When She Stops Being Dramatic

Chapter 306: Chapter 117: The Green Tea Female Side Character in a Period Novel (4)

”I just boiled a pot of water for everyone. Is it really too much to ask for one kettleful as thanks? You’d all warmly welcome a complete stranger who came to the door asking for a drink.”

”I had no idea you were all so stingy. Bickering over a single kettle of water for this long... it’s really been an eye-opener. You’re a disgrace to city folk!”

Her use of ”you all” managed to rope in everyone who was still dawdling instead of leaving, not having said a single word to mediate.

Everyone’s expression froze. Now it was even more awkward for them to speak. Were they really going to start explaining themselves over a kettle of water?

Zheng was also left speechless by Chi Yun’er. The frustration from her nap had nearly vanished, but now it all came rushing back, leaving her feeling even more stifled!

”You,” she said, glaring and pointing her finger at Chi Yun’er. ”You’re a parasite on this collective! And you’re acting like you have every right to be gluttonous and lazy?”

”This is the New Society! Look around the village! Every child who can walk and run, every old person who can get around with a cane, they all go to the fields to help out. At the very least, they watch over the drying grounds.”

”And you? A perfectly able-bodied young person, relying on your parents’ salary, enjoying the fruits of everyone else’s labor as if it’s your right, refusing to improve yourself or do any work. You’re the one who’s a disgrace!”

”I think the village should hold a meeting to criticize you properly, to make you change your rotten capitalist ways...”

Seeing that no one was speaking up for Chi Yun’er, and that even Jiang Zishi’s room remained silent, Zheng planted her hands on her hips and spoke with even more shrill relish.

But Chi Yun’er suddenly broke into a fit of heart-wrenching coughs, cutting off her momentum. Her face was pale, tears welled in her eyes, and her lip trembled slightly. Looking utterly pitiful, she said:

”So this is what everyone really thinks of me?”

”But from the very beginning, was it ever because I didn’t want to work?”

”When I signed up to become a sent-down youth to help build up the countryside, I was prepared to endure any hardship and work hard.”

”But... but this body of mine is just so useless,” she said, thumping her chest. With a sob in her voice, she continued, her words drawn out in a miserable, song-like lament:

”I was born premature, with a congenital weakness. It’s a miracle I’m even alive and reasonably healthy. My parents don’t even dare to have high expectations for me!”

”I just wanted to live a normal life. I came here with all of you, full of joy and hope. Who would have thought that after just a few swings of a hoe, I’d collapse from exhaustion? That watching the drying grounds would make me break out in an allergic rash and give me a high fever? That even shucking a peanut would lead to a cut on my finger that wouldn’t stop bleeding? I can’t do anything! I just end up making everyone worry...”

”I know you all resent me, but don’t you think I want a healthy body?”

”Someone like me can’t even dream of being with a man I like. If I get even a little too excited, I could pass out from breathlessness.”

”I can’t give Brother Zishu a normal life as a couple, so how could I be selfish enough to tie him to my side? Otherwise, do you think I could just stand by and watch Brother Zishu marry someone else?”

”I’m already so miserable. Why do you all still envy, resent, and hate me?”

”My body is just too weak. I can’t eat foods that are too greasy, heavy, or ’cold.’ I quietly tiptoed here to boil a pot of water, and for that, I have to face everyone’s judgment?”

”I should be the one envying all of you! If I could start my life over, I would give up everything to trade for a healthy body like yours...”

After speaking, she was seized by another coughing fit, so violent it seemed she might cough up her own lungs.

In the past, she had always been arrogant and domineering. The others were all young people, and they hated being provoked. They were all born to parents, all came from the city—what was there to make anyone superior or inferior?

So no matter how beautiful she was—so beautiful that a glance could leave one dazed for a few seconds—the others still disliked her. They constantly had to brainwash themselves into believing that Chi Yun’er was just a petty villain in a beautiful disguise, infringing on the interests of others, no different from a lazy freeloader!

But now, as Chi Yun’er argued for herself and cried injustice with tears streaming down her face and such genuine emotion, the others slowly began to realize that she was, in fact, just a girl who had just turned eighteen, a girl who had grown up doted on by her family.

They struggled to recall memories of when she first arrived: a young girl who liked to hold her chin high, shining like a little sun. She had marched proudly into the fields, full of vigor, only to be carried back miserably by the village aunties.

When she was reassigned to watch the drying grounds, she had geared up completely, but she didn’t even last half an hour before being carried back again. Her high fever relapsed for the better part of a month.

After that, the villagers had completely lost hope in her. After all, plenty of sent-down youths couldn’t handle the hardship at first. But as time went on and fewer and fewer packages arrived from home, didn’t they all eventually resign themselves to the miserable struggle for work-points?