Yun Hao hurried to the post office. Before he could even mail his letter, he noticed the envelope was already damp with his sweat.
He glanced at the envelope and decided not to mail it.
It would take two or three days for a letter to get from here to the city. That was too slow. He had to call ho instead.
He could make a call right from the post office. Yun Hao spoke with the clerk and then dialed his family’s number.
A woman’s voice ca from the other end of the line.
Yun Hao’s eyes reddened when he heard the voice. "Mom."
The woman on the other end paused for a mont. "Hao! Why the sudden call? Did sothing happen?"
Yun Hao couldn’t bring himself to explain what was happening, so he could only speak vaguely. "Mom, can you find a way for to return to the city? It’s urgent. It would be best if it could be settled in the next day or two."
The woman on the other end frowned. "Hao, you know our family’s situation. It would be... complicated if you ca back now. It’s not that your father and I don’t want you back, but things are very tense with the higher-ups right now. You’ve always been the most understanding one. Can you wait a little longer? Your father and I will definitely find a way to bring you back then."
Yun Hao couldn’t stay calm.
If he couldn’t return to the city, he would have to marry Xu Wenwan. He really, truly did not want to marry that woman.
"Mom, I’ve never asked you for a single thing in my entire life. Can’t you just help this once? This is really important to ."
Her son’s words angered the woman. "Hao, why are you becoming so unreasonable? Things are tense right now! You suddenly ask to find a job for you—where am I supposed to arrange that? You’re not being considerate of us at all. Other people manage to go to the countryside, so why do you have such a huge problem with it?"
"You think about it!"
With that, she hung up the phone.
Yun Hao listened to the dial tone buzzing from the receiver, his heart plunging into an icy abyss.
On the other end, the woman hung up the phone, her brow tightly furrowed.
A middle-aged man standing nearby saw her expression and asked in confusion, "I just heard you say Hao’s na. Was that him? Is sothing wrong? Is he out of money?"
The woman’s expression was grim.
"He knows full well what the situation at ho is, yet he still wants to find him a job and bring him back. If I actually did that, both of us would probably lose our jobs."
"How can he be so selfish?"
She felt she had no choice in the matter.
With two sons in the family, one of them had to be sent to the countryside. Otherwise, if soone reported them and an investigation was launched, things would get very troubleso.
Besides, her younger son was growing up fast, and his background would have to be revealed eventually. When that ti ca, if people found out both her sons were at ho, how would she ever explain it!
The man’s face fell. In his mory, his son was always calm and composed, capable of handling anything with excellence. In the entire factory’s family compound, was there anyone who didn’t sing his praises?
This phone call ant he must have run into so serious trouble.
"Don’t worry about it," he said. "I happen to have a friend in the county where Hao was sent. I’ll ask him to help keep an eye on him."
As for getting him a job, there was truly nothing he could do.
The political climate was just too tense. If he did sothing like that and his rivals got ahold of it, he probably wouldn’t be able to keep his position as factory director.
Yun Hao was unaware of the discussion that followed in the Yun Family ho.
He hung up, paid for the call, and stumbled out onto the street, completely dejected. Just then, he happened to see people being paraded in a procession again. Even from a distance, he could still hear the sounds of beatings, curses, and shouting.
He gave a self-mocking laugh, tore the letter in his hand to shreds, and threw it into a trash can.
Since his own parents wouldn’t help him, he now had only one choice left: marry Xu Wenwan.
Pressing his lips into a thin line, Yun Hao started walking back toward the Qingshan Team.
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