Chapter 3

Cui Yan walked over to the bed and sat down. “I drank too much tonight, so let's not do anything. We should just go to sleep early.” Qi Bingxue's heart tightened when she heard those words from Cui Yan. She hadn't expected him to say something like that. She bit her lip, looking slightly embarrassed. After all, she had already taken off most of her clothes. She was now wearing only a very short two-piece set of underwear. Could it be that because she had been too shy to respond to him earlier, he had misunderstood and thought she wasn't willing? Qi Bingxue's face gradually turned pale. Seeing her expression, Cui Yan immediately understood that she had misunderstood his intentions. She had actually been prepared for their wedding night. At nineteen years old, and having spent years doing physical labor in the fields, Cui Yan was indeed at an age when his physical desires were particularly strong. So, he explained. “Don't worry. It's really because I've been drinking. I don't feel well, and I need to rest.” “It's already too late tonight. I'll talk to you about something tomorrow morning.” Only after hearing his explanation did Qi Bingxue's expression finally relax. “I'll go find another light blanket.” Although Cui Yan said that, he searched around the room and couldn't find another blanket. Qi Bingxue quickly put on an extra layer of clothing. Seeing that Cui Yan was still looking everywhere for another blanket, she spoke softly. “W-Why don't we just sleep together?” Cui Yan had no choice but to return to the bed. There was nothing he could do. After all, the newly built house they were using for their wedding belonged to his uncle's family. The room was practically empty, and the only belongings inside were the wedding gifts and dowry Qi Bingxue had brought with her. There simply weren't any extra blankets. Since there was no spare blanket, there was no point worrying about it. Thinking this way, Cui Yan lay down on the bed. Before long, the alcohol began taking effect again, and he quickly fell asleep. After falling asleep, Cui Yan dreamed about all sorts of random things, mostly involving relatives from the Cui family. Many of the people appearing in his dreams had already passed away in his previous life. His grandfather, Cui Jianguo, and grandmother, Wang Zhaodi, had four children together: three sons and one daughter. The eldest son was Cui Jun, the second son was Cui Guo, the third son was Cui An, and the youngest was their daughter, Cui Xiaoyun. Cui Jun was the eldest legitimate son and the one in whom his grandfather had placed the greatest hopes. Meanwhile, Cui An was his grandfather's most beloved youngest son. Only the second son, Cui Guo, was caught in the middle. He was neither valued nor loved, and was treated as an ordinary, unremarkable member of the family. Despite doing the most work and enduring the greatest hardships at home, he was constantly overlooked. Although Cui Yan's aunt was a girl, and this was an era when sons were generally favored over daughters, Cui Xiaoyun's life wasn't particularly difficult. That was because she had a very sweet tongue and knew exactly how to speak pleasantly to people. As a result, she was quite doted on by the family. Only Cui Yan's father, Cui Guo, was like an overworked old ox, silently laboring for the benefit of the entire family without ever complaining. In fact, his biased grandfather hadn't even intended to find Cui Guo a wife. Cui Guo had once had a childhood sweetheart. However, when the woman's family asked for a small amount of money as a bride price, his grandfather refused to spend even a single cent. As a result, the marriage arrangement fell apart. After his family ruined his chance to marry his childhood sweetheart, Cui Guo completely lost interest in getting married. To save that small amount of money, Cui Yan's grandparents even told outsiders that Cui Guo had been heartbroken over a failed relationship. Using that as an excuse, they rejected every matchmaker who came to arrange a marriage for him. It was worth mentioning that Cui Guo was actually one of the best workers in the fields. Many families would have been more than happy to marry their daughters to him. Yet, in the end, the eldest son had married and started a family, while the youngest son had received the support of the entire family to secure a good job. Even the youngest daughter had been promised to a respectable family. Only Cui Guo remained unmarried. It wasn't until much later, when he finally met a woman who didn't demand a bride price, that he was able to get married. That woman was Cui Yan's mother, Liu Cuifang. She had previously been married to a miner. After her husband died in a mining accident, she was left carrying his child. Liu Cuifang was in poor health and couldn't do strenuous work, so she asked an old traditional Chinese doctor to determine the gender of her unborn child. The result was that she was carrying a girl. She felt too embarrassed to continue staying with her former husband's family and become an additional burden to them. Therefore, she left all the compensation money from the mining company with her former husband's family, the Li family. Then, with her pregnancy already showing, she went to Cui Guo, who had remained unmarried for years, and told him that she wanted to marry him. When Cui Guo heard her request, he was completely stunned. Although he had remained a bachelor and never found himself a wife, that didn't mean he needed to marry a pregnant woman carrying another man's child. Wouldn't that mean spending his own money to raise someone else's child? Naturally, he refused. However, when the old man and old woman found out about Liu Cuifang's request, they immediately made the decision themselves. They ordered Cui Guo to marry this woman who wasn't asking for a bride price, without considering his wishes at all. “You're already in your thirties! Liu Cuifang is such a good woman, and she's even willing to marry you without asking for a bride price. The child she's carrying is a girl, too. Why on earth would you refuse?” “If Liu Cuifang was willing to come all the way to you, it means she genuinely cares about you. She's showing you respect, yet you still have the nerve to turn her down!” “You really have no conscience! You can't even tell what's good for you. She has already said she's willing to bear children for you. What's the difference between a child from a first marriage and one from a second marriage? They're all children, aren't they?” The entire family kept pressuring Cui Guo to marry Liu Cuifang. On top of that, rumors began spreading throughout the village. People said that because Cui Guo refused to marry her, Liu Cuifang had even tried to hang herself at home. There were even more outrageous rumors claiming that the child in Liu Cuifang's womb was actually Cui Guo's. Unable to withstand the gossip and pressure any longer, Cui Guo eventually had no choice but to marry Liu Cuifang. Not long after their wedding, Liu Cuifang gave birth to a boy and a girl. The boy was Cui Yan, while the girl was his younger sister, Cui Miao. In his previous life, it took Cui Yan a very long time to discover that his mother, Liu Cuifang, had actually continued thinking about her former husband all along. The reason she had married another man while pregnant was so that she could secretly take money from his hardworking father, Cui Guo, and use it to help the Li family provide a better upbringing for her former brother-in-law, Li Haichao. Furthermore, her former husband's name was Li Yan. When Liu Cuifang named her daughter, her heart was still thinking about Li Yan. In the end, when she registered the child's name, she directly named her daughter Cui Yan, after the man she still couldn't forget. After giving birth to one son and one daughter with Cui Guo, Liu Cuifang had absolutely no intention of having any more children with him. She simply forced Cui Guo to go to the hospital and undergo a sterilization procedure. Afterward, using the fact that she had given birth to two children as leverage, she became increasingly domineering toward Cui Guo, ordering him around as she pleased. Meanwhile, Cui Guo considered her poor health and the fact that she had given birth to two children for him. Because of this, he continued to tolerate her unreasonable behavior. Unfortunately, this only made Liu Cuifang believe that she had completely gained control over Cui Guo. As a result, although Cui Yan's older sister, Cui Yan, wasn't Cui Guo's biological daughter, she somehow became the most favored of his three children. Whenever the family managed to get even a little meat, none of it would reach Cui Yan or Cui Miao. Instead, it would all end up in Cui Yan's bowl. Because of this older sister, Cui Yan had been falsely accused and framed several times. He could never bring himself to feel close to her, despite how much their family doted on her. And one could only imagine how much suffering Cui Miao, who was younger and also a girl, had endured throughout all those years. In his previous life, it wasn't until his younger sister, Cui Miao, was on the verge of death because of domestic violence that she finally revealed a heartbreaking truth to him. It turned out that the so-called older sister, Cui Yan, had only managed to get into university because Cui Miao had taken the college entrance examination in her place! Yet their so-called mother had continued mentally abusing and belittling Cui Miao at home. She constantly called her as stupid as a pig and would beat and scold her whenever anything failed to go her way. Having been constantly put down by her own biological mother since childhood, Cui Miao had grown up believing that her very existence was a burden to everyone around her. So when her mother told her to take the college entrance examination on behalf of her older sister, Cui Yan, she actually felt that she had finally become useful to the family. That was why she agreed to do it. And at the time, Cui Yan had been completely unaware of everything. He had rarely ever sat down and had a sincere conversation with his younger sister. Fortunately, Cui Miao was determined enough to fight for herself. The following year, she took the college entrance examination again and successfully earned admission to a university. But in the end, Liu Cuifang still forced her to marry Li Haichao, the younger brother of her former husband. She never got the chance to enroll in university. Li Haichao was a completely idle man who spent his days either drinking heavily or gambling. Whenever he ran out of money, he would take his frustrations out on Cui Miao, beating and verbally abusing her. Even when she became pregnant, she couldn't escape his violence. He beat her so severely that she ended up lying in a hospital bed. In the end, both she and her unborn child died. Whenever Cui Yan thought about his younger sister's tragic fate in his previous life, an overwhelming rage surged inside him, so intense that he almost wanted to destroy the entire world. As he slept, Cui Yan began tossing and turning restlessly. Suddenly, he felt himself being embraced by something soft and warm. Gradually, his entire body relaxed. He slowly opened his arms and returned the embrace.