Honeyed Marriage - Chapter 63
Chapter 62
Translated and edited by CutieBinkie
When Ruan Yan heard what he said, her face was blank.
“What does it mean to work hard to live?”
There was a long silence in the room.
Just when Ruan Yan thought she couldn’t hear his answer, the man’s muffled voice came in front of her:
“That is, you never know if there is a place to sleep tonight or when the debt collector will catch up.”
“Debt collection?” Ruan Yan was stunned.
How could such a thing happen?
Ruan Yan noticed the cold emotions of the man in front of her, and then asked softly, “Did your family ever… have something happen to them?” She didn’t expect to lead the topic in this direction. After asking, she quickly added, “If you don’t want to say it, don’t say it, it doesn’t matter…”
Zhou Mengyan picked up the wine bottle and refilled the glass with red wine.
Then he tilted his head back and finished drinking.
“Our family used to be bankrupt.”
It is bankruptcy in the true sense.
In the early 1990s, Zhou Sili first came into contact with the luggage industry. After he got married with Qin Xi, the industry they did began to export abroad in Lincheng at that time.
Once, Zhou Sili signed a large export order and produced a large number of bags. Who knew that foreign marketers insisted that the materials of these bags contained carcinogens, the quality was substandard, refused to pay, and returned all the goods.
This incident caused a lot of trouble in Lincheng, and several competitors who had been watching them unhappily were fanning the flames behind the scenes. This batch of bags was completely unsold. Several suppliers who originally provided materials and then asked them to make regular payments. Went to the door, so that he must pay all the money within a month.
They had a very ruthless attitude. In order to vent their anger, they moved all the valuables in the family away, and the original gorgeous villa was suddenly surrounded by walls.
Zhou Sili sold cars and houses, and sold all his family properties, and owed more than one million yuan. More than one million in the 1990s, for Zhou Sili, could not be worth his life.
Zhou Sili and Qin Xi were looking for people to borrow money everywhere. They were faced with cold eyes and ridicule. Their former partners, most of their relatives, neighbors and friends turned their faces in an instant. They used to help and take care of them during the period of Zhou Sili’s success. As if eradicated from their memory, only spurned and escaped.
Zhou Mengyan at the time was only ten years old.
All of his world changed overnight.
Before the villa was sold out, his parents went out to borrow money during the day and let him stay at home alone. Those vendors came to ask for money at every turn, beating the door frantically, yelling at the door, Zhou Mengyan did not dare to move. He shrank under the desk, afraid to make any movement.
Those debt collectors’ voices were like a curse until high school. Even if the Zhou family rose again, he would still dream of someone coming to collect debts at night and woke up in a cold sweat.
Once when he came home from school, he saw that the debt collector was in front of the house again, so he had to walk around to the backyard, and he was seen by neighbors and their children. They satirized him with all kinds of things, saying that only dogs and underlings would enter the house from the backyard.
He rebutted them, but all he saw were cold and disgusting eyes that gathered on him, and severely trampled his self-esteem as a teenager on the ground.
A sense of humiliation came to his heart, he escaped quickly over the wall and into the villa, but fell severely.
When he crawled out of the mud, his whole body was dirty, and the blood on his hands was mixed with mud. He was so hurt that he wanted to cry, but he didn’t dare to cry, because once he made a noise, the debt collector would know that he was at home and would definitely rush in and force him to call his parents.
Without money, he couldn’t even buy food. The only things he could eat were leftovers that his parents took from outside, steamed buns or porridge, or even spoiled and damp, but in order to survive, he could only eat.
After the villa was sold, they didn’t even have a place to live. After living in the corner of the dilapidated building for a few days, the uncle’s family finally reached out and gave them a house with farm tools in a suburban farmland.
The house is only 30 square meters, it was cold in winter and hot in summer, the light is poor, and it leaked when it rained, so they could only shrink inside, wanting to see the shameless monster.
Ruan Yan was shocked listening to what he said.
“Then… what happened later?”
“For the next six months, my dad will borrow money everywhere.”
Zhou Mengyan lowered his eyes, his eyes darkened, “He even borrowed money…”
The man’s voice suddenly stopped.
Ruan Yan did not hear the second half of the sentence, and the room suddenly fell into deathly silence.
She felt the strong and depressing emotions of the person in front of her, but they were suddenly calm as a lake without wind blowing.
“What about borrowing money?”
Ruan Yan was stunned and heard the man put the wine glass on the table, “Nothing.”
He got up and walked directly to the balcony, leaving Ruan Yan to sit in place.
This is the first time she has heard him talk about himself.
She had no way to imagine that kind of life. Oula* had also been on the verge of bankruptcy, but compared to Zhou Mengyan’s previous situation, it was just a small storm.
(T/N: So sorry guys, mixed up the names. It’s Oula not Euler, TVT)
She always thought that Zhou Mengyan had a wealthy family since he was a child and lived a delicate life. It turns out that he has experienced these and even some experiences that he could not bear to continue saying just now.
No wonder he said that the hardest thing to do was to survive.
Ruan Yan felt distressed for a while.
The rain outside was pattering, and the garden in front of him was filled with white mist and misty rain. Zhou Mengyan looked at the scenery outside the balcony, with sparks extinguished at his fingertips.
The light in his eyes was deep and far away, and gradually, he could no longer see any emotions on his face.
Suddenly, a soft female voice sounded beside him.
“Meng Yan…”
Turning around, Ruan Yan didn’t know when she got up and walked here. She stood between the glass doors, facing him.
Ruan Yan smelled a strong tobacco smell.
“What’s up.”
His voice returned to the indifferent and calm tone it used to be, as if the person talking to her was not him.
Ruan Yan lowered her eyes, hesitated, and whispered, “I want to say what I just heard about… you can let go of it one day. If the past doesn’t crush you, it will make you grow better. Now, both you and Fan Moni have survived, and they will definitely get better and better.”
Ruan Yan grabbed her clothes, feeling clumsy for a while, “Sorry, I, I don’t know how to comfort you, maybe you don’t need my comfort. If you need a listener in the future, I am very available. Yes, if you want me to forget, I will treat it as if you didn’t tell me anything today.”
She knows that it is extremely rare for a man to say this today.
She hadn’t heard the other party’s answer for a long time, thinking that he was unwilling to talk to her, and when she was about to turn around, she heard him quietly hum.
Ruan Yan heaved a sigh of relief and raised the corner of her lips, “Then I will go in.”
Half a while after she left, Zhou Mengyan finally retracted his gaze and looked forward.
In his head, Ruan Yan’s soft voice stayed for a long time.
The sudden autumn rain, a bottle of red wine, and unexpected conversations were “left over” by Ruan Yan and Zhou Mengyan in Sucheng that afternoon, but they quietly narrowed the distance between the two.
After the trip to Sucheng, the two returned to Lincheng, and the time was gradually approaching late autumn.
On the first weekend after returning, Ruan Yan and Zhu Xingzhi had an appointment to walk out together. Who knew that the night before, she received a call from her drama teacher, Ni Zhuang, who had a good relationship with her.
The other party learned of her current situation and said that he had time to come and see her.
When Ruan Yan was a freshman, she joined the school’s drama club. The president at the time was friends with the director of a drama club in Lincheng Drama Academy. The president admired Ruan Yan very much. By chance, the club in the Academy of Drama, it just happened that a drama was about to be planned recently, and Ruan Yan was recommended.
Originally, she just wanted to be addicted to acting. It was enough to play a small supporting role. Who knew that Ni Zhuang, the teacher in charge of the drama at the time, saw Ruan Yan’s talent in drama at a glance, and took her seriously.
In the end, Ruan Yan went from a small supporting role to acting as the female number three. Later, she also participated in several drama rehearsals one after another. In her sophomore year, Ni Zhuang took the initiative to invite her to play the drama and directly acted as the heroine.
Therefore, Ni Zhuang is her teacher and the first professional to affirm her performance. Ruan Yan is very grateful to her.
Ni Zhuang learned that something was wrong with her eyes as early as last month. It was only two months since the beginning of school, and she had been busy. Today, when he just had time, he asked to see her.
So Ruan Yan sent a message to Zhu Xingzhi and pushed their trip until the afternoon.
In the morning, Ni Zhuang came to Yinan Mansion.
After the servant delivered refreshments and fruits, he left, leaving only Ruan Yan and Ni Zhuang in the living room.
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