Cohen immediately covered his mouth and nodded hard.
Hailee was behind them a little, hiding near a haystack where she could just see their backs. She couldn't see Chase's face clearly, but she thought he looked kind of cute like that.
Chase was smart, especially when it came to calculations. He said Mike would be back soon, and just within two minutes, they saw someone walking from afar.
Even though it was late and completely dark, just by looking at the way he walked, Hailee knew it was Mike.
Mike cared a lot about his appearance. More than two years ago, when he had just been sent to the countryside, it was summer too. She remembered he wore a white shirt and green military-style pants.
When he first started working, he wore the same outfit. White shirts were hard to keep clean, and Mike was a neat freak. He would change clothes almost twice a day.
But he didn't know how to wash clothes. After ruining two white shirts, Mike learned his lesson and changed his style. Sometimes he wore blue work clothes, sometimes green army-style outfits.
Even then, in a sea of black and gray, he still stood out the most.
Now that he was a teacher and no longer working in the fields, Mike had gone back to his original style. Today, he wore a white shirt and blue work pants.
Seeing what he was wearing, Hailee clenched her jaw tight.
This guy must be made of lies—he was such a faker. If she remembered right, the white shirt he was wearing now was the one the original Hailee had bought for him.
The original girl with a foolish love-brain had been tricked into giving up her job for him. To celebrate him becoming a teacher and getting a steady government salary, she even begged her own mother for money and cloth coupons to buy him that shirt.
Mike had said it was too expensive and he couldn't accept it, but his hands had reached out quickly enough. He even wore it the very next day to go on a date with Yara, showing off in public.
And the original Hailee? Afraid that her mother would find out she had secretly given money and coupons to Mike, she lied and said she had lost them. She felt guilty for lying to her family, but when she saw Mike wearing the shirt she bought, she thought it was all worth it.
She couldn't keep thinking about it. The more she remembered, the more she wanted to punch this body a few times. But now this body was hers. Beating herself up didn't make any sense.
She couldn't hit the original Hailee, and she couldn't hurt herself. So Hailee decided she'd beat up Mike a little to let off some steam.
She rolled up her sleeves and crouched, ready to act.
Mike was in a great mood today. Who would've thought? Back then, because of policy, he was forced to go to the countryside and become a farmer. He thought he'd be stuck doing hard labor forever. Then he met the fool Hailee, who found him such a good job.
Hailee looked pretty and didn't seem like a village girl at all. She was also a high school graduate, so her education barely matched his.
If the educated youth center hadn't welcomed someone with better status like Yara, he might have really ended up marrying Hailee out of gratitude.
But life had no ifs. Reality proved that a village girl like Hailee could never compare to Yara, the daughter of a factory deputy director from the city.
Yara wasn't as pretty as Hailee, but her family background was way better. Look at Hailee, struggling just to buy him a shirt. But Yara?
When she found out he was going to be a teacher, she didn't just buy him new pants, she even got him a new pair of shoes.
Today, the school principal praised him again. Most people had to work three months before they could officially become a full-time teacher, but he only had to pass the end-of-month assessment to get promoted early.
Teachers were divided into intern and full-time positions. The commune salary wasn't as high as in the city. Intern teachers got eighteen yuan, but after promotion, it would rise to twenty-six.
Eight yuan a month means ninety-six yuan a year. Just think about it, who really has the ability to earn ninety-six yuan in a year?
Hailee's father is the team leader. Her family probably doesn't even have ninety-six yuan in savings.
Just thinking about how he was about to become a full-time teacher made Mike so happy he couldn't help but hum a little tune.
"Mmph," right as he was feeling proud, someone suddenly covered his mouth from behind. His hands were pulled behind his back and tied. Then a pair of stinky, disgusting socks were stuffed into his mouth.
Mike almost passed out from the smell. He tried to fight back, but then a sack was thrown over his head, and someone punched him hard in the stomach.
Mike curled up on the ground. He wanted to shout, but the socks in his mouth muffled everything. He wanted to struggle, but his hands were tied, and he couldn't move.
All he could do was lie there and get beaten, kicked over and over again.
Mike had never suffered like this before. He was in so much pain that tears and snot ran down his face. If Hailee had seen him now, she probably wouldn't be able to connect this pitiful, beaten man to the one she once loved.
He looked miserable. His face was covered in tears and snot, and even his usual glasses had fallen off.
Mike's looks were average at best, but he knew how to dress. With black-rimmed glasses and a gentle smile, he could make his average face look more appealing, maybe a seven out of ten.
After a while, Callan waved to Cohen, who was still kicking Mike, and signaled him to stop.
Killing someone was illegal. Even though Callan wanted to tear Mike apart for what he did to his little sister, the sound of Mike whimpering from inside the sack made him feel a bit better. Afraid things might go too far, he quickly led Cohen away.
Hailee stayed hidden behind a pile of straw, silently watching them leave. Once they were out of sight, she came out. She felt around Mike's neck and chopped hard, knocking him unconscious, then pulled off the sack covering his head.
The moonlight wasn't very bright. Even with Hailee's sharp eyes, she couldn't clearly see Mike's face. But she didn't care. Once she was sure Mike wouldn't wake up any time soon, she began her revenge.
To prevent Mike from waking up, she covered his head again with the sack, then started a new round of punching and kicking.
Unlike the random hits from her brothers, Hailee targeted spots that were hard to detect but very painful.
Unless Mike went to a hospital, no one would notice the injuries with the naked eye.
Mike liked to manipulate the original Hailee, always leaving her speechless. Tonight, she wanted him to feel the same helplessness.
Since this was a new body for her, after ten or so hits, Hailee was already out of breath. She had to pause to catch it.
Looking down and seeing Mike's white shirt made her furious again. Glancing around to make sure no one was there, she stripped his shirt off completely.
Still not satisfied, she took off his pants too, leaving him only in his underwear.
While pulling off his pants, she checked his pockets and found something.
Two yuan and two taels of food coupons.
She kicked the nearly naked Mike again and cursed, "Tch, filthy bastard. These two yuan are your payment for what I did tonight. Once I recover fully, we'll settle this for real."