Chapter 225: Hapless Eldest Sister 40
Zhong Damin received half of his monthly salary, which was just enough to cover the family’s food and drinks. Now, with the policy change, his salary was far from sufficient to support Zhong Yuanfen’s education.
Ma Xiaolan had no choice but to find herself a dishwashing job at a restaurant, where she gave her entire monthly wage to her youngest daughter as living expenses.
Zhong Yuanfen, with her sweet and charming looks and her talent for flattering people, became the class beauty shortly after entering school.
In this lifetime, she still crossed paths with the husband from her past life.
Before long, the two were deeply in love.
After graduating, Zhong Yuanfen used her husband’s connections to secure a teaching position at the best primary school in Zheng City.
However, this lifetime lacked the original self’s efforts in laboring for the family’s income, as well as the wealth and jade bracelet and pendant left by her biological parents. Zhong Yuanfen’s wedding was especially shabby.
Without the jade bracelet and pendant to showcase her noble elegance and confidence, nor a substantial dowry to highlight her family’s affluence, she was left with a slightly inferior red dress and a silver necklace around her neck.
Her black shoes were accidentally stepped on at the hotel during toasts, and the heel broke.
At that moment, both Zhong Yuanfen and her in-laws felt deeply embarrassed.
Later, Zhong Yuanfen was disliked by her in-laws, constantly troubled by her mother-in-law, and even when pregnant with her first child, a slap from her mother-in-law caused her to accidentally hit the table corner and miscarry.
This miscarriage, due to delayed surgery for curettage, led to gynecological problems that made it difficult for her to conceive again.
Three years later, her mother-in-law forced their son and daughter-in-law to divorce, claiming she couldn’t have children.
In her past life, Zhong Yuanfen had a son and spent her life in a loving and happy marriage, but in this lifetime, she was abandoned.
That year, Zhong Guoqiang was thirty years old and finally married a wife, who was a widow and brought a six-year-old daughter with her.
Zhong Damin and Ma Xiaolan even voluntarily gave up the master bedroom to let the couple sleep in it, while they slept in Zhong Guoqiang and Zhong Guohao’s small room, with Zhong Damin on the upper bunk and Ma Xiaolan on the lower bunk.
Zhong Yuanfen’s former small room was given to the widow’s six-year-old daughter.
After divorcing, Zhong Yuanfen had nowhere to go and wanted to move back home, but there was no bed for her. In distress, she caused a fuss for half a day until Ma Xiaolan finally let her move back and sleep with the widow’s young daughter.
However, being used to domineering, how could Zhong Yuanfen tolerate her territory being invaded by a little girl? Hence, fights broke out in the Zhong Family every few days.
Zhong Guoqiang’s wife was not to be messed with either, and with Zhong Guoqiang protecting her, Zhong Yuanfen couldn’t win in a fight or argument, often having her hair pulled out in handfuls by her sister-in-law.
Finally, one day, Zhong Yuanfen moved out of the Zhong Family and stayed at the teachers’ dormitory at her school. Soon after, she married a fellow divorcee teacher from the same school.
The teacher had a son and didn’t care whether she could have children or not, and with the household skills she learned from her previous mother-in-law, Zhong Yuanfen proactively undertook most of the household chores and the responsibility of educating her stepson after her second marriage, striving to maintain this marriage.
However, after painstakingly raising her stepson, aiding him in marrying and taking care of grandchildren, when she grew old, her stepson placed her in the cheapest retirement home, where she endured numerous abuses.