After reincarnation, attack as a female imp!

Qiao Hua felt that a wise man should not suffer a loss in front of him, so he returned to his seat in shame.

Chapter 29: Extravagant Life

Some people are just annoying passers-by to others, and maybe that person may be a joke or topic of conversation to others.

It was the kind of thing that happened when one's mind was a mess after drinking some horse urine but one still insisted that one was only "slightly tipsy". It was mentioned in a half-joking tone, just like the embarrassing incident when one urinated on other people's dried chickens as a child. It completely became an interesting topic to liven up the atmosphere.

But some people really fall in love with others at first sight.

It was a cinnabar mole that had not yet turned into mosquito blood. It was inconspicuous, but it was deeply engraved somewhere in my heart. When I was about to fall asleep in bed, I suddenly thought of it, and at that moment all sleepiness disappeared.

Just like Liang Huaiyu and Wang Tianzhuo, they are both passers-by in each other's lives, but Liang Huaiyu is just a topic of conversation for Wang Tianzhuo.

Liang Huaiyu, female, 24 years old, from Qingzhou County, Weifang City, Shandong Province.

Her home is in a village on the edge of a small town in Qingzhou County under Anhuai City.

If we use a rough classification to divide a person's life into three stages, the first stage is that one does not know what he wants, and the second stage is that one feels that he is missing something but is not clear about what he wants.

The third stage is letting go, which can be after you get it or after you know you can never get it.

Just like Liang Huaiyu, she disliked this name for a while after she saw the world. It was given to her by her uneducated father.

She was conceived when her father was in his forties. He doted on this daughter whom he had at an age close to fifty. Unfortunately, he had no money and no education. He had done odd jobs for half his life and his horizons were confined to the urban-rural fringe.

Liang Huaiyu went to elementary school in town. She didn't find the town rustic or run-down; she was impressed by its abundance of shops. While it was called a town, it was actually just a single street, barely wide enough for two cars to drive side by side. It was a long street, so long that it took her two or three minutes to run from one end to the other. The street was filled with all sorts of shops: a grocery store selling cute cartoon backpacks, a barbershop displaying trendy hairstyles, and a noodle shop where you could eat for just 1.5 yuan.

Liang Huaiyu's childhood was similar to that of her semi-literate father. She felt that the world was just a long street embedded in the vast farmland.

Then, her mother died, one winter night, having fallen asleep and never awoke. Liang Huaiyu didn't know what death represented; her mind simply felt a fear of this natural phenomenon. She couldn't connect her mother's death with the death of an animal, but she knew her mother would never appear again after she turned into a black and white photo in a frame.

Her father used the savings from half a lifetime of working to buy a house in the suburbs of Weifang City, and she also moved to the city to study. From that moment on, she never returned to that nameless long street again, even for a second look.

Liang Huaiyu's grades are good. Although she didn't get into a key high school, her grades are still good. Her father heard that half of her high school graduates can go to undergraduate schools, and there are one or two hundred students who can go to the first-tier universities every year. He was so happy that he almost regarded her as a literary star.

Next to the high school was a milk tea shop selling instant coffee, a cheap fast-food restaurant selling steak, and two blocks away was a real pedestrian street full of clothing stores. At that moment, childhood memories and adolescent experiences produced a wonderful chemical reaction.

In her childhood, she was trapped in a street that took only a few minutes to walk down. Outside the street was a vast vegetable field filled with half-human-high green onions.

Every weekend during high school, she'd go to a milk tea shop for a ginger milk ale or order a burger combo from the steakhouse near campus. One time, she bit her tongue and ordered black coffee and steak. The coffee was sour and bitter, like stale noodle soup; the steak, with its thick fascia, was as hard as rubber. She bit it so hard her cheeks ached that she couldn't swallow it.

She didn't know what to feel. Maybe it was a waste of money. If she hadn't gone to eat this meal, she could have saved over twenty bucks, enough to buy two pairs of exquisite canvas shoes on clearance sale.

This was her first impression of coffee and steak, and it wasn't a good one.

In 2008, she took the college entrance exam and enrolled in the economics program at South China Normal University, a 211 university. She had the highest score in her class. At the end of August that year, after a 40-hour train ride, she arrived in Guangzhou at around 2:00 a.m.

She was dusty and tired; Guangzhou was brightly lit and full of colors.

Guangzhou is divided, two completely parallel worlds entwined and intertwined on a single piece of land. Here there are crowded, dark urban villages, subways that are never empty, but also the never-sleeping Shangxiajiu Pedestrian Street and the Yangcheng Tower that seems to reach the sky.

The flowers are so beautiful that they are dazzling. Liang Huaiyu realized for the first time that the neon lights at night can illuminate the sky.

　At this moment, Liang Huaiyu entered the second stage. She felt that she was missing something but she was not sure what she wanted.

A lost girl from Shandong province, halfway across China, arrived in a city that never sleeps. With no one to rely on, she was tall, well-proportioned, and beautiful. With heavy makeup, she could look a perfect match. Add to that the bonus of her status as a prestigious university student, and her first time was sold for six figures.

This was her own choice. The price of her dispensable chastity was equivalent to her father's two or three years of work.

She named herself Danlene, which literally means Darlene. It's French, she'd read it in some magazine, but Darlene represents gentle love, and she liked the idea. Huaiyu, on the other hand, sounded rather rustic, not refined enough, not "white-collar," not "urban beauty." Like a wrinkled piece of red cloth, it was as tacky as her hometown.

Her name at school was Liang Huaiyu, but when she was in "Huaweida", "857" and "Night on the Seine", she was called "Dalena".

The years from 08 to 13 are long enough to completely change a person's perception. Liang Huaiyu, or Darlene, had cosmetic surgery, sometimes seeing multiple patients a day. She underwent three uterine curettages, and her endometrium became so thin that it was difficult for it to reimplant.

She had nearly ruined herself, and now she didn't know how to face her life. Her father was already in his seventies and had long since stopped doing odd jobs. Most of the money she earned from selling her own clothes went to her father. He just thought his daughter worked in a financial institution and was living a good life.

　She was not born into a wealthy family, but she was lucky enough to have a beautiful appearance and a father who was willing to support her education.

No matter how hard she tried to convince herself, even if she repeated the neoliberal nonsense like "women in the new era have the right to use their own bodies" in her heart ten thousand times, lies are lies after all. You can deceive yourself temporarily, but people will always be rational.

Just like the book she was reading recently, "The Mask of Sex: Art and Decadence: From Nefertiti to Emily Dickinson", the binary oppositions of nature and civilization, women and men, earth worship and sky worship, paganism and Judeo-Christianity, Dionysian spirit and Apollonian spirit, a lot of incomprehensible words but the core idea is still "sell yourself at a good price."

It seems that all books of this type are keen on doing similar things, expanding simple and straightforward right and wrong into incomprehensible viewpoints using complex modifiers and terms, but in the end they always end up in the same way of "selling themselves at a good price."

The confusion was like a bursting dam, corroding Liang Huaiyu's heart into rust and holes, and she developed a strange tendency of self-loathing.

Instead of letting these overly trendy and meaningless things pollute your brain, instead of watching these "opinion leaders" raise their arms and shout, distorting the facts, tarnishing the truth, and making beauty empty, it is better to go to Shangxiajiu Pedestrian Street and browse the luxury stores.

A bag inside costs five figures, and a cotton T-shirt inside costs six thousand yuan.

Even if the workmanship is average, even if the most valuable thing about that broken thing is the sign with foreign words on it, at least you can enjoy a moment of peace while spending money.

Liang Huaiyu knew this in her heart. She knew how those who talked about feminism but treated her like an object treated her. In their eyes, she was Darlene, a worthless toy, a dog that would wag its tail at the mere thought of a bone.

She also knew what her father's attitude towards her was, as he knew nothing about feminist theory. In his eyes, she was Liang Huaiyu, a remarkable intellectual, and a towering literary star.

Her name is "Huaiyu". She once asked her father why he gave her this name. Her father just smiled and said that he heard the story of female general Liang Hongyu while listening to a song, and hoped that she could be as heroic as Liang Hongyu in the future. A great man once said that women also hold up half the sky.

She was a worm that parasitized on the dirty desires of the opposite sex. She sold herself for a good price early on, but she lied to her father and said that she had turned into a butterfly.

If her life continued like this, maybe one day when she finished taking the drugs, or had another uterine cleaning, she would be like her mother whose memory had long been blurred, falling asleep and never waking up again.

She was no longer the country girl who thought the world was just a long street embedded in the vast farmland. She already knew what death was. When a person died, everything was gone. It was just a vast expanse of white and clean.

But Liang Huaiyu felt no fear; she even felt a little hopeful, as if death could wash away all her wrong choices. After being pushed into the crematorium, she, a broken and withered woman, cremated into white ashes, just like those of the good girls who died young.

She already knew what was right and what was wrong, but she kept it to herself and would not tell her father about her affairs, as if that way she would not have made any mistakes.

Her life would have continued like this, continuing to play Darlene in "Huaweida," "857," and "Nights on the Seine," continuing to deceive her father on the phone, until she could no longer sell at a high price. But life is full of drama. A month and a half ago, she met a man named Wang Tianzhuo, a wealthy second-generation real estate tycoon.

He suggested a monthly subscription, and she agreed.

Chapter 30 A Dream of Redemption

Wang Tianzhuo is in Shenzhen. The highway between Guangzhou and Shenzhen is only more than 200 miles long. The one-hour train fare is not even as expensive as breakfast.

"Dalina" went to Shenzhen for the first time.

Shenzhen and Guangzhou gave her a different feeling. It was a city without a past.

Guangzhou, Shenzhen and Zhuhai, three major cities in Guangdong Province, form a triangular urban cluster, a treasure trove. It can be said that this is one of the most prosperous and crowded areas in the whole of China. Outside this circle, even if there is only a distance of 50 kilometers, the monthly salary can differ by 2,000.

Even in the same province, the cities in northern Guangdong are as desolate as her hometown, with cheap milk tea shops in the "commercial streets" and "Western restaurants" selling rubbery steaks that have been marinated and frozen for who knows how long.

The connections between people are sometimes so magical. If it weren't for the internet, she and Wang Tianzhuo would be from two completely different worlds, with parallel lives that would never intersect. Although Wang Tianzhuo was a lustful man, during the month they were together, "Dalena" began to have strange thoughts.

She liked being around him, liked Wang Tianzhuo's happy little fat boy look, liked his frank look, and she felt like she was really in love with him. Although Wang Tianzhuo was a playboy, he still treated her as a person, not a toy that he could take off his pants at any time whenever he needed.

Wang Tianzhuo would share his happy daily life with her, tell her the interesting things he had just encountered, chat with her about his experiences when he was studying in America, and talk about those boring trivial things.

The underage taco vendor from Cuba saved up for college but ended up getting married. The no-name white trash from Tennessee wanted to fit in with the trendy Ni guy's group and wandered the streets wearing three pairs of pants. The hot dogs at the gas station tasted like gasoline...

Wang Tianzhuo would also remember to give her little surprises from time to time. He would introduce her to his collection of movie cassettes and explain them very patiently. Even if she picked a five-leaf clover, he would be happy for a while.

These had no price and were worthless, but Liang Huaiyu remembered them clearly.

She might forget the bag someone gave her; Chanel, Hermès, they all looked the same. She might forget the taste of the yellow croaker enameled in Bingsheng Private Kitchen, because she couldn't get used to the salty lemon spice; it tasted like rotten puffed sterculia. She might forget the brightly lit hall of "Night on the Seine." These places all looked the same, and so did the young women who came and went, seemingly all the same.

Darlene felt she wouldn't forget Wang Tianzhuo. She'd be delighted by his experiences, by the four-leaf clovers he'd casually picked, just as she'd never forgotten the earthy aroma of the lush vegetable patches of her hometown. It was as if she'd been transported back to her childhood, back when the noodles on that street in town cost 1.5 yuan a bowl, snow-white noodles topped with sautéed scallions and shredded pork, served with a hint of chili peppers that made her burp.

These priceless actions seemed to her to be of 100% value, as priceless as her childhood.

"Darlena" sometimes feels sad. She feels that she is not even 25 yet, but she seems old already. She even starts to recall her poor childhood. At that time, she had only a few dollars in her pocket. It was nothing like now, when all she wears and uses are branded products.

She has forgotten what her mother looked like before she died, and sometimes even forgets what she looked like before the plastic surgery. She had the surgery, and the bridge of her nose was raised, just like the nose of a smelly white skin.

Where's Liang Huaiyu? Her nose is a bit flat, but she's still pretty cute if you look at her for a while. Why is she gone?

It seemed that all of this was so exquisite, but "Dalena" often felt bitter, as if something in her heart that she didn't care about had died early, rotted, and turned into bones, but she still couldn't stop feeling sad when she saw the corpse in her heart.

Wang Tianzhuo and she are from two different worlds, but he treats her as a human being, not a Fijian monument with hands and feet.

"Darlena" couldn't understand why she should feel happy, satisfied, and fulfilled even though she was wearing all the famous brands and the food and things she used were things that her former self, who ate mixed meat noodles, would never dare to dream of, or even simply couldn't imagine.

But why did she still feel uncomfortable, why did she feel empty all the time, why did she feel like she was standing on the edge of a cliff and would fall at any moment.

According to Maslow's need curve, once a person's most basic survival needs are met, they should pursue social needs and self-actualization needs. Darlene's social circle is limited to a group of self-degrading women and a group of sanctimonious customers.

There are no friends worth making close with in a place where people only play around.

Maybe some of these women have a tragic past, but every one of these lying prostitutes will say that they have a tragic past. If they are really asked to choose to return to that "tragic past", how many of them will remain silent?

Liang Huaiyu has heard too much bragging since he started working in this line of work. After drinking two ounces of horse urine, he loses control of his mouth. People brag about their connections, their abilities, and their family background.

She had known for a long time that these should just be treated as jokes. When a man was so incompetent that he needed to use alcohol to go crazy on a peripheral girl, the words he said were not much different from those of a prostitute, and were as light as a rotten flower.

So, even though Wang Tianzhuo was laughing and joking, Liang Huaiyu felt that she had fallen in love with him.

Only a month was enough, not long enough to tell if someone was worthy of one's lifelong commitment. Liang Huaiyu wanted more time, so she was in agony. She knew clearly that the initial source of her brief happiness was just an agreement, and when the time was up, everything would be the same as before.

All the pain comes from being awake. Darlene hates herself for reading. Reading makes people wise, and wisdom makes people think.

She would ponder why she had fallen to this point. She had immersed herself in illusory happiness and foolishly treated it as if it would last forever, living like a pig, leaving naturally when the time came, just like those places where a group of girls left in disgrace every year, returning from the most prosperous part of Guangzhou to their bleak hometowns.

The moment you wake up from a dream is the moment you are shattered into pieces.

What happened next was a natural progression. "Darlena" gradually became addicted to the role of Wang Tianzhuo's "girlfriend" and couldn't extricate herself. It was a pity that the concubine had feelings but the man was ruthless.

Wang Tianzhuo is a playboy, he will not give up the forest for a woman. Not to mention that she is not from a good family.

There are differences between people, and their lives should not have any intersection.

No matter how good Wang Tianzhuo's character is, at most he would just treat her as a casual lover. He might be able to give her enough respect, but it's impossible for him to give her any other feelings.

After all, it's just a deal.

Liang Huaiyu felt the pain in his heart. It was clearly still beating, but it still hurt.

She didn't know which was more cruel: to wait numbly for the day when she would be torn to pieces, or to feel the pain of being cut into pieces soberly.

She couldn't understand how Darlene, or Liang Huaiyu, had ended up like this. In her rustic hometown, she had taken every step right. She had been admitted to a good school and a good major in Guangzhou, and a bright future was waiting for her.

She might meet her love, the love she imagined, a shy older boy with similar academic qualifications, who would not brag about his abilities and family background, but would accompany her steadily to the last step of her life.

It's a pity that there is no if.

She confessed everything to Wang Tianzhuo and the police, revealing every receipt and contact information, as if she had cut open her own belly, making her lover and the two strange men a laughing stock.

She was like a madman, telling Wang Tianzhuo that she was dirty, that she had fallen into depravity, and that she was a complete joke.

Wang Tianzhuo and the two policemen were stunned. They didn't know what to do and they didn't understand why she did this.

But she understood why she did it. She wanted to break away from who she was.

She was sentenced to twelve days' detention. The detention center would not recognize a pseudonym like "Daliana," so she was detained as "Liang Huaiyu."

When she heard the three words "Liang Huaiyu" in the detention center, she was stunned.

This is her full name, a name she has used for almost twenty years. Why does it sound so unfamiliar after not using it for just a few years?

During the ten-plus days in detention, she didn't wear makeup, as she couldn't wear it there. She'd seen her own face without makeup. She was only 24, her face should be full of collagen, so why did she look so haggard?

She was released on September 19, 2013.

She went to buy a bottle of wine, Jingzhi Baigan, a wine from her hometown of Weifang. After arriving at her rented place, she drank one glass after another.

It wasn't spicy at all, but it made her cry uncontrollably.

She didn't know what to do next, but she knew she didn't belong in Yangcheng.

When she was a little drowsy from drinking, she remembered that today was Mid-Autumn Festival.

She took out her cell phone and wanted to write a text message to Wang Tianzhuo.

"Happy Mid-Autumn Festival! It's getting cold, remember to put on more clothes."

When it was time to send it, she hesitated.

She didn't send it to Wang Tianzhuo in the end.

She smiled bitterly. The feeling of being sober was painful. She understood how ridiculous it was to be self-touched.

She finally sent this text message to her father and then fell into a deep sleep.

When she woke up the next day, she saw the reply message on her phone.

"I know, thank you, my daughter."

She couldn't help crying.

The wine I drank yesterday was too spicy and it still stings my eyes even after a night.

She doesn't want to stay in Guangzhou anymore, she wants to go back to Weifang.