1983Fishing and Farming between Mountains and Seas

Chapter 411: Live the rest of your life only for revenge
Liang Ziqiang was a little surprised, but he didn't expect that after Ah Cai came out of the hotel, he guessed that he must have parked the boat here, so he quietly ran onto his boat and waited for him here.

But it makes sense if you think about it. Since we met in such a sudden way, there must be a lot to talk about, right?
"Acai, you really confuse me. Didn't you go to Shenpeng City to work? Why are you here? How long have you been working here?" Liang Ziqiang was full of doubts. He put the things on the boat and asked.

When asking, I looked around deliberately. There were only white waves blown by the sea breeze, but no one in sight. It was really a very convenient place to talk.

Further away, there are quite a few people busy at work, and the shadows are everywhere, but due to the distance, they have nothing to do with the quietness of this area.

After he asked this question, Ah Cai's face, which had thick and clear lines, showed a hint of realization:
"We were originally going to Shenpeng. Brother Qiang, do you remember the time when we talked under the old palm tree?"

"what happened?"

"After that, you went out to sea to fish, and I went to Shenpeng to visit relatives. I stayed in Shenpeng for four and a half days and found a factory. But during those four or five days, something happened. When I came back, everything was over..."

Liang Ziqiang's chest tightened instinctively: "What's the matter? Is it related to Yan Zi?"

Ah Cai turned his face away, as if he was enduring something. Then he turned back and his expression became calm:
"Yes. I told you before that Yan Zi couldn't get the household registration booklet from her family, so she couldn't marry me. But I didn't tell you why she couldn't get it, and what happened between her and her parents. Because I didn't know it at that time.

Yan Zi seemed to be worried, it was quite obvious, I could tell. It was only later that I learned from her grandmother what those worries were..."

The two of them sat down on the swaying deck, and Ah Cai talked a lot with Liang Ziqiang.

Yao Yanlei was not from Chaoyang Town, but was born in Wanfan Town, another town in the county.

Because Yan Zi already had two older sisters, her parents only wanted a younger brother and wanted to give her away because they thought she was a burden. However, Yan Zi's grandmother insisted and kept her. But because of this, she was basically raised by her grandmother from the age of five or six.

It was not until he was twelve or thirteen years old and able to work that he was taken back to his parents in Wanfan Town.

When she was seventeen or eighteen years old, Yan Zi had grown into a beautiful girl rarely seen in the surrounding villages. Her parents urged her again and again to go to the city to find a job so that she could earn money to build a house for her younger brother.

The job Yan Zi found was considered to be the best in this era. A businessman who had returned from abroad invested in building a hotel in Yanghai, which was directly based on the standards of star-rated hotels. The service level was high, and the treatment of the service staff recruited by the hotel was naturally much higher than that of ordinary hotels and guesthouses.

Yan Zi worked as a room attendant for three months, tidying the rooms and cleaning every day. Naturally, most of her salary was sent back to her home in Wanfan Town.

More than three months later, because of her outstanding appearance, the hotel transferred her position directly to the lobby as a receptionist, and her salary increased by more than ten yuan.

It was almost from the time she started working as a receptionist that she realized she was being targeted.

The hotel owner first gave her various small things, then spoke to her in a teasing manner, and finally told her directly that he hoped she would be his wife.

As the so-called wife, she certainly understood what was going on.

The boss is married and has a family in a Southeast Asian country. Now he just wants to have fun and find himself a mistress.

The boss was already a middle-aged man in his forties, two years older than her father. Moreover, she had seen the boss making advances towards many other receptionists and waiters.

It would be a blessing for Yan Zi not to vomit at such a man. Even if he was rich, how could she possibly like him? She usually tried every means to avoid him.

But the man was quite good at it. It was also Yan Zi's own fault that she was inexperienced and accidentally revealed her hometown address to other waiters.

(P.S.: In those days, there were not so many rules for recruiting workers. If employees wanted to conceal their true place of origin and address, they could actually do so.)
Even Yan Zi herself didn't know when her boss sent someone to her hometown in Wanfan Town to bring her parents and younger brother to the city and arranged for them to work in other factories under his name, with a good salary.

The boss not only invested in hotels in Yanghai, but also several factories.

Yan Zi's parents immediately knew that their daughter had been favored by the rich man, and their reactions were completely different from Yan Zi's.

Even though they knew that the man had a wife and was just having a mistress outside, it did not stop Yan Zi's parents from being overjoyed.

In their opinion, since Yan Zi is so young and beautiful, it is only a matter of time before she becomes the legitimate wife.

Of course, what they care about most is that with the help of this relationship, their beloved son will have a bright future.

During that time, Yan Zi had countless arguments with her family, and her boss became more and more blatant in front of her. She was still quite determined, so she suddenly quit her job as a receptionist and ran out to find another job.

She ran away, but her parents were reluctant to let her go. Every time they found her, they would persuade her to go back to the hotel to work.

After passing by several times, Yan Zi had nowhere to go. After thinking about it, she knew there was only one place that could stop her parents.

That is Xianggu Village far away in Chaoyang Town, her grandmother's home.

When grandma gets angry, she can scold her parents. When grandma is around, parents will be scared and dare not come to force her.

Just like when she was a child, she returned to Xianggu Village and helped her grandmother weave some webs to make a living.

It was not until the typhoon in August 1984 that the seawall of Xianggu Village collapsed and water entered, flooding my grandmother's house. Yan Zi and my grandmother finally climbed onto the roof but fell down again.

That time when she thought she was dead, she survived and met Deng Zhaocai.

……

After hearing this, Liang Ziqiang finally understood something.

He finally understood why Yan Zi was sure that her parents would never be willing to give her household registration to let her get married;
Why did Yan Zi's grandmother decide to let Yan Zi and Ah Cai elope and run away?

Why is Yan Zi always absent-minded? Even outsiders can tell that she is worried...

"What happened later? What happened during those days you went to Shenpeng?" Liang Ziqiang asked.

Deng Zhaocai stared at the waves on the bottom of the boat for a while, his chest heaving, he exhaled, and then said:

"I went to Shenpeng to visit relatives, and Yanzi stayed alone at my house, waiting for me to bring back good news. Once things were settled, she secretly went to Shenpeng with me. But the next day, her grandmother came to Changwang Village and ran to find her excitedly."

"Grandma is really happy! Yan Zi's parents have been fighting with Yan Zi for a year, and now they can't fight anymore, so they ran to Xianggu Village and apologized to grandma."

"Grandma scolded them, but they just nodded and admitted their mistakes and even shed tears. When they heard that Yan Zi had someone she liked, they were very happy and were willing to find the household registration booklet and let Yan Zi go back to Wanfan Town to get it from them."

"Her grandmother believed her daughter's words, and she immediately ran to Pomwang Village to tell Yan Zi, asking her to go home and apologize to her parents, say a few nice words, and then get the household registration book. As long as she can get the household registration book and officially marry me, after all, she doesn't want Yan Zi to hide from me like a thief."

"Yanzi probably still hasn't really given up. After all, they are his biological parents! Since his biological parents have admitted their mistake, she will believe it to some extent."

"Yanzi followed her grandmother back to Xianggu Village. After the family talked it out, her grandmother felt relieved and let Yanzi go back to Wanfan Town with her parents to get something. But who would have thought that once she entered her home, her parents changed their attitude and locked her up, saying that they were sending her to that boss!"

"There's no way of knowing what Yan Zi was thinking. Anyway, in the middle of the night that day, her parents got up to check, and found that the household registration booklet was gone, and Yan Zi was also missing..." Liang Ziqiang listened quietly.

"Could it be that Yan Zi didn't really believe her parents, and was just taking advantage of the situation, intending to steal the household registration booklet and run away from the beginning?" Liang Ziqiang speculated while Deng Zhaocai was taking a break.

"There's no way to know." Deng Zhaocai shook his head woodenly, "We couldn't find her parents in front of or behind the house. After searching for a while, we heard someone shouting on the road on the seawall."

"Her parents ran over to see that several people from the village were already there with flashlights. There was a shoe on the roadside on the seawall, which belonged to Yan, and traces of mud where someone had rolled down the slope. Not far from the seawall, there was a family whose elderly woman got up to relieve herself at night. She happened to hear someone screaming and then fell off the seawall and into the sea. By the time the families living by the sea came over with flashlights, Yan had been swept away by the tide and there was no trace of her..."

"Yan Zi... fell into the sea?!" Liang Ziqiang opened his mouth in disbelief. Now he finally understood what Deng Zhaocai was holding back under that calm face.

Then he thought of some possibilities and asked Deng Zhaocai, "Who told you all this? Did her parents tell you in person? Is there a possibility that her parents hid her and deliberately told the outside world that Yan Zi fell into the sea, so that Yan Zi's grandmother could be fooled!"

"Brother Qiang, I wish it was what you said! But it's impossible. I didn't hear it from her parents, but from Yan Zi's grandmother. Her grandmother cried until her eyes were almost blind, but she just didn't believe it. She went to the seawall of the village in Wanfan Town and asked several families living by the sea. They all proved it. Even if Yan Zi's parents are lying, those families living by the sea can't lie..."

Hearing what Deng Zhaocai said, Liang Ziqiang calmed down and thought about it, and had to accept a fact. Yan Zi stole the household registration book and wanted to escape and wait for Ah Cai to return from Shenpeng to register for marriage together. However, she was probably running too fast on the way to escape, and it was midnight, so she accidentally fell into the sea.

Suddenly, Liang Ziqiang suddenly remembered an irrelevant conversation that he had overheard in his previous life.

At that time, Lizhi's disabled husband mentioned to him that there was a village in the town where a very beautiful woman fell into the water and disappeared when there was a flood in the village.

Because it really had nothing to do with him, and it was not explicitly mentioned as Xianggu Village, Liang Ziqiang did not have a deep impression of it.

I suddenly remembered it now. In the previous life, people were talking about Yao Yanlei who fell off the roof during the typhoon, right?

In other words, according to the trajectory of the previous life, Yan Zi did not meet Deng Zhaocai, and directly fell into the water in the typhoon and died.

In this life, it was Liang Ziqiang who drove a large steel boat to Xianggu Village to rescue Swallow, saved Swallow and changed her fate.

But who knows? It only changed for a short period of time. In the end, the swallow still fell into the water, and the ending did not change at all.

Is it something that is destined, and I am powerless to change it? Even if I change it for a while, it will still return to the original track?
Thinking of this, he shuddered suddenly.

His father, elder brother, and Liang Zifeng had avoided the tragedy at sea through his efforts.

Could it be that...

No, no, he quickly stopped thinking.

After careful consideration, I realized that I must have been imagining things.

Li Liang and Yuan Xiaomei had a baby, Lin Baixian married Jiang Xiuting, Liang Zifeng went to college, Lei Zhandou was bitten to death by a poisonous snake...

These changes that have occurred because of myself have already happened and are completely impossible to reverse.

"Needless to say, the hotel where Yan Zi worked as a receptionist before was the Snow Egret Hotel, and the middle-aged boss must be Ruan Jingcheng!" Liang Ziqiang looked at Ah Cai and said, "But in this incident, the people who directly killed Yan Zi were Yan Zi's parents!"

“No,” Deng Zhaocai shook his head, “Yanzi’s parents are hateful, but I later found out from Yanzi’s grandmother. Her parents tricked her back home and locked her up. They were forced to do so.”

"How to say?"

"You saw Ruan Jingcheng this morning, a bastard who is disguised as a human but looks like a dog. He is very good at pretending and talking, but he is as shady as he can be behind the scenes!

When he arranged for Yan Zi's parents and brother to work in his factory, he didn't just let them do ordinary work! He deliberately let them get involved in purchasing and gave them the opportunity to make a little money.

Needless to say, all three fell into the trap and took the money. It was a small amount of money for Ruan Jingcheng, but for the three of them, it was probably enough for them to stay in prison for most of their lives!

He was the one who said that unless Yan Zi's parents sent their daughter to his bed themselves, the three of them would be finished and would never have to think about anything again in their lives!
You said, if it wasn't him who killed Yan Zi, then who did it?"

"So shady?" Liang Ziqiang didn't know there was something behind this. "So Ah Cai, after you learned this from her grandmother, you have already made up your mind to find a job in Ruan Jingcheng's hotel?"

"If I don't go, the swallow will not rest in peace!" Deng Zhaocai turned his gaze to the top of his head. There was only a seagull flying by in the empty sky.

Liang Ziqiang suddenly remembered that he had visited Deng Zhaocai's home for the last time in March and found that the door was locked and no one was there. Only the soft willow tree was standing in front of the door with its shadow and a few pieces of paper ashes were floating under the willow tree. At that time, he thought that it was Acai burning paper for his mother who had passed away more than 3 days ago. He also thought that Acai had taken Yan Zi to Shenpeng and flew to a foreign land.

It turned out that the actual situation was that Acai locked the door and came to Yanghai City alone, found the Snow Egret Hotel, and became a toilet cleaner in the hotel.

From more than March to more than August now. During this period of no news, Ah Cai swept the toilet for five months until he met her today.

Five months can change a person a lot. Even his calmness is no longer like before. Perhaps letting anyone spend five months in the toilet can have the same effect.

"Brother Qiang, you are the one who knows the most about Yan Zi and me. She is such a beautiful person, and she didn't care about anything, she was determined to be with me; and it was because of her that my mother passed away so peacefully. She was a great favor to me! If I don't repay her great favor, I, Deng Zhaocai, will be worse than pigs and dogs!"

"I know, I know everything," Liang Ziqiang nodded bitterly, "You want to keep getting closer to Ruan Jingcheng in order to find a good opportunity. But if Yan Zi's parents come to the hotel one day, will they recognize you? Then you will be exposed!"

"Yanzi's parents have never seen me and don't know me. Besides, because Yanzi's case fell through, Ruan Jingcheng didn't let her go. He has already put Yanzi's parents and brother in jail. I don't know how many years they will be in prison. How can they come to the hotel?"

Liang Ziqiang thought about it and reminded again: "Your ID card always says Pomfret Village, right? What if Ruan is suspicious and sends someone to Pomfret Village to inquire about you? After asking around, maybe they can find out that you and Yan Zi know each other!"

"I don't have an ID card! Brother Qiang, more than half of my colleagues in the hotel don't have ID cards! Our county was ahead of the curve and started to issue ID cards last year, but there are still many places in western Guangdong that haven't issued ID cards yet. Even the hotel security captain doesn't have an ID card. They don't even know which county or village I'm from."

Thinking about it this way, Liang Ziqiang felt that there really seemed to be no loopholes.

Unless one day Du Ziteng happened to come all the way to Binzhou District and run into Deng Zhaocai, but this was simply a lottery probability. After all, they were separated by two districts, and Du Ziteng had heard in the past that the relationship between Yuehai Restaurant and Xuelu was not very good.

Of course, even if we meet, it can be solved with a glance.

"Did you invite the man in jeans who threw feces at him this morning?"

Deng Zhaocai shook his head, "No. But I know about him. His wife Yi Yan and Ruan Jingcheng had that affair, and he came to Ruan Jingcheng twice. He was not angry, he just wanted to make a bigger fuss and get more compensation from Ruan Jingcheng. This kind of softie would not really stab Ruan Jingcheng. If he had used a knife today, I would definitely not run up to save him!"

"Then he really helped you a lot today. At least Ruan Jingcheng has started to have a good impression of you now!"

"It's all thanks to him, but I still have to wait. Wait until one day the Ruan guy is not on guard against me and is willing to take me out alone to do things!"

"From what I've seen this morning, Ruan is a smart guy and not so easy to deal with!" Liang Ziqiang reminded again with concern.

"It's okay, Brother Qiang. Even a smart person might fall into the hands of a stupid person!"

(End of this chapter)