Chapter 004: Pure Love?

Feng Lu and Ying Tian had betrayed her in her former life. Tian Xiang had no memories of that life, so though she hated them, it was not to an extreme.

This time she had come to the machinery factory to make trouble only because she wanted to ruin their engagement and humiliate the scumbag and the shameless woman. She had never planned to hit anyone.

But she simply could not hold back.

The hero of a harem novel was always the sort of man endowed with overwhelming charisma and a halo of charm, able to move effortlessly among several women, winning their affection and devotion in the end. He wanted it all, held one in his arms while chasing another, keeping the home fires burning while carrying on affairs outside.

So this man had not merely given himself a cuckold’s shame in his previous life, but planted an entire field of green.

What sort of creature was he?

Born beneath the red flag, raised in comfort, how could he have such filthy thoughts?

Wasn’t that just plain lechery?

If Tian Xiang did not slap him now, she would be letting down the heavens themselves for granting her the power to see through such a false face.

Still, impulsive actions always came at a price.

...

Hu Honglian carried a lunchbox home to pick up her daughter, only to learn that the girl had already gone off to the machinery factory that morning and had even caused a scene at the police station.

Hu Honglian was frantic.

“This child, why did she go running off by herself?

Aunt Pan, did the comrades at the police station explain exactly what happened?”

Pan Yuzhen, the aunt who lived diagonally across and was already itching to gossip, was equally anxious.

“No, they didn’t! Go quickly and have a look. Don’t let anything serious happen.”

“Yes, yes!”

Hu Honglian hurried outside.

Pan Yuzhen pushed her bicycle and followed close behind.

When they reached the main road, Hu Honglian wanted to find a tricycle to take her there, only to realize Pan Yuzhen was still with her.

“Aunt, where are you headed?”

Pan Yuzhen glanced left and right. “Nowhere special, just taking a look.”

Hu Honglian snatched the bicycle from her hands. “Thank you, Aunt! You just go wander around.”

She mounted the bicycle and rode off.

Pan Yuzhen chased after her from behind. “Whatever the situation is, remember to come back and tell me!”

It took Hu Honglian twenty minutes to reach the Red Fifth Street police station.

Before entering, she smoothed her hair, straightened the armband for Monthly Excellent Employee, and then went in to find her daughter.

Inside the office in the station’s rear courtyard, the street office and the factory union had both sent people to learn what had happened, since the affair involved a man and a woman and the trouble had occurred on factory grounds.

Tian Xiang still repeated the same account: Feng Lu had deceived the affections of several women in advance, so she had lost her temper and struck him.

To prove she had not hit the wrong man, Tian Xiang had the police bring in the other important figure in the affair, Ying Tian, along with Director Wu from the Sanli Alley neighborhood committee.

Wu could testify that yesterday afternoon Ying Tian had knelt by her bed and personally admitted that she and Feng Lu had already been involved for quite some time.

If he had already gotten involved with Ying Tian and still came to blind-date her, what was that if not loose and immoral behavior?

And this was by no means an isolated case.

“Though I have no evidence, I can stake my honor on it: Feng Lu is definitely a repeat offender.”

Tian Xiang thumped her chest, furious that only she could see the labels above everyone’s heads; otherwise, a single mouthful of spit from each person here would be enough to drown that shameless lecher.

The comrades present exchanged looks, then took out notebooks and pens and turned to Ying Tian.

Had she had an underground affair with Feng Lu?

Ying Tian shook her head. “No.”

Then how could she explain that they had long been in love, that she had drugged Tian Xiang and taken her place at the blind date?

Faced with a room full of street officials, union cadres, and gossip-hungry onlookers, Ying Tian remained composed.

“We were pen pals, exchanging letters...”

Pen pals?

Hearing those two words, Tian Xiang raised a brow.

No wonder she was so calm. So she had already found her way out, her excuse.

Ying Tian soon “explained” her affair with Feng Lu in detail.

Yes, they knew each other and had for two years, but they had never met in person. They had only corresponded by letter, introduced through the Red Star Weekly published by the Red Fifth Street factory district. Feng Lu often published articles there, and she was a devoted reader. After she wrote to him, the newspaper forwarded the letter, and so they came into contact.

For these two years, she had only known his pen name and had no idea that person was Feng Lu.

It was only a couple of days ago, when she heard Tian Xiang was going to a blind date, and after piecing together the details, that she guessed the person she had been writing to for two years might be Feng Lu.

Ying Tian even produced several letters as proof that what she said was true.

However, the letters only used pen names, so at most they proved she had corresponded with someone from Red Fifth Street. Whether that someone was Feng Lu still had to be confirmed with the man himself.

Since the matter had already reached the police station, it was a case of some kind, and the two sides were being questioned separately. Feng Lu was in the next room.

Ying Tian said, “I was at fault in this matter. I should have confessed to my older sister sooner and laid everything out about me and Feng Lu. At the time I was possessed by some demon and only wanted to go in my sister’s place to see for myself and make sure it was really him.

Yes, I had my selfish reasons, but it was all because of this pure love.”

For love, she had drugged someone!

What kind of absurd reasoning was that?

The people in the room frowned.

Chairman Jiang, with the words Justice and Integrity almost written on his forehead, said, “Corresponding by letter is still a form of courtship. If Feng Lu truly exchanged feelings with you through letters and confirmed a romantic relationship, then going to another female comrade for a blind date would also count as deceiving a woman’s affections.”

Ying Tian hurriedly denied it. “No, he didn’t. Yesterday we met and made everything clear to each other. He said he had followed the address on the letters to ask around, and thought the writer was my sister, which was why he had asked someone to arrange the match. This whole farce was just a misunderstanding.”

Ying Tian pressed a handkerchief to her forehead and sighed, yet the corners of her mouth curved ever so slightly.

The gossiping onlookers in the office all widened their mouths a little. None of them had expected a blind date to become so bizarre, with misunderstandings piling upon misunderstandings and twists turning again and again.

If the matter was truly as Ying Tian described, then Feng Lu had not been engaged in any loose and immoral conduct. Taking someone else’s place at a blind date, wrapped in the guise of love, did not seem quite as vile.

It was only the drugging that still felt inexplicably wrong.

Ying Tian even apologized to Tian Xiang in front of everyone and said she would go to the street office to report herself and undergo further ideological reeducation.

She alone would take responsibility for her own actions, and she hoped everyone would not misunderstand or drag Feng Lu into it.

Meeting Ying Tian’s eyes, sincere on the surface yet sly beneath, Tian Xiang’s face darkened like the bottom of a pot.

She could clearly feel it: after becoming the female lead, Ying Tian had grown clever. She could even think of such an excuse. With that sharp tongue, she would not be easy to deal with.

The two of them had probably already discussed the pen-pal matter in private and reached an agreement.

Tian Xiang looked at Ying Tian seriously. “Are you sure you want to clear a libertine’s name?”

After all that had happened, and once the anger over Feng Lu’s character had faded, Tian Xiang still hoped that Ying Tian, as another woman, would wake up to the truth.

Alas, Ying Tian could not understand her good intentions.

“Sister, I’m sorry. Feng Lu and I really didn’t mean any of it.”

Tian Xiang: “...”

“All right then. I hope you don’t regret it.”

Tian Xiang swore that she would expose Feng Lu’s despicable conduct to the world and rid the women of society of this scourge.

Ying Tian smiled inwardly.

Regret?

Impossible. You can only watch me live gloriously and happily.

But her dream was only half-finished when the comrade who had gone to the next office to confirm the pen-pal matter returned and looked at Ying Tian with utter speechlessness.

“Comrade, Feng Lu said he never corresponded with you by letter. He’s even less your pen pal!”

“What?”