The male supporting character was actually myself.

The older sister, being calmer and more perceptive, quickly discerned the oddity and retorted, "You mean the supply and marketing cooperative never intended for my brother to work there? Then why did they send him an employment notice? Isn't that redundant?"

"Don't you understand?" Jiang Chen adjusted the candle to make the flame brighter and patiently explained, "Of course it's because your brother performed so well that he outshone the people who had already been arranged to work with him."

When the supply and marketing cooperative was recruiting, they clearly stated that they would not consider family background. Song Aiguo's interview and written test were both impeccable, and they couldn't eliminate him based on his family background, since the results of the open recruitment had to be made public, and they couldn't let people find fault with him.

But what if your brother gets the job through connections?

You don't really think that a lucrative place like a supply and marketing cooperative would have positions reserved for people without connections or influence, do you?

The Song siblings were speechless.

"This...this is so unfair!" Song Aiguo clenched his fists. "Then how did you manage to get there with my job offer? If you can do it, why do you think I can't?"

"I just stole the mailman's bicycle and rode it to town. Would you dare to steal from me?"

Song Aiguo immediately lost his temper; he really didn't dare.

The postman is a legitimate employee of a state-owned enterprise. In Lijiazhuang, he has more influence than the village party secretary. Who would dare to mess with him?

"Even if you manage to get the job, do you think you can do it well if you take someone else's position?" Jiang Chen continued to provoke, "If they keep making things difficult for you, I guarantee you won't be able to keep doing it in less than half a month."

Even if the other party uses more despicable and ruthless methods, they might resort to underhanded tactics to falsely accuse you of stealing goods from the warehouse.

Is it worth losing your job, going to jail, and having a record on your file?

"You, you're just making things up! In broad daylight, who would dare to act so recklessly? You're just making this up to impersonate me!"

"Are you naive or stupid? After all these years, you still believe in fairness and justice?" He was both amused and annoyed. "Here's what you two can do: go to the town's supply and marketing cooperative tomorrow and ask what the name of the new inventory clerk is."

Ask them what happened at the supply and marketing cooperative this afternoon.

Everyone in town knows; you can ask around and see if I'm lying.

Song Aiwan was startled. "You...you didn't get into a fight with the people from the supply and marketing cooperative, did you?"

“Both of our families are outsiders. Do you know why the Song family has been bullied all these years, while I, Jiang Chen, have been able to crush the entire Li Family Village?”

Jiang Chen glanced at the two siblings and sneered, "There's a saying, 'The soft fear the hard, and the hard fear the reckless.' I, Jiang Chen, am the reckless one. I came into this world naked and will leave without any ties, unlike you who all have family and relatives to worry about."

Whoever tries to mess with me should be prepared to be retaliated against tenfold or a hundredfold.

Either kill me outright, or I'll consider myself unlucky;

As long as I'm alive and have a breath left, I will absolutely kill their entire family without hesitation.

Song Aiguo, can you do it?

If you can't do that, then don't even think about getting into a workplace full of connections and vested interests. Go back to your studies, wait for the college entrance exam to be reinstated, get into a university, and leave this small mountain village for a long time to go to a big city.

That's the real way for you to turn your life around!

"The supply and marketing cooperative isn't a golden job either; you'll understand later."

He came in all high and mighty demanding an explanation, only to be easily dismissed with a few words. Song Aiguo grew increasingly angry, his finger trembling as he pointed at Jiang Chen's face, stammering, "You, you, you..."

"You're not convinced? Then come and hit me. If you can really beat me, I'll take you to town tomorrow and get your job back from the supply and marketing cooperative, how about that?"

Chapter Eight: We're all family, no need to be polite.

"Whether the work at the supply and marketing cooperative is good or not, whether I suffer difficulties or not, is my business. How dare you, an imposter, have the right to decide?" Provoked and his face turned red, Song Aiguo, who had never fought or even used his hands before, grabbed a wooden stool and threw it directly at Jiang Chen.

"Patriotism! Put it down!" Song Aiwan screamed in fright and rushed forward to grab her younger brother.

Seeing this, Jiang Chen stood up with a look of disgust, grabbed the stool that was thrown at him with her left hand, and punched him directly in the chest with her right hand.

Song Aiguo was punched and lost his footing. He couldn't even hold onto the stool and took two steps back to sit on the ground.

"Don't be all aggressive and loud when you're fighting. Keep your footing and don't hold your weapon so high." Jiang Chen placed the wooden stool next to him and waved his hand, indicating, "Let's go again."

This is an absolute and blatant insult!

With a determined look, Song Aiguo seized the moment when Jiang Chen put down the stool and stood up, grabbed the wooden stool and smashed it over his head.

He dodged, and the stool crashed onto the newly bought washbasin with a clanging sound, startling the little white cat so much that one of its ears twitched and it peeked out.

"The idea of ​​a sneak attack is good, but it's too slow. And a sneak attack shouldn't be done with something so big; the smaller and faster, the more effective it will be."

"You've gone too far!" Song Aiguo lunged forward like a madman, but was easily kicked away by the other party.

The older sister quickly stepped forward and grabbed him, saying, "Stop fighting! You're no match for him!"

"Sister, I'm so useless." Song Aiguo felt so aggrieved and humiliated that he covered his face and burst into tears. "I'm not reconciled! I'm so unwilling to accept this!"

Jiang Chen clapped his hands, looking helpless. "Alright, stop crying. If the neighbors hear, it'll look like I'm bullying my future brother-in-law."

"You..." Upon hearing this, Song Aiwan blushed deeply. As a young woman, she couldn't afford to argue with a rogue like him, or she would only suffer the consequences.

She came with her younger brother to demand an explanation, but she was fooled for a while and ended up with nothing. Her brother was beaten and she was harassed. Feeling wronged, her eyes immediately reddened, and she bit her lip to keep the tears from falling.

"Host, mission complete." The little white cat yawned and reminded him, "In this age of restraint, flirting is so easy. No wonder there's a crime of hooliganism..."

Jiang Chen then set out the benches and said, "Come on, come on, don't look so bitter and resentful. Let me finish what I have to say, okay?"

"Speak your mind. It's clearly your fault. You think you're right to open letters without permission and impersonate someone else?"

"Let me tell you what happened at the town's supply and marketing cooperative this afternoon." He took out a pile of things from the inner room and put them on the table, explaining slowly, "When I went to impersonate someone else to get the job, I was harassed in all sorts of ways."

If it were Song Aiguo, I think you would most likely tolerate it all, grit your teeth, and go to work while waiting for people to make things difficult for you.

Of course I wouldn't be that cowardly.

So, in the end, the head of the supply and marketing cooperative was dismissed and investigated; those with connections got the job smoothly; and I used that job offer to exchange for a teaching position at the town's primary school.

Jiang Chen handed Song Aiwan the neatly folded employment letter inside the envelope, saying, "This was prepared for you in advance."

I heard that the college entrance examination will be reinstated this year.

The questions won't be too difficult for your first year of taking the college entrance exam. You two siblings study very hard, so if you review well, you'll definitely pass.

Even if you don't pass the exam, as long as you pass the town's minimum passing score, you can take this employment contract to the school to report for duty as a teacher.

“You, I…” Song Aiwan held the envelope in her hand, momentarily at a loss.

My brother’s job offer from the supply and marketing cooperative turned into my teacher employment contract?

The series of unexpected events left her bewildered.

"Here are the review materials I bought for you at the bookstore in town this afternoon, along with paper, pens, candles, and other things. It should last you a while. Come and ask me for more when you run out. We're all family now, so don't be too polite." Jiang Chen smiled as he looked at Song Aiwan, whose face was flushed with embarrassment yet also filled with anger under the candlelight, and thought the girl was really cute.

"The bamboo basket contains ten pounds of rice, ten pounds of flour, three pounds of oil, and five pounds of meat. It's too much, and I was worried you wouldn't be able to carry it all. Just take it back and eat it, and let me know when you're done. The lunchbox contains the leftovers specifically for you. I wrote a note asking you to come over so we could talk things out and have dinner together, but it ended up being late at night..."

Go back, eat, wash up, and go to bed. Starting tomorrow, I'll try to assign you lighter tasks. Study hard and try to get into university!

Neither the siblings knew how they got out of Jiang Chen's brightly lit courtyard.

A man carried a large bamboo basket on his back and didn't utter a single word the entire way.

"You got into a fight with Jiang Chen? Are you hurt?" Song Qingshan had just cooked a pot of clear soup and was eagerly waiting for his son and daughter to come back. He noticed that they had some dirt on them and their eyes were red as if they had been crying, so he hurriedly asked.

Song Aiwan shook her head and took the bamboo basket off the stove, placing it under the kerosene lamp.

“Father…” Song Aiguo called out, but didn’t know where to begin, and simply handed over the bamboo basket, “Jiang Chen gave it to me.”

"What is this? Is this compensation for impersonation?" He stared blankly at the rice, flour, oil, and a large piece of meat with alternating layers of fat and lean meat in the basket.

My older sister was taking things out of the basket she was carrying one by one: three packs of fine candles, a large stack of brand-new books and white paper, two bottles of ink, and three high-end fountain pens. Below them were several pieces of fresh patterned fabric, soap, face cream, combs, hair ties and hair accessories, and several pairs of new shoes and socks. Judging by the size and style, she had bought everything for her entire family of three.

For no apparent reason, she remembered Jiang Chen saying "future brother-in-law," and her face instantly turned red to the tips of her ears.

Putting aside past grievances with the villagers, if we consider this perspective alone, following Jiang Chen is clearly the best choice for me.

After all, due to her family background, most families wouldn't consider marrying her;

Needless to say, those educated youth from the city, once this trend passes and the college entrance examination is reinstated, they will definitely flock back to the city. As a mountain girl with a bad class background, I certainly can't climb such a high branch.

Although Jiang Chen is bad, he is ultimately capable of protecting people.

Even if other young men in the village marry him regardless of his social status, how many of them can truly make their families live a good life and prevent others from bullying them?

Thinking of this, Song Aiwan recalled Jiang Chen's former domineering and powerful demeanor.

My father is cowardly and timid, and only knows how to talk nonsense. I was bullied since I was a child. From the perspective of being protected, I do feel very safe with him...

"Sister, sister, what are you thinking about?" After recounting the whole process to her father in detail, Song Aiguo called out "sister" twice, but when she didn't respond, he stepped forward and gave her a nudge, asking, "You weren't really bewitched by that bastard Jiang Chen's sweet talk, were you?"

Song Aiwan's secret was exposed, and her face immediately turned red. She pretended to tidy up her things and stammered, "W-what sweet talk? It's so late and you haven't even heated up the food yet. We're all still hungry! I have to worry about everything. You don't even know what's important and what's not..."

She made up a few random words to cover up her embarrassment, then hurriedly got up and took the brand-new aluminum lunchbox to the stove to heat it up before eating.

“A daughter is like a tree that cannot be kept at home once she grows up.” Song Qingshan sighed softly as he watched his daughter busy at the stove. “No wonder Jiang Chen changed his usual attitude; so this is what he was planning.”

Chapter Nine: The Most Suitable Candidate

Song Aiguo looked down at the face cream and floral fabrics, his face twitching. "This, this... I'll return them to Jiang Chen! What's the point of all this fancy stuff?"

Song Qingshan grabbed his son's arm, sighed, and stopped him, saying, "It might not be a bad thing that Jiang Chen has taken a liking to your sister."

The reason I came home so late this afternoon is because someone brought up our class background again, and coupled with the poor harvests of the past two years, our family of three isn't good at working. From what I overheard, they... want to kick us out of Lijiazhuang.

"What?" He immediately became agitated upon hearing this. "Why are they kicking us out? They've taken over such a large family estate, including our ancestral home, for nothing! Almost all the land in Lijiazhuang belongs to the Song family!"

My great-grandfather thought this place was a good spot, so he built houses and acquired land here, leaving the Li family servants to guard the family business.

How many years has it been?

They've turned the tables and become the masters, not only swallowing all our things but also beating and cursing us all day long. Now they want to kick us while we're down and drive us away? What right do they have?! Is there no law anymore?

Ingredients, ingredients! What kind of lousy ingredients are these? Are they really trying to kill us?

Song Qingshan was so frightened that he quickly covered his mouth to stop him from shouting. "Keep your voice down. If someone hears you, you'll be dragged out and beaten again. Why are you so stubborn and never learn?"

They said that our original household registration was not in Lijiazhuang.

Back when we were doing the census, the old village chief didn't include our Song family. Now, we're not included in the household registration survey, which is a big problem! We're only talking about it privately right now; it hasn't been formally brought up yet. What if the village really tries to kick us out? How will we live then?

Jiang Chen is a capable man; if he's willing to speak on our behalf, the household registration issue will be easily resolved.

Song Aiguo's fists clenched so tightly they trembled. Ever since he could remember, he had thought that when he grew up he would protect his family. But now he was a grown man, and he was still completely useless when faced with difficulties.

My sister was harassed in front of me, I couldn't fight back or even yell at her, and not only did she lose her job because of someone impersonating her, but now those people are even trying to find excuses to drive my whole family out of the village...

"I must get into university!" he said through gritted teeth, holding back tears, "I'll take you all out of this wretched place and never come back!"

The brand-new books exuded the fragrance of ink. Song Aiguo, without thinking about anything else, replaced the dim oil lamp with a bright candle, sat down at the table, opened the book, and plunged into the ocean of knowledge to study diligently.