Chapter 419 - 415: Poles Apart

Chapter 419: Chapter 415: Poles Apart

Mother critically ill. Return immediately.

Luo Hongyi’s lips curled into a sarcastic smirk as he read the five words on the telegram.

He’d received this same telegram in his past life, though he hadn’t seen it himself back then. At the time, he didn’t have Nuannuan to lend him a hand. His mission was still incomplete, and he was deep in the mountains of Nan’an Country, his fate uncertain... So instead, his official employer—a security company—had sent representatives to his hometown.

But when the men from his "security company" arrived at his home to offer their condolences, they happened to walk in on his mother, Tang Ermei, energetically screaming at a neighbor over some trivial matter. They were just short of coming to blows.

It wasn’t until a full six months later that he learned the real reason his family had faked the emergency: they wanted a gold necklace.

Before that, his fourth brother had been getting married. The family pleaded poverty, claiming the bride price demanded by his future sister-in-law’s family was too high. They insisted they couldn’t afford it, and even after borrowing from everyone they knew, they were still short one thousand yuan. Back then, Luo Hongyi only kept five yuan of his monthly salary for himself, sending even the majority of his mission bonuses home. He figured that since he was away all year and couldn’t be there to fulfill his filial duties, he should be especially generous with money. He wanted to do everything he could to ease their burdens. So, on top of his own savings, he went as far as to borrow another six or seven hundred yuan from his teammates to send back.

He never thought that one thousand yuan would be the cause of so much trouble.

After his fourth brother married, his new sister-in-law didn’t get along with his eldest brother’s wife. The two couldn’t stand the sight of each other and would start bickering whenever they were together. During one of their squabbles, his fourth sister-in-law taunted the eldest one, saying she wasn’t as "valuable." She boasted that not only was her bride price higher, but she had also received a gold necklace.

That single comment stirred up a hornet’s nest. His eldest sister-in-law threw a massive tantrum, demanding his parents give her an answer and make up the difference in her own bride price, including a gold necklace. If they didn’t, she threatened to divorce his eldest brother, take their son—his parents’ precious first grandson—and go back to her family to remarry.

The sarcastic look on Luo Hongyi’s face deepened at the memory. Anyone else would have known his eldest sister-in-law’s threat was a bluff, but his mother, Tang Ermei, fell for it completely. His mother could be a tyrant with outsiders, but at home, she was utterly powerless against her daughters-in-law. The threat terrified her so much that she immediately caved and agreed to the eldest’s demands.

The problem was, after paying for the fourth brother’s wedding, the family was truly broke. They had no money left. So, his mother turned her sights on him once again. She told his eldest sister-in-law that the extra money and the gold necklace for the fourth brother’s wife hadn’t come from her and his father, but were a wedding gift from him, the third brother. At the same time, she sent the telegram to lure him back home to deal with the hot potato.

In his past life, he had been the one to pay up, giving his eldest sister-in-law the one thousand yuan she demanded. He had handed over the money he’d earned by risking his life on missions, only to be met with her profound dissatisfaction...

This time around, he wasn’t so foolish. When his family started sending frequent letters pleading poverty for his fourth brother’s wedding, he remained unmoved. When they became insistent, he had a teammate send back two hundred yuan as a token gesture. He had planned things out from the beginning of this life to avoid sending too much money home without being criticized. Any money he earned on the side was kept secretly under Nuannuan’s name. Publicly, however, he was known for being generous. The right people all knew that after sending a fixed amount home, he kept very little of his salary and bonuses, using the vast majority to support the families of fallen comrades and colleagues in dire straits...

And the consequence of his family’s failed attempts to get more money was that he still hadn’t received any news of his fourth brother’s wedding.

Since his fourth brother wasn’t married, there was no drama with his sister-in-law over a bride price and a gold necklace. He had assumed he wouldn’t be getting a telegram like this in his new life, but he was wrong... He just had to wonder what they were trying to trick him into coming home for this time.

Luo Hongyi took out the paper crane Nuannuan had given him and sighed. He had a fair amount of freedom when he wasn’t on a mission. Getting time off wasn’t hard, and getting leave for a family matter was even easier.

He had already requested leave for this period. The original plan was to visit the Zhang family and make his relationship with Nuannuan official. Now, it seemed a trip back to his hometown was unavoidable. Checking his watch, he spoke his message within the time limit and released the Sound Transmission Paper Crane. It wobbled, flapped its wings twice, then vanished after flying only a short distance. Luo Hongyi felt a little uneasy. After a moment’s thought, he sat down and wrote a long letter to Gu Nuan Nuan before he started packing.

Luo Hongyi had no idea that less than an hour after he released the Sound Transmission Paper Crane, it appeared before Gu Nuan Nuan, who was thousands of miles away.

The paper crane, its mission complete, burst into flames and vanished. A sarcastic smile touched Gu Nuan Nuan’s lips as she listened to the message.

"Master, are we still going to wait for him?" Cao Cao, who had also heard the crane’s message, asked with a gloating smile.

"We’re not." Gu Nuan Nuan shook her head. "Who knows how long it will take him to deal with all that family drama? Or if he’ll even have time to come here afterward? Don’t you know how precious my time is right now? Why on earth would I delay my plans for him?"

"Heh heh, sucks to be Luo Hongyi. He’s going to be so disappointed when he gets here and finds out you’ve already left," Cao Cao giggled, gloating. It didn’t have such a favorable impression of Luo Hongyi anymore. It was more than happy to see him face a little trouble and disappointment.

Gu Nuan Nuan shot it an amused look but said nothing.

「Baoping Village, the Luo family home.」

Luo Hongyi pushed on the courtyard gate, but it didn’t budge. Peering over the low wall, he saw that the house looked exactly as it had when he left several years ago, only more dilapidated. He felt not a ripple of emotion as he looked at the mud-brick house, a stark contrast to the one that had stood here in his previous life.

By this time in his past life, his salary and the bonuses he’d earned risking his life had already paid for this place to be rebuilt into a grand house with blue bricks and a tiled roof. And yet, in that entire house, there hadn’t been a single room for him. Every time he returned for a visit, they made him set up a temporary bed in the storage room.

’What was it his mother had told him back then?’

’She had placated him, saying his nieces and nephews were growing up and needed their own space. The family couldn’t afford to build more rooms, and besides, he was hardly ever home, barely even visiting once a year. Heh. Right. Just because he was rarely home, there was no longer any place for him in this family—even though they were living in a house built with his money.’

’How could I have been so blind in my past life?’ he sneered internally. On the outside, however, his face showed nothing. He composed his expression and called out toward the house in a voice laced with deliberate urgency, "Dad! Mom! I’m home!"