmother's stay at the resort were waived, and the only request was that Lin Shuyue not tell this matter to anyone for the time being and give them at least a week as a buffer period.
Lin Shuyue agreed. Before leaving, she saw Xing Yueya, who lived in the same building with her grandmother and got angry because the new caregiver did not take good care of her after getting up.
The aunt pulled Lin Shuyue into the room and said, "Don't look at her excitement. This woman is very vicious. She just scolded Aunt Jinxiang in the room. Aunt Jinxiang ignored her, so she smashed everything in the room."
Lin Shuyue thought of Xing Yueya's unclear expression: "With her situation, how could she still curse?"
"Why not? She's still energetic to keep cursing with unclear words."
Lin Shuyue sighed and left the sanatorium after the rain stopped a little.
She returned to Xijiang Apartment at night. Because it was cold, she slept with the window open and covered with a quilt. When she was sleeping soundly, her phone rang and she answered it in a daze.
"Ah Yue, Xing Yueya is dead."
Lin Shuyue sat up suddenly: "Didn't you take Fan Damei away? How did she die?"
"According to forensic examination, she died of cardiac embolism. It is speculated that she died because too much air was injected into her body before she died."