A couple of days ago, my husband suggested that we spend New Year's Eve at a resort together.

"Which resort?"

"Xipeng."

I didn't think it was a good idea, but my husband said it was his parents' idea.

They might be there on vacation, and if we had the chance to meet them, it could reduce their prejudice against me.

I stared at him dumbfounded, my husband's eyes shining with excitement.

"A ling, Xipeng is also your hometown. Don't you want to go back and have a look?"

There was an unnamed emotion surging in my heart.

The rural industry in Xipeng is currently developing very well, and the Xiaoshi Group has opened a chain resort there. People from all over the country come and go constantly.

I nodded.

As expected, this place would unknowingly bring us back there.

When I arrived at the village entrance, I met Wang Jian, a single man in the village.

He was wearing a weathered cotton jacket, with both hands in his sleeves, seemingly carefree about his livelihood and the village's hardship subsidies. He looked like he was in his forties, even though he was over fifty.

"Xiaoling, you're back." He greeted me with a smile, looking me up and down.

A bad memory rushed to my mind, very nauseating, even more nauseating than his old black jacket.

My husband parked the car in the resort's garage and came back to find me.

I felt breathless and short of breath, unable to breathe.

That day was as gray and overcast as it is now, as if it would never clear up.

"Still a graduate student, the graduate student from our village." Wang Jian looked at me as I struggled to catch my breath, his tone even more casual.

"Even if you earn a lot of money, you'll never be worth one yuan. Even if it's a graduate student, I..."

At this moment, my husband had already returned to find me.

I took two steps back, as if afraid that the muddy dirt road ahead would dirty my shoes.

My husband picked me up from the ground, and shouted at Wang Jain, who looked like a vagrant, "Get out of here!"

My husband carried me through the muddy area for a long time before putting me down.

If, if someone had carried me through such a muddy area more than a decade ago.

That kind of road was really difficult to walk, how did I, an eight-year-old, manage to get through it?

But it doesn't matter, it will soon be over.

Whether it's hurting me or bullying me, it's all going to end.

So I arranged to meet Wang Jian at the entrance of that little elementary school.

Yes, no one knows it was me who arranged it.

Even Wang Jian thought I was going to give him a large sum of hush money so he wouldn't talk about my childhood.