Rebirth in 1986: Unforgettable Regrets

"You, your stepfather is really good to you." Xihua looked at Tang Yue, thinking to herself that such a beautiful girl, if it were her, she would not bear to scold or beat her either.

"Yes, my dad is very honest and kind, and treats the villagers in our village very well, too. Everyone in the village praises my dad." Tang Yue spoke of Tang Zhengde with pride, mentioning several things about him. Normally, she just felt Tang Zhengde was good, but now when she really thought about it, Tang Zhengde was even better than they knew.

As Tang Yue spoke, she couldn't help but have her eyes well up with tears.

Xihua was moved as well, especially about the incident that day, she understood how things escalated. Xihua sighed and said, "Xiao Yue, I can try to persuade him, but..."

"Auntie, I would be very satisfied if you could try to speak to him, thank you." Tang Yue said sincerely.

Xihua was a woman of her word, and in the afternoon, she went to the hospital with her daughter Niuniu.

Tang Yue happened to run into them and secretly followed.

"Why did you come?" Liu Hu had just finished eating several big apples and was lying happily on the bed, holding a cigarette between his fingers. These past few days in the hospital, he didn't need to do anything, had food to eat, and even had cigarettes to smoke; life couldn't get more comfortable.

"I came to see how you were doing." Xihua asked about his injury.

"How's your leg injury doing, what did the doctor say about when it would heal? Well, the swelling on your face has gone down a lot."

Xihua observed each of Liu Hu's injuries, thinking of that beautiful girl crying while talking about her stepfather's kindness.

Speaking of stepfathers, Xihua had never seen one who genuinely treated a stepdaughter well.

Tang Yue must have pleaded to her because she sincerely felt Tang Zhengde was good to her.

The kind of person Liu Hu was, she knew too well what had happened that day, if not for Liu Hu...

Xihua hung her head, wanting to say something but hesitated.

Liu Hu impatiently said, "You don't need to worry, just stay home and take care of Niuniu."

"I just came to check on you." Xihua led Niuniu to sit aside, walked up to the bed, poured some boiled water for Liu Hu, and asked, "Brother Hu, do we really need to sue that Tang person?"

"Sue, why not sue." Liu Hu carelessly tossed his cigarette butt onto the floor and said, "Xihua, cut that watermelon for me to eat."

Xihua sliced the watermelon, Niuniu held a piece, and Liu Hu quickly ate almost the whole watermelon, leaving only a bit that he couldn't finish, which he then let Xihua have.

"Brother Hu, aren't the Tang Family going to pay us?" Xihua cautiously mentioned.

Liu Hu burped, looking at her with disdain and said, "You don't need to worry about this."

"Brother Hu, this was also partly our..." Xihua began.

Liu Hu's loud slap cut her off.

Seeing her mother slapped while eating her watermelon, Niuniu quickly rushed over, hugging Xihua and started crying loudly.

"What, your man got beaten up like this, and you still want to speak for others?"

"Looking at you just annoys me."

"And you, crying, crying, all you know is to cry, a little girl, so annoying."

"Go back now, don't disturb me here anymore."

Liu Hu, clearly impatient, began to shoo them away.

Xihua covered her beaten face, trying to soothe Niuniu, the pain on her face seemed negligible compared to her worries. Her eyes shone with unshed tears, but in the end, she left while holding Niuniu tight.

Tang Yue hurriedly hid herself; she had witnessed everything that just happened. Liu Hu truly was ruthless, treating his wife and child as if they were not his flesh and blood, showing not an ounce of the tenderness one should have towards family.

Watching Xihua leave with the crying little girl, Tang Yue felt a chill in her heart. Liu Hu treated Xihua so poorly, yet Xihua continued to care for his child without complaint or regret.

The ease with which Liu Hu slapped her, and the fact that Xihua showed not the slightest surprise on her face, suggested that this wasn't the first time it had happened. That's probably why Xihua could react so indifferently.

If approaching Xihua was a dead end, then what could be Liu Hu's weakness?

"Xiao Yue." Bai Qing called out to her.

Tang Yue turned around to see Bai Qing, who she hadn't seen in two days, with redness in his eyes.

"Bai Qing, what happened to you? Did you not sleep well?" Tang Yue asked with concern.

"It's nothing." Bai Qing said nonchalantly, "Xiao Yue, these past few days, I've found a lot of information about Liu Hu and two other people. It appears Liu Hu may have an illegitimate child, and about half a month ago, Liu Hu came into a large sum of money. Only a small portion was used to buy a house, the rest, however, was taken elsewhere."

"Bai Qing, how... how do you know this?" Tang Yue asked in shock, staring at Bai Qing. Tang Mingli, being a local, had asked around through many connections but could hardly find anything. Bai Qing, on his first trip to Wangjiang County, had managed to find so much information?

"Xiao Yue, don't worry about how I found out. I just want to tell you, your uncle's factory might be in trouble too," Bai Qing cautioned her.

Tang Yue's heart skipped a beat, and she immediately rushed towards the clothing factory.

These past few days, Tang Mingli had been busy dealing with Tang Zhengde's problems and had not been managing the factory matters.

Bai Qing followed Tang Yue with ease, and upon arriving at the factory, they saw many uniformed individuals leaving the premises.

Tang Yue's heart skipped a beat. As she entered, she saw Tang Mingli standing at the factory gate, with Uncle Gen cursing by his side, "It's just so unreasonable of them to shut down the factory just like that."

"Uncle, what's going on?" Tang Yue approached him quickly.

Tang Mingli said angrily, "They came here looking for trouble, accusing our factory of unclear accounting, tax evasion, withholding workers' wages, and treating the workers poorly by serving them spoiled food."

"And these workers..."

"They said our factory has to cooperate with the investigation for the time being." Tang Mingli took a deep breath, trying to reassure her, "Xiao Yue, you don't need to worry about this. I'll figure something out."

Tang Mingli then started comforting the workers, suggesting they take a few days off to rest.

But the workers were unwilling to leave, anxious they might lose their jobs.

Tang Mingli did his best to console them, and the factory manager Ding Chao also assured that the factory would definitely resume normal operations.

After calming the workers, Ding Chao and Tang Mingli, along with Tang Yue, went into an urgent meeting.

Bai Qing stood by Tang Yue's side, and given the urgency of the situation, no one questioned who Bai Qing was.

"Mingli, did you offend someone?" Ding Chao spoke up first, suggesting that without offending someone, it would have been unlikely for such an inspection to occur out of the blue.

The factory's finances were crystal clear, taxes were paid down to the last cent, and there was no truth to withholding workers' salaries.

In fact, the salary provided to the workers in their factory was higher than that of other clothing factories in the city.

Having managed a clothing factory for many years, Ding Chao had never seen another factory that paid their workers as punctually as Mingyue Clothing Factory did.