Chapter 218: The Manly Man With a Face Full of Tears
Shao Dong glanced at Shao Qihai coldly and held Little Bei’s hand. “Let’s go. We’ll go with Mommy. Grandma and Grandpa are waiting.”
If Shao Qihai didn’t want to watch, there were plenty of people who would. There were lots of people who wanted to support Little Bei.
“Mm.” Little Bei perked up. She held Mu Jingzhe and Shao Dong’s hands and skipped forward.
Shao Qihai chased after her, taking two steps forward, as if he wanted to say something. In the end, he didn’t say anything. His face was filled with frustration, and he couldn’t help but scratch his hair.
Because there were many people watching and it was Little Bei performing, the princ.i.p.al generously allowed the movie to be screened directly on the school field. Now, their school field had also been laid with cement.
Since the cement ground had been built by the parents of the students, they could enjoy it together.
The princ.i.p.al didn’t expect to come across such a promising child at school. He was incredibly fond of those five children.
As soon as Mu Jingzhe and Little Bei went over, someone with sharp eyes shouted for Little Bei to come, causing everyone to look over. The villagers were fine, but the people from other villages stretched their necks and rushed over.
“Don’t squeeze through, don’t squeeze through. Sit and stand properly. Otherwise, all of you can go back. Stop looking.”
Li Zhaodi instantly panicked. She and Mu Teng stood in front of Little Bei and automatically acted as security guards.
Mu Jingzhe and Shao Dong also automatically acted as security guards and escorted Little Bei to her special seat in the center.
There were two wooden chairs from the princ.i.p.al’s office there. Now, they were being used by Li Zhaodi.
Even after Mu Jingzhe sat down with them, she could still see everyone craning their necks to look at Little Bei. She thought that they hadn’t asked to take photos with Little Bei or get her autograph only because they weren’t in the habit of doing so. Otherwise, they would have come to get autographs and take pictures with her as memorabilia.
The entire school field was packed with people, so it was noisy. However, when the movie started, the place went quiet.
When they saw Little Bei in the movie, these people’s reactions were exactly the same as Li Zhaodi’s in the past. They looked at Little Bei and mumbled, “She’s exactly the same.”
As the plot progressed, each and every one of them started to cry. When they saw Zhao Lan and Li Zhaodi, the bad guys, appear, Li Zhaodi scolded herself. Also, since she was the one treating them to the movie, no one criticized her.
However, Zhao Lan was in trouble. She was beaten up the moment she arrived.
That’s right, Zhao Lan also came. The village was so lively that she couldn’t take this lying down and secretly came to take a look. In the end, someone happened to see her. A little boy who couldn’t distinguish between acting and real life picked up a rock without hesitation and threw it over at the sight of the baddie.
“I’ll beat you to death, you evil grandma!”
Shortly after her arrival at the lively scene, disaster befell Zhao Lan. With a dong, she was struck by the rock.
She cursed in response, and upon seeing that everyone was itching to come over and hit her, she shut up and fled in a hurry.
This was even after Mu Jingzhe stopped everyone. If she hadn’t, Zhao Lan would probably have had trouble leaving.
Even though Zhao Lan had gone overboard with the five kids, Mu Jingzhe couldn’t let them continue hitting her. What if they beat her to death? She could only stop everyone and explain that this was just acting.
In spite of this incident with Zhao Lan, the movie continued playing.
Toward the end, there were sobbing sounds everywhere. Everyone was engrossed in the movie.
Mu Jingzhe had seen it once before and felt it deeply. However, as she watched, she felt the need to relieve herself, so she secretly left to go to the bathroom.
When Mu Jingzhe returned from the bathroom, she was almost frightened to death by a crying sound as she walked past the lawn outside the school.
The village wasn’t like the city, which was brightly lit. In the dark night of Great Eastern Village, one couldn’t see their fingers without a flashlight. It was really creepy to hear someone crying at night.
“Who is it? Come out. Stop hiding and scaring people.”
Mu Jingzhe thought that someone was playing a prank on her, as there were many people there. Unexpectedly, the moment she shouted, the crying sound stopped. A moment later, the other person let out a crying burp.
It seemed like that person was really crying. Upon hearing the hiccups, Mu Jingzhe wasn’t that afraid anymore and quickly said, “I’m Mu Jingzhe. Are you alright? If there’s anything wrong, you can tell me. Stop hiding and crying.”
Mu Jingzhe thought that someone had been wronged and was hiding in tears. She wanted to comfort the other person to prevent anything from happening.
Mu Jingzhe wasn’t exaggerating. This was something that had happened when she had just transmigrated. A young lady had given birth to her first child, a daughter. Her mother-in-law, who had been dissatisfied, had kept scolding her and hadn’t even taken care of her during her confinement. The confinement period was very important to a woman who had just given birth. Being scolded like this every day made the young mother depressed, which had resulted in conflict with her husband and her crying often.
After seeing her crying a few times, everyone knew that she felt aggrieved, but there was nothing they could do about it. Later on, one night, because her daughter was sick, she wanted to take her to the doctor. Her mother-in-law objected and said that it was a waste of money. Her husband didn’t dare make a sound either, so she left with the child on her back.
Everyone originally thought that she had gone to the doctor with the child on her back, but the next morning, the bodies of the mother and daughter were found in the reservoir.
The young mother had lost her biological mother, and her biological father was crazy. She had suffered many grievances and had nowhere to complain. No one had given her any advice either. In the middle of the night, in her despair, she had jumped into the pond with her child.
When they were hauled up, the child was still firmly tied to her mother.
Mu Jingzhe had just arrived at the time and had only met this young mother once. She hadn’t expected her to be gone so quickly.
This matter had impacted her quite greatly. She felt that the young wife might have been forced into depression by them. In addition, she had been so desperate that she had made a bad choice.
However, it had been too late to say anything then. Now that she’d heard this sound of crying, the first thing that came to her mind was that incident. Hence, she asked what was wrong out of concern, thinking that if it was another young woman in similar circ.u.mstances, perhaps a few words of advice from her could save one or even two lives.
Mu Jingzhe tried her best to sound as gentle and approachable as possible. “Can you hear me? I’m coming.”
After greeting the person, Mu Jingzhe was about to go over. However, the person hiding seemed to be frightened. After letting out a panicked sound, they rolled down the stairs and ran away.
“Are you alright? Don’t fall and hurt yourself…” Mu Jingzhe quickly climbed up and searched with the flashlight, only to see a fleeing figure.
The flashlight had a limited range, so she couldn’t see who it was. From the back, it seemed to be a man, and he looked a little familiar.
“Who is it? It’s actually a man.”
Did men cry like this too? Did they also suffer such grievances?
Mu Jingzhe chased after him, taking two steps forward, but when she realized that she couldn’t catch up to him anymore and couldn’t remember who it was, she stopped. However, she picked up a pair of binoculars from the ground.
The binoculars were wrapped in tape, and the lens was cracked. They were very old.
“He was even carrying binoculars… He’ll probably come back after he realizes they’re missing, right?” Mu Jingzhe put away the binoculars and returned to the school, wondering who it was.
“I’m sure I know him. I’m sure I’ve seen him before. Why else would I find him familiar… That physique…”
As soon as she arrived at the school gate, Mu Jingzhe had a flash of inspiration when she saw Shao Dong. “Shao Qihai!”
Mu Jingzhe shouted in surprise and then paused. “That’s impossible. It can’t be Shao Qihai. Why was he hiding there crying? He hasn’t suffered any grievances.”
Although that person had looked quite a lot like Shao Qihai, Mu Jingzhe felt that it was impossible. Shao Qihai would even teach his children to ‘shed blood and sweat but never tears’. How could he possibly hide in the gra.s.s and cry his heart out?