“Oh, you should have seen it—after the accounts were settled, Tian Baoguo’s face was so sour. He went straight home, got the money, and stuffed it into Tian Baomin’s hand. He even apologized, saying Tian Baomin had been wronged all these years.”
“What kind of hardship is that? Being gossiped about doesn’t make you lose any weight. Who knows how much money Tian Baomin got from his grandparents? I heard his grandfather used to be a head clerk at a big jewelry store, and his grandmother worked there as a salesgirl.”
“Wow, how much wealth have they got stored up? No wonder Tian Baomin never liked working since he was a kid.”
“Oh, if you had that much money, you wouldn’t like working either!”
“If you ask me, Chen Xia really brought this upon herself. She’s lost all face. For years, she went around complaining that the second branch was bleeding the first branch dry. Now that the numbers are out—well, it turns out it was the opposite.”
“Hey, where do you think Liu Shuya got those account books from?”
“Where indeed?”
The same question was being asked in Tian Tian’s house.
Tian Tian answered directly: “My grandmother gave them to me.” Then she poured a handful of sunflower seeds into Feng Mei’s hand and urged her to eat.
Feng Mei, like Niu Zai, had grown up with Tian Tian. They had always been close. Later, Tian Tian went to technical secondary school while Feng Mei stayed home to help her family grow and sell sugarcane. Their interactions became less frequent, but their friendship never faded.
Sure enough, after the final reckoning today, their family had become famous once again. The matter ended with the eldest uncle apologizing and paying up.
But that was just the surface ending. One after another, villagers came to their house to pry.
Tian Tian’s parents were surrounded by their own friends asking questions. Tian Tian herself was being grilled by her own friends.
It wasn’t that they were all gossipy—it was just that this reversal was completely unexpected.
“Everyone’s guessing how much money your family actually has,” Feng Mei chattered, relaying the village gossip.
Tian Tian spread her hands. Her family didn’t really have much left. It had been so many years. Her great-grandparents hadn’t been capitalists—just workers who labored for capitalists. There was some foundation, but not a lot.
They had given some money to her father, sure, but she was already nineteen this year. Most of that money had been spent long ago. And even if there were any left, Tian Tian wouldn’t take it. That money was her parents’ security for their old age.
“Really? Everyone says you bought those salted fish with cash. Peanut candy couldn’t have gotten you that much fish.”
Tian Tian facepalmed. She knew the villagers had vivid imaginations.
“Really, I didn’t. The salted fish really was traded for the peanut candy.”
“Then what are you going to do with all that salted fish? There’s only half a month until New Year. I don’t know if you can sell it all. Niu Zai really should have talked you out of it.”
Tian Tian said, “It’s fine. It’s only a thousand catties of salted fish. Worst case, I sell it to the supply and marketing cooperative.”
“Oh, right!” Feng Mei slapped her thigh, realizing she’d been worried for nothing.
Tian Tian gave her a high five in return.
After they’d laughed and horsed around for a bit, Feng Mei said, “When I was on my way here, I passed by your eldest uncle’s house. I heard your uncle and aunt-in-law arguing. Tian Xin was sitting at the door, and her expression was awful.”
Feng Mei didn’t like Tian Xin. She thought she was too full of herself. Just now, seeing Tian Xin glaring furiously at Tian Tian’s house, Feng Mei was genuinely worried Tian Xin might do something. After all, there were quite a few men in the village who enjoyed talking to Tian Xin.
Tian Tian nodded. “Thanks for the warning. I’ll keep an eye out.”
Now that the accounts had been settled, Tian Tian wasn’t afraid of anything the first branch might do. Her uncle was rigid and old-fashioned. Her aunt-in-law was greedy. Tian Xin kept a stable of backup suitors around her. And her eldest cousin Tian Yingxiong and his wife weren’t the type to go all out either.
As long as these people had things to lose, they wouldn’t do anything too drastic. At worst, they’d just try to annoy her.
—
Tian Tian’s guess turned out to be spot on.
That evening during dinner, rumors spread through the village and even into the neighboring villages that Tian Tian had been cheated into buying a thousand catties of rotten, stinking salted fish. People were warned not to buy from her—that the fish might even kill you if you ate it.
Tian Tian knew immediately that Tian Xin was behind it. She wasn’t angry. Since Tian Xin wanted to play dirty, she could play dirty too.
But Tian Tian hadn’t expected the rumor to spread all the way to the county by the next day. She only found out when she went to work and people stopped her to ask about it.
No need to guess—Tian Xin must have put real effort into spreading it that fast.
With skills like that, she could probably become a ten-thousand-yuan household if she just focused on making money.
Tian Tian really couldn’t understand Tian Xin’s thought process. How could she keep doing things that hurt others without benefiting herself, over and over again?
“Yes, I did buy a thousand catties of salted fish. Didn’t you see them yesterday, Sister Qian? I bought them directly from fishermen. The quality is definitely not a problem.”
Tian Tian said a few casual words and didn’t waste any effort trying to clear things up. From the very beginning, her target customers for these thousand catties of salted fish weren’t the people in the county, the town, or even the village. They were the inland merchant who was about to show up.
Sister Qian had been about to offer Tian Tian some advice. Seeing how calm and unbothered she was, she figured Tian Tian must already have a buyer lined up. So she stopped worrying and instead shifted the conversation back to the feud between Sister Liu and Xu Lifen.
“You weren’t here yesterday afternoon, so you missed it. Sister Liu and A-Fen got into another argument in the warehouse over picking up goods. And then Sister Liu got chewed out by Warehouse Supervisor Liu again.”
Sister Qian was delighted. She wished Sister Liu would get yelled at every single day—it made her happier than making money.
Hearing this, Tian Tian raised an eyebrow. Xu Lifen was really going for the jugular. Staging this kind of drama twice in one day. But then again, if she weren’t ruthless, she wouldn’t have blocked her own promotion path in the previous life.
In her previous life, Tian Tian had been a perfectly compliant workhorse at the supply and marketing cooperative. Every day, she was the first to arrive and the last to leave, aside from whoever was on duty. She worked that hard because she wanted to get ahead. Everyone in the cooperative knew about her ambition.
As a close colleague, Xu Lifen naturally knew too. They often encouraged each other.
But then, before the year-end inventory in 1985—next year—the inbound and outbound receipts that Tian Tian was responsible for safeguarding went missing. They were never found. As a result, the inventory, sales revenue, and expenditure data couldn’t be reconciled. In the end, they had to reconstruct the books based on the existing accounts and inventory, leaving the remaining shortfall as bad debt.
Because of that incident, Tian Tian lost any chance of advancement. She drifted through another year at the supply and marketing cooperative. Then, due to the Chen Jiahao affair, she became known throughout the county. After weighing her options, she ultimately took a leave without pay and went to Shenzhen to work.
It wasn’t until the 1990s, through some old friends, that Tian Tian confirmed the missing receipts had been tampered with by Xu Lifen. But by then, Xu Lifen had long since been transferred to the Bureau of Commerce to work as a cadre.
Now, having been reborn, Tian Tian saw many things clearly. And after confirming yesterday that there were big rats in the cooperative, she realized that in her previous life, she had simply been used as cannon fodder to help those rats destroy the evidence.
—
“Tian Tian, you’re at work! I heard you bought a thousand catties of low-quality salted fish. What are you going to do? Are you okay?”
Just as she was thinking about Xu Lifen, the woman herself walked over, her face full of concern.
Tian Tian put on her usual smile. “It’s fine. That’s just a rumor.”
“Oh, I wish I could help you, but I don’t know how! You really need to be more careful. You work in finance—you can’t afford to be so careless. Otherwise, I’d worry myself to death.”
Tian Tian rolled her eyes at these words that sounded caring but were actually belittling.
“A-Fen, I’ve been working here for over a year and have never made a single mistake. I don’t accept your claim that I’m careless with financial work.”
Her righteous reply left Xu Lifen momentarily speechless.
Sister Liu, who had been watching from the sidelines, saw Xu Lifen get shot down and suddenly felt incredibly refreshed.
Previously, she had thought Tian Tian’s sharp tongue was insufferable. But now? It was actually pretty great!
“Exactly, Xu Lifen. You’re a warehouse keeper—why are you meddling in financial affairs? I heard you didn’t even graduate from middle school. How can you lecture a technical secondary school graduate?”
Sister Liu’s trademark sarcastic tone made the entire cooperative counter fall silent.
Customers who had come early to shop stopped browsing altogether. Their eyes sparkled as they watched the drama unfold.
Seeing this, Tian Tian had a stroke of inspiration. “A-Fen, what you said was really out of line. If I were someone with thin skin, those words of yours might have made me too embarrassed to come to work. And if outsiders heard that, they’d say you’re not a good person—that you even badmouth your own colleagues.”
Here she goes again, Xu Lifen thought. The tension she had let go of tightened again.
Seeing that, Tian Tian said no more and turned to go back to the office.
The finance department was as quiet as ever. Seeing Tian Tian come in, the section chief, who rarely arrived early, said, “Perfect timing. Have you organized all the receipts? We need to book them and close the ledgers.”
Tian Tian immediately opened her drawer, handed over all the receipts she had been holding onto, and then washed her hands of the matter. Instead, she sat down and began finishing up some routine tasks.
She had already decided to finish out this year’s work and head to Shenzhen after the New Year. As for her job—she was going to sell it at a high price in the next couple of days. She already had a buyer in mind.
Once she left the cooperative, that would be the perfect time to catch the rats.
—
At noon, after eating in the cafeteria, Tian Tian went to the post office and mailed over a dozen letters. The recipients were all in the county. According to the postal service’s delivery schedule at the time, the earliest these people would receive their letters was the day after tomorrow. And then, the real show would begin.
Back at the cooperative, Tian Tian didn’t rest. She continued observing the battle between Sister Liu and Xu Lifen.
Sure enough, they took every opportunity to sabotage each other. And there was no sign of things cooling down.
Excellent.
The next day, she kept watching. Still the same. Tian Tian decided it was time to approach Sister Liu.
“Sell your job? You’re not trying to set me up, are you?”
At noon, on her way back to work, Sister Liu was stopped by Tian Tian. When she heard that Tian Tian wanted to sell her job, her first reaction was that Tian Tian was trying to trap her.
Tian Tian smiled. “Sister Liu, hasn’t your daughter always wanted to get into the finance department? Now such a good opportunity is right in front of you. Are you really willing to let it pass?”
Seeing Tian Tian’s calm, composed demeanor, Sister Liu felt like walking away. But she really couldn’t bear to let it go. The finance department job was so comfortable. And it would look good on her daughter’s resume when she started looking for a husband.
Her daughter currently worked as a temporary fee collector at the waterworks and complained every day about how hard it was.
If her daughter could get Tian Tian’s job, she’d stop complaining. Plus, Sister Liu would have an extra ally at the cooperative—someone to help her trip up that bitch Xu Lifen.
Tian Tian could tell exactly what she was thinking from her expression.
With Xu Lifen’s relentless revenge campaign, Tian Tian knew Sister Liu had to be looking for help.
And that desire for help was exactly what would let Tian Tian sell her job at a high price.
Of course, she couldn’t put it that bluntly.
“Sister Liu, to be honest, Xu Lifen has always wanted this job. She’s always complaining about how hard warehouse work is. If I sold it to her, I’m sure I could get a good price.”
As soon as she heard “selling to Xu Lifen,” Sister Liu grew even more anxious.
“Tell me—how much do you want for it?”
Tian Tian didn’t hold back. Smiling, she said, “Two thousand yuan. Once the money is in hand, you can even wait until after your daughter collects the unit’s year-end benefits before we transfer the job.”
After all, she wanted to collect her own year-end benefits from the cooperative before handing the job over.
Hearing “two thousand,” Sister Liu turned green.
“Two thousand? You might as well just rob me. That job is worth fifteen hundred at most.”
Tian Tian raised her right index finger and wagged it. “Sister Liu, with this job, if you do well, you can get promoted directly to the Statistics Bureau as a cadre. Think about it—your daughter buys this job, works a year or two, puts in some connections at home, and boom—she’s a cadre in a government office. I’ve said my piece. If you don’t want it, Xu Lifen is waiting.”
With that, Tian Tian turned and headed back toward the cooperative.
Behind her, Sister Liu thought it over, gritted her teeth, and called out, “Fine!”
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