Chapter 47

At night, He Yani dragged her exhausted body down the mountain with the rest of the group.

Walking at the back, Wei Sheng glanced at her sympathetically but didn’t step forward to help.

Just like many netizens said, sometimes, even well-meaning bystanders should “let go of their savior complex and respect others’ fates.”

A person’s birth is beyond their control, but for both men and women, marriage is like a second reincarnation—choose the right person, and the road ahead gets wider; choose the wrong person, and no matter how much you struggle, you can’t blame anyone else.

After all, love is always full of regrets, no matter how you choose.

If a man chooses a rich and beautiful woman, his poor first love becomes his untouchable white moonlight.

If he chooses to stay with his first love, then when middle age hits and life is tough, he can’t help but wonder—what if he hadn’t been so blinded by love in his youth and had instead married a well-off only daughter? Would he have avoided thirty years of struggle?

And if men think this way, don’t women too?

Wei Sheng wanted to tell He Yani: when buying a pig, check the pen. There are indeed many outstanding men from impoverished backgrounds who have made it out of the mountains, but marriage isn’t just about the husband—it’s also about dealing with his family. Before deciding to be with someone, it’s best to secretly investigate his family’s reputation in their village.

If you find out his mother is another Granny Cuimei, you should run, even if you have to carry a train engine on your back!

But he couldn’t say that—because if he did, and He Yani regretted her decision later, he’d be blamed.

Even her own sister and brother-in-law weren’t stepping in—what more could he do?

Yet, the more people stayed silent, the faster He Yani’s overheated, love-struck brain began to cool down.

That evening, while the film crew feasted and drank in the neighboring courtyard, the Huang family had also reached dinnertime. Granny Cuimei, eager to show off in front of guests, had actually slaughtered a chicken and cooked a full meal of three dishes and a soup.

The meal included braised rooster with potatoes, fried meatballs with vermicelli soup, a plate of chili-steamed dried fish, and stir-fried pork belly with Chinese cabbage.

Having barely eaten at noon and worked in the fields all afternoon, He Yani was starving. The fragrant aroma of the food made even the usually detestable Granny Cuimei seem a bit more pleasant.

But that feeling lasted less than a minute—before it was brutally shattered by Granny Cuimei herself.

As soon as He Yani sat at the table, she saw Granny Cuimei grab a chipped ceramic bowl, casually throw in a few cabbage stems, two pieces of salted fish, dig out the chicken head and chicken butt, and finally drizzle a little vermicelli soup over it.

He Yani thought she was about to feed the dog.

But to her shock, Granny Cuimei handed the bowl to Li Chunxiang.

“There’s water boiling on the stove—go watch it. Once it’s ready, pour it into the thermos.”

He Yani was stunned.

She turned her head and saw that Li Chunxiang’s husband, Huang Xinfang, was already seated comfortably at the table, eating away with his chopsticks.

A surge of raging fury shot up straight to her head!

All this over a mere 100,000 yuan dowry?

After dinner, He Yani found an opportunity to corner Li Chunxiang in the courtyard.

“Chunxiang-jie, do you want to divorce your husband?”

“If you do, I can lend you the money—you can pay them back the dowry first…”

Li Chunxiang froze. In her dull, lifeless eyes, a faint spark of hope suddenly flickered!

But almost as quickly, that tiny light dimmed again.

Her dark eyes turned blank and numb once more.

“It’s too much… 100,000 yuan… I can’t pay it back.”

“Besides… Xinfang treats me well. My mother-in-law just has a sharp tongue. He says she’s just obsessed with wanting a grandson. Once I give her one, life will get better…”

Hearing this archaic logic, He Yani felt her head buzzing with rage!

For the first time, she understood how her eldest sister must have felt—some women, once blinded by love, couldn’t be pulled back even by eighteen oxen!

Fuming, He Yani stormed away.

That night, as she lay in the Huang family’s old, rundown house—which felt more like a haunted house—she could hear, through the thin walls, the sounds of a man and a woman “working hard to make a baby.”

Her face flushed red with embarrassment, and she buried her head under the blanket!

After a while, the noises faded.

The next moment, silence fell.

Granny Cuimei, who was sleeping in the hall, spat harshly, muttered a few curses under her breath, and went back to sleep.

In the pitch-black room, He Yani lay awake, unable to sleep all night.

Granny Cuimei’s deafening snores filled the air. The old wooden bed was so narrow and rickety that it felt like it might collapse at any moment. She didn’t dare move.

In the darkness, rats scurried around the room, and from the mountain outside, the eerie cries of unknown wild beasts echoed through the night.

Just one night here, and she couldn’t take it anymore.

She didn’t even want to think about it—if she really married Ding Chengcai, and her family cut ties with her, was this the life she’d be stuck with?

Would she have to live in a house like this for the rest of her life, tormented by an evil mother-in-law—her only hope of getting a proper meal being to bear a son?

For the first time, He Yani began to doubt her so-called love.

Did she really love Ding Chengcai that much?

Did she love him enough to give up her privileged life as the cherished daughter of the He family, where she never had to worry about food or money?

Did she love him enough to move to this remote, impoverished mountain village—to live among rats, chickens, and ducks, surviving on plain boiled potatoes, and only ever getting a taste of chicken when guests visited?

The next morning, He Yani couldn’t wait a second longer—she ran straight to the courtyard where the film crew was staying.

She wanted to find her eldest sister and ask her! She knew that her sister had previously investigated Ding Chengcai’s family background—she must know what kind of people his family members were and whether they were easy to get along with…

At the end of the day, He Yani was still unwilling to give up.

What if Ding Chengcai’s parents were the kind of simple and kindhearted rural elders?

After all, the He family had plenty of money. Based on her eldest sister’s wedding standards, even without considering her future share of the family fortune, just the dowry alone would be worth several billion!

If the Ding family was easy to get along with, then after getting married, He Yani felt she wouldn’t even need to live in the village. She could buy a house in the city and bring her in-laws over to live with them!

Elderly people had few expenses—if she just cut back on buying a few outfits each month and gave her in-laws a few thousand yuan for living expenses, at worst, she could just support them until old age. How much could it really cost?

Unexpectedly, when she arrived so early, her sister and brother-in-law weren’t even there!

“Director Li and his wife went hiking to watch the sunrise. They took the photographer and Wei Sheng along too, saying they needed to reshoot some footage.”

The staff member hurriedly explained before rushing off to work, afraid that if he delayed any longer, He Yani would ask for help. The director had already announced in the group chat last night: for the next two months, anyone who secretly helped or provided any assistance to He Yani would be blacklisted from his next production…

Clearly, Director Li and his wife were determined to give He Yani a lesson she would never forget!

With no way to find her sister and brother-in-law, and not knowing where to look for them, the most frustrating part was that despite the crew having cooked so much sweet potato porridge, fried dough sticks, sticky rice cakes, and steaming meat buns as large as bowls, not a single person invited her to stay for breakfast.

He Yani was too thin-skinned to shamelessly linger, so she could only slink back to the Huang family home in embarrassment.

The moment she stepped in, she heard Granny Cuimei loudly scolding her daughter-in-law in the courtyard—accusing her of being blind for dropping two grains of rice while washing them for porridge, and berating her for not waking up earlier to feed the chickens, claiming they were starving and had flown out of the coop…

Then she saw Li Chunxiang—this foolish, love-struck woman! She was actually apologizing profusely to her mother-in-law over two grains of rice?!

She couldn’t take it anymore!

It was simply unimaginable! As an outsider, she was already furious just watching this, yet the actual victim, Li Chunxiang, showed no reaction at all! Had she been brainwashed by all the emotional abuse?

In the courtyard, the one-sided argument between mother-in-law and daughter-in-law didn’t even wake up Huang Xinfai, who was still sleeping inside. It wasn’t until breakfast time that he finally got up lazily, used the hot water his wife had boiled to brush his teeth and wash his face, and then sat down to eat in silence—without saying a single word in defense of his wife.

He Yani: “…”

For some reason, she suddenly saw her future self in Li Chunxiang…

He Yaru never expected that, let alone lasting two months, her little sister couldn’t even endure two days before coming to her, blushing, and saying she wanted to go home.

Internally, He Yaru was ecstatic, but she kept a straight face and scolded her:

“How can you give up halfway?”

“You were the one who said that as long as you could marry Ding Chengcai, you’d be willing to live a life of hardship forever.”

“The family was just worried that you wouldn’t be able to adjust to the way of life at the Ding household, so they let me bring you here for a trial run.”

“No need to rush—stay a little longer and experience it fully. Two days aren’t enough to see the whole picture. Who knows? Maybe after a few more days, you’ll get used to this lifestyle?”

Shrimp-stealing pig-heartedness!!!

She couldn’t even handle two days, and her sister wanted her to “get used to it”?

This was nothing like the idyllic countryside life she had imagined!

The short videos online never showed anything like this!

He Yaru wasn’t deliberately teasing her sister—she genuinely had business to attend to.

She had carefully reviewed the investment proposal that Wei Sheng and Wei Sizhe had given her. She even climbed to the highest peak near Huangjiabao with her husband to overlook the land that was set for development into a large outdoor extreme sports camp.

Wei Sheng was right—Huangjiabao was indeed highly suitable for extreme outdoor sports development.

Apart from high-end resort hotels, the He family had also been investing in various mid-to-high-end tourism projects, such as camping, extreme sports, small private aircraft piloting, and yacht bases. These ventures were far more profitable than the hotel business.

After all, people who could afford these hobbies weren’t short on money. By developing these projects, the He family could also conveniently build a high-end resort nearby—earning multiple streams of revenue from the same clientele!

He Yaru saw great potential in Huangjiabao’s geographical advantages, but she also wanted to find a nearby location to build a resort, which meant she needed to bring her company’s project development team over. With all the back-and-forth, she would have to stay in Huangjiabao for at least another half a month.

After hearing her sister’s plan, He Yani nearly blacked out.

Suppressing her laughter, He Yaru gently used the reverse persuasion technique on her youngest sister—

“Yani, I’ve seriously reflected on my actions. You’re right—it was wrong of me to oppose your relationship with Ding Chengcai just because his family is poor.”

“I’ve decided to respect your pursuit of love!”

“Since I’ll be staying here for another half a month, why don’t you go back and try to integrate into Granny Cuimei’s household? Discover their admirable qualities, treat them as your true in-laws, and work hard to help them escape poverty and achieve shared prosperity. Wouldn’t that be a meaningful endeavor?”

He Yani: “…”

Wei Sheng couldn’t bear to watch the poor girl’s utterly devastated expression.

How did such a well-educated young woman end up with such a hopelessly romanticized view of love?

She just didn’t understand—the real issue wasn’t that Ding Chengcai’s family was poor. The problem was that they were poor in both wealth and character!

If she didn’t believe it, she could just look at someone like Hou Pengfei from Houzhai Village. He knew that working as a laborer forever wasn’t a good future, so he and his wife returned to their hometown to start a bamboo and wood processing business. He worked hard to build something of his own. Even when he failed, he never blamed his wife. He would rather quit smoking to save money so that his wife and children could eat better.

Wei Sheng firmly believed that if He Yani could find a hardworking and reliable boyfriend like Hou Pengfei, no matter how poor his family was, the He family would have ways to help their son-in-law build a successful business.

Unlike Ding Chengcai, who relied on his family like a leech whenever he encountered difficulties, completely disregarding their well-being. His insistence on becoming a civil servant was purely based on the belief that once he got the job, he could climb the ranks and bring honor to his family.

But a person like that—even if he managed to pass the exam—would eventually become a corrupt official who harmed the people!

Worse still, he might even drag the He family down with him…

Watching Wei Sheng’s dumbfounded expression, He Yaru sighed slightly. If only her younger sister had found someone with a strong moral compass and a diligent work ethic, even if his family background was less than ideal, their parents wouldn’t have been this furious.

If she had found someone like Wei Sheng—sharp-witted, socially intelligent, and a college graduate—their parents would probably be happily preparing a lavish dowry for their youngest daughter by now.

Speaking of Wei Sheng’s intelligence, He Yaru was truly impressed!

No wonder people nowadays say that those who can pass the civil service exams on their own merit are the true elites.

Yesterday, while hiking into the mountains to survey the project site, she had been discussing with Wei Sheng and Wei Sizhe. The more they talked, the more she realized how outstanding these two young men were!

Especially Wei Sheng. Wei Sizhe, having joined the system early and worked directly under county leadership, had developed a certain top-down mindset. But Wei Sheng, on the other hand, could approach issues from the perspective of grassroots individuals. He continuously adjusted the investment proposal based on her concerns.

Take, for example, the biggest headache she was facing: finding a location for the luxury resort. Wei Sheng provided an absolutely brilliant solution—

Why insist on building the resort on a single, contiguous piece of land?

Not to mention that Huangjiabao’s terrain was complex. Any flat land that was available had already been snapped up by local villagers for housing. There was no way they could get it.

The only way to acquire a large flat area was to mobilize the villagers for demolition and relocation.

But relocation costs a fortune! And after demolition, where would the displaced farmers go? Their farmland was still in Huangjiabao—were they really supposed to follow some expert’s ridiculous suggestion of buying a car, living in the city at night, and commuting back to the village during the day to farm?

That was absurd!

So, Wei Sheng proposed an entirely different approach: instead of demolishing, they could adopt a long-term leasing model. They could rent old houses from elderly villagers living alone or from families who wanted to move to the city for work, then renovate these houses into standalone guest lodges, integrating them into Huangjiabao as part of the larger resort.

This way, not only would the He family save a massive sum on relocation compensation, but they would also eliminate the annual landscaping maintenance costs that a typical luxury resort required—after all, with the guest lodges nestled within the village, every tree, flower, lake, and rock in Huangjiabao became a free, natural scenic attraction.

Some problems are like that—once you shift your perspective, what once seemed like an insurmountable obstacle turns into an opportunity.

Inspired by Wei Sheng’s idea, He Yaru immediately thought of a way to further expand the resort—

They could lease the vast majority of the village’s houses without forcing the local villagers to move out.

Because, aside from the resort, they were also building a large outdoor adventure sports complex!

Projects of this scale typically received a designated amount of office land from the local government.

They could directly employ the villagers who leased their homes to them, transforming them into company staff.

Then, under the pretense of employee housing, they could apply for land from the government to build staff dormitories.

In the end, while the villagers might lose their old houses, they would gain spacious three-bedroom apartments in elevator buildings—just like city dwellers!

Without spending a single cent on relocation compensation, they could achieve nearly the same results as a traditional demolition project while also securing a stable local workforce and a company-owned dormitory building…

As a business-minded capitalist, He Yaru was thoroughly tempted!

If it weren’t for the fact that celebrities in the entertainment industry also made a lot of money, she would have been seriously considering poaching Wei Sheng from Zhou Mingxing’s team.

This kid was born for the investment world!

(End of chapter)