Chapter 179: In Defense
Mengyu continued speaking, "Even a servant in a landlord’s house gets to eat, but at the Jiang Family, I often went hungry. They always found excuses to not let me eat.
Classmate Zhang Shuiyu from Class 38, seeing me starving, often shared her food with me. Also, Aunt Zhang from the village, who is under the Five Guarantees, occasionally gave me something to eat. Despite that, I still suffered from hunger often. Back then, I was frequently so hungry that I became gaunt and pale.
What I’m saying is all true, you can go and investigate it.
Therefore, to say that Jiang Huaiyu’s parents raised me is not entirely correct. If I were the Jiang Family’s daughter, then I shouldn’t have been treated this way. If I was a servant, I should have been paid for my work, but in reality, I received neither the treatment of a daughter nor that of a servant. I started working at the Jiang Family from the age of five and have been working for eleven years now, but I have never received a single cent for my labor."
The crowd had already begun to despise Jiang Family’s parents.
"Thirdly, classmate Cai Yingdi said that Jiang Huaiyu’s parents provided for my education, which is not true either.
Jiang Huaiyu started attending school at the age of seven, but I wasn’t allowed to until I was ten years old. I went to the head of the production team, and only because he wanted to prevent a new illiterate person which could affect the village’s reputation did he agree and allow me to go to school. But—"
Mengyu paused here and looked at her classmates, "Who amongst you had to earn their own money to go to school since they were a child?"
The classmates looked at each other, and no one dared to admit they had to earn their own money for schooling.
Mengyu continued, "You have grown up living with your biological parents and cannot understand the suffering of someone like me who doesn’t live with their parents.
Yes, Jiang Huaiyu’s parents agreed to let me go to school, but they set conditions: I had to continue performing all the household chores, and they wouldn’t be responsible for any of my educational expenses!"
"I’ve picked up and sold nylon for 30 cents a jin, collected and sold scrap metal for three cents a jin, and also gathered and sold medicinal herbs.
Every autumn, I would pick a certain type of sticky bur and sell it to the acquisition station for ten cents a jin. My hands and feet would be covered in bleeding cuts from the sticky bur thorns. But I was always happy because collecting twenty or thirty jin meant I could earn two or three yuan.
I had to rely on selling scrap to pay for my education, but I couldn’t do a single chore less at home. Therefore, I would wake up before dawn to collect pig feed, and along the way pick up scraps. I had to rush back by 7:30 to cook breakfast, then eat and go to school.
At noon, I didn’t return home to eat because that was the best time for me to pick up scrap.
After school in the afternoon, I would grab a bamboo rake to gather pine needles for firewood; our home depended on the pine needles I gathered for cooking. While raking, I would also collect some scrap.
I only returned home after dark, and then I’d cook dinner for the whole family. If I came back late and my younger siblings went hungry, I’d be beaten and scolded, sometimes even denied food.
It was by collecting pig feed in the morning, gathering pine needles after school, and dedicating my noontime breaks exclusively to picking up scraps that I was barely able to afford my own education.
To minimize my tuition fees, I had no choice but to study hard and skip grades whenever possible. So, I started school at the age of ten and reached second year of high school by the age of sixteen."
All the classmates had never imagined that Jiang Mengyu’s life had been . Compared to her, they were indeed very fortunate.
Cai Yingdi found it hard to believe: "Is what you say true? It feels like I am listening to a tale about a servant girl from the old society, living in a landlord’s house."
Mengyu glanced coldly at Cai Yingdi: "These things are easily verifiable with a little investigation in our village. The students from our village are all aware of my situation. I have no reason to lie.
So, classmate Cai Yingdi, I do not acknowledge that Jiang Huaiyu’s parents paid for my high school education."