Time-Travel: The Tragic Cannon Fodder Female Supporting Character Makes a Comeback

CHAPTER 101: The Eldest Sister of the 90s Quits Sacrificing Herself (13)

   

　　Zhao Pandi broke down crying and went to the factory to demand the house back, but the factory leaders never even came out to see her.

　　She also went to the neighborhood office, but it was useless. Everyone felt they had brought this on themselves. Their home had been fine before, but they insisted on causing a scene and splitting the family.

　　Now that they regretted it, it was already too late.

　　Afraid of being sent back to the Zhang family again, Zhao Pandi even gave up school and hurried to find a matchmaker to arrange a marriage for her.

　　She wanted to marry someone and stay here, no matter what. She absolutely refused to go back to that remote mountain village. Those people were terrifying, not only did they want to take their money, they were even talking behind their backs about marrying them off for bride price.

　　She would never go back again.

　　The two sisters stayed in a hotel. Zhao Pandi completely stopped going to school and spent her days going on blind dates nonstop, her goal was simple, find a local man to marry quickly and get her household registration transferred over.

　　Zhao Handi was smarter than her sister. She still wanted to study and make something of herself, and she knew she could not let her education go to waste. But the issue of household registration was also urgent.

　　After thinking it over, she gritted her teeth and took out 20,000 yuan to buy a small apartment, then brought the police and neighborhood office staff to the Zhang family to handle the household registration transfer.

　　Zhao Pandi, on the other hand, could not bear to spend so much money on a house. In her mind, marrying into a husband’s family meant she would have a place to live anyway, and keeping the money meant she could buy plenty of things instead.

　　Just like that, Zhao Handi successfully transferred her household registration back. She saved the little money she had left, living frugally while continuing her studies.

　　Half a month later, Zhao Pandi also succeeded in her blind date and chose a man five years older than her.

　　He was a local, had a stable job, and was the only son in his family. They had just bought a new two-bedroom, one-living-room apartment, and the renovation was quite nice.

　　She was extremely satisfied.

　　His parents were also satisfied with her. The Zhao sisters were all good-looking, and Zhao Pandi had bright eyes and striking features. On top of that, she had no parents to rely on, which made her easy to handle, and she was still holding quite a bit of money. To them, she was practically perfect.

　　And so, Zhao Pandi got married and transferred her household registration back as well.

　　The two sisters each started their own new lives.

　　As for the younger brothers, neither of them mentioned them again.

　　Zhao Handi was busy with her studies and had no time to take care of them. Zhao Pandi was newly married and still in her honeymoon phase, and her in-laws had already made it clear before marriage that they would not support two younger brothers. She agreed to it as well.

　　Zhao Long and Zhao Hu, back in the countryside, not only could not go to school anymore, but were also forced to do farm work alongside the Zhang family children.

　　At night, the two of them lay in a shabby little room, wrapped in stiff, moldy quilts, crying out for their eldest sister. Their regret ran so deep it felt like their insides had twisted. They should never have listened to their second and third sisters and come to this place.

　　Still, they clung to the belief that their second and third sisters had escaped and would eventually come back to save them. Day after day, they kept waiting in hope.

　　——

　　Shanghai.

　　After arriving in Shanghai, Zhao Fuyao immediately switched into full “buying spree” mode.

　　The furniture in the standalone Western-style house did not need replacing, so she mainly stocked up on daily necessities and clothes suited for this era.

　　In high school she had to wear a uniform, but in university there were no strict rules. Most of the time, people wore their own private outfits.

　　The shopping malls in big cities were always ahead of trends, and Zhao Fuyao kept buying and buying until she finally filled her wardrobe.

　　Money was meant to be spent. It existed so people could enjoy life. Otherwise, just sitting there doing nothing with it was pointless.

　　Especially when it came to food and daily living, she did not hold back at all. She bought a large refrigerator and stocked it full of fresh ingredients, fish, eggs, milk, seafood, everything she could think of.

　　In the spacious villa, soft music playing in the background, she changed into comfortable pajamas and prepared a simple meal, enjoying the quiet all by herself.

　　After eating, she went downstairs for a walk, thinking about what to plant in the front yard.

　　When she got bored, she would sit on the balcony in a rocking chair, reading classic novels in her hands.

　　On a refined table nearby sat coffee, pastries, and a beautiful bouquet of roses.

　　Life was incredibly comfortable and leisurely.

　　If it were not for the fact that she would be starting university soon, she would even consider raising a bunch of pets. Unfortunately, once school started, there would be no one to take care of them.

　　Shanghai University was quite a distance from here, and she was not sure if she could commute from home. She planned to ask once the semester began.

　　If commuting was possible, she could hire a housekeeper to handle daily life, and keeping pets would be doable too. She could even get a small vehicle for transport. That would make things even more enjoyable.

　　The two-month summer break had only passed one month so far.

　　Already bored of staying at home, Zhao Fuyao went out again to look for money-making opportunities.

　　Having money gave a woman confidence, so making money was always the main storyline of life.

　　After all, wealth determined a person’s freedom. Financial freedom meant being able to say no to anything.

　　Right now, she still had plenty of savings, and in the early 1990s, real estate was booming.

　　While familiarizing herself with Shanghai, she also began scouting for good locations, planning to buy either commercial properties or better residential units.

　　Just as she reached a commercial street, she saw someone trying to jump off a building.

　　“Don’t jump! We’re all local shop owners around here, that’s bad luck!”

　　“Exactly, if you want to die, do it somewhere else!”

　　“I think he’s just scaring people. He’s been sitting up there hesitating forever…”

　　People below were all talking at once. Some were watching the drama, others were trying to talk him down. A crowd had already gathered.

　　An elderly woman leaning on a cane dragged a mattress over while crying out, “A-Yong, what are you doing? Losing money doesn’t mean you have to lose your life!”

　　Zhao Fuyao also moved closer to take a look, and even helped the seventy or eighty-year-old woman drag the mattress over.

　　On the rooftop, a middle-aged man sat there wearing glasses.

　　He was slightly on the heavier side, his face looked rather kind, but his expression was numb and hollow, tears silently streaming down his face.

　　Suddenly, he stood up and jumped.

　　“Ah—!”

　　Everyone below screamed and scattered in panic.

　　Even Zhao Fuyao had not expected him to jump so abruptly.

　　Luckily, the man was fortunate. On the way down, he got caught by a long pole on the third floor.

　　But the pole was clearly about to snap.

　　Zhao Fuyao grabbed the mattress from the old woman’s hands, then kicked it forward with force.

　　The moment the mattress flew out, the pole broke and the man fell.

　　Bang!

　　He landed right onto the mattress.

　　Duan Yong was stunned for a moment. Sharp pain shot through his elbows and knees, but otherwise he was mostly fine. He instinctively struggled and staggered as he tried to get back up.

　　The elderly woman beside Zhao Fuyao clutched her chest, still shaken from what had just happened. She grabbed Zhao Fuyao tightly, tears in her eyes as she thanked her, “Young lady, thank you. You saved a whole family here.”

　　“You’re welcome, Auntie. It was nothing,” Zhao Fuyao replied lightly.

　　The old woman, still trembling, slowly made her way over. Zhao Fuyao helped steady her and guided her forward.

　　When the old woman reached Duan Yong, she raised her hand and slapped him hard out of anger.    

　　“You little troublemaker, do you even deserve your dead parents? Don’t forget you still have a child in school! You die and think it’s all over, but how is Huanyuan supposed to live!”

　　Duan Yong had just walked back from the edge of death. Hearing his daughter’s name, something in him finally snapped. His exhausted face filled with guilt as he broke down completely, squatting on the ground and crying.

　　“It’s my fault! Grandma, I was wrong…”

　　People who knew him stepped forward to try and calm things down. Everyone was talking over each other, and Zhao Fuyao pieced together the situation.

　　The man, Duan Yong, had been sharp in business and made a fortune in the 1980s. But two years ago, he took over a factory at a high price. From the moment he took it over, it started losing money. This year, the factory’s poor management piled up heavy debts, and they could not even pay the workers’ wages.

　　The workers came to his house every day to cause trouble. He sold off property just to cover part of the wages, but it was still not enough.

　　His wife could not take it anymore and divorced him, taking their child with her.

　　With setback after setback, and then the incident earlier that day in the residential compound where people cursed him to die, his mental state finally collapsed. Without anything left to hold onto, he had actually started thinking about ending his life.

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