"These days everyone talks about freedom in love and marriage. Ours was fixed by our parents. We ought to move with the times, break from the old ways, and get divorced, Er Ya."
"And you don't need to worry about having nowhere to go after the divorce. Even if we part, we're still family. You can keep living here just the same. I'll treat you like my own sister, and my parents will treat you like a real daughter too. You..."
The moment she opened her eyes, Stella Ashford found herself in a strange world, and before she could make sense of anything, she heard that whole speech.
What kind of shameless nonsense from a scumbag was this?
A marriage arranged by parents? Treat her like a sister? Get divorced and still live under the same roof?
The more she listened, the hotter her temper burned. She thought, If I keep swallowing this, sooner or later it'll make me sick. Back down once, and the anger only gets worse. Keep enduring it, and something bad is bound to happen.
In the end, she couldn't hold it in. With a sharp smack, she swung her hand and slapped the bastard hard across the face.
Right after that, the whole room went dead quiet.
Lawrence Whitfield had never imagined that Penny Ashford, who had always been hardworking, thrifty, careful in every little thing, and who treated him like the sky itself, would one day slap him.
That one blow stunned him clean through. For a long while, he just sat there, unable to react.
Pressing a hand to his burning cheek, he finally stammered after a good moment, "Y-you dared to hit me?"
Stella Ashford nodded and said evenly, "Yeah. I hit you. Got a problem with that?"
Got a problem with that?
Lawrence Whitfield shot to his feet. Just moments ago he'd been putting on a polite face, trying to "talk things over," but now the mask came off completely.
"What the hell is wrong with you? I was talking to you properly about our divorce, and you just up and hit me? Look at you, acting like some shrew. Who could stand living with a woman like you? Girls in the city are gentle and soft-spoken, every one of them..."
Stella Ashford raised her hand again.
Lawrence Whitfield snapped his mouth shut and edged back a little. Then, puffing up his chest, he stepped forward two paces and said, "Listen here, Penny Ashford, I'm not scared of you. I just don't stoop to arguing with women. I've said what needed saying. Think it over yourself. Tonight I'll make do and sleep in Fourth Brother's room."
After he went out, Stella Ashford pressed a hand to the faint ache in her chest. Then she touched it and found it flat as a board. Lowering her eyes, she looked over this body of hers. It was so thin it was almost frightening, all sharp bones and no flesh.
Her chest was flat as a washboard, let alone anything like a B cup. There was barely any meat on her at all. At a guess, she weighed no more than seventy or eighty pounds.
Her skin was rough and coarse, dark from the sun. Her palms were packed with thick calluses, and even her finger joints were big and knotted. One look was enough to tell this was the body of someone born to hard labor.
Compared to the graceful figure Stella Ashford had before she came here, this body was worlds apart.
She really couldn’t figure out how the original owner had let herself end up in such a miserable state.
Stella Ashford lifted her eyes and looked around the room again. The walls were plastered with yellow mud, the floor was packed dirt, and on the wall hung the kind of leader’s portrait people commonly kept in those days.
In the corner was a kang built from clay. A small table sat on top of it, and on that table there was only a kerosene lamp. The flame on the wick was no bigger than a soybean, casting a dim, yellow glow through the room.
At that moment, she was sitting right on the edge of the kang.
From the original owner’s memories, she had already learned that she and that heartless man from earlier had been husband and wife for three years.
Back in the hard years, every household was scraping by. The original owner’s family had traded twelve-year-old Penny Ashford for eight jin of sweet potatoes. From that day on, Penny was sent to the Whitfield family, where she worked like an ox and a horse and was raised to be Lawrence Whitfield’s child bride.
Life had been poor, sure, but at least she had something to hold on to.
Later, Lawrence Whitfield enlisted in the army, and once he left, he was gone for four whole years.
It was only because Beatrice Whitfield kept pressing him, over and over again, that he finally came back and married the grown-up Penny.
But only a few days after the wedding, a telegram came from the army. Lawrence Whitfield turned around and left again without a second thought.
He did not come back until today.
His return had made the whole family happy, and the original owner was no exception.