Quick Transmigration: The Cannon Fodder's Comeback in the Era Tales

Chapter 203: Chapter 203: The Hapless Eldest Sister 18

After the marriage, when Ma Dalan wanted to take Ma Xiaolan to join the military, the Zhong Family came with a matchmaker to propose marriage.

At that time, Zhong Daming was the only high school student in the village and the only one working at the steel mill, living on a state salary.

Many girls in the village had their eyes on Zhong Daming.

Among them was Ma Xiaolan.

When Ma Xiaolan heard that the Zhong Family was proposing, she refused to go with her elder sister to join the military. She insisted on marrying Zhong Damin. Ma Dalan considered that Zhong Daming had a job and was honest and sincere, so she agreed to the marriage.

However, Ma Xiaolan was still two months short of turning eighteen, so their wedding could only be set for two months later.

Ma Dalan also delayed joining the military to handle the wedding for her sister first.

Zhong Liming had only a month’s leave; he contributed both money and effort to help his sister-in-law prepare a generous dowry, and then hurriedly left on a mission.

On the second day after their wedding, Zhong Daming went to work. Ma Xiaolan stayed in the countryside to live with her mother-in-law, as Zhong Daming was living in a four-person dormitory at the factory and hadn’t been allocated a house yet.

It wasn’t until three years later that Zhong Daming was allocated a house.

Ma Dalan went to join the military on the third day after her sister’s wedding.

A year and a half later, sudden news came from the military department: both Zhong Liming and Ma Dalan had died.

Zhong Liming was killed in action during a mission.

At the time, Ma Dalan was eight months pregnant. Upon receiving the news, she went into premature labor and died from a difficult childbirth, but the child was saved.

After hearing of Zhong Liming’s death, his cousin Zhong Li Jing wanted to adopt his niece, but his mother opposed it vehemently, threatening to die. Later, the protagonist was taken back by Ma Xiaolan.

Meanwhile, the inheritance of Zhong Liming and Ma Dalan fell into Ma Xiaolan’s hands.

This courtyard in Beijing was left to Zhong Liming by his father. After Zhong Liming’s death, his aunt wanted to seize the house, but Zhong Li Jing stopped her, so she didn’t succeed.

This courtyard had been rented out by Zhong Liming to a friend who ran a private restaurant there, with a monthly rent of thirty yuan.

That thick stack of remittance receipts was the rent money sent to Ma Xiaolan from the military by this friend’s brother.

This pair of jade bracelets was made of emerald, very valuable, a family heirloom from Zhong Liming’s mother’s family, intended for her daughter-in-law to wear.

Ma Dalan wore them a few times when she was alive.

However, after her death, the jade bracelets didn’t end up on her daughter’s hands but on Ma Xiaolan’s daughter’s.

Suddenly gaining a huge fortune, Ma Xiaolan was, of course, unwilling to wait for her niece to grow up and reclaim the wealth. After returning to the village, she hid the fortune and then told the villagers that the protagonist was an orphan she adopted by the roadside.

She never allowed the post office to deliver the monthly remittance and letters to the village, always seizing opportunities to collect them herself in the city.

Thus, Ma Xiaolan kept this secret tightly sealed. No one knew. They only knew she hadn’t been pregnant for two years, and on her way back from the military department, she adopted a daughter.

When the protagonist was one and a half, the family housing from the steel mill was allocated. Ma Xiaolan, heavily pregnant, took the protagonist, with the Zhongli family’s property, out of the village to live at the steel mill.

The people at the steel mill thought the protagonist was Ma Xiaolan and Zhong Daming’s biological daughter, but only Ma Xiaolan and Zhong Daming knew the protagonist was Ma Dalan’s daughter.

As for the existence of that huge fortune, Ma Xiaolan kept it a secret, even from Zhong Daming.

Zhong Daming always thought the protagonist was living off his family as the eldest daughter, so when Ma Xiaolan manipulated the protagonist into working for money at a young age, Zhong Daming turned a blind eye. After all, he felt he was giving his sister-in-law’s orphan a home, which was more than enough.

It was only right to make her do some work.