Sutton's Burdened Heart Chapter 3

When Zhang Caihong began to long for life in the provincial capital, Zhang Suping was screening young men she knew who were not yet engaged.

When Zhang Suping was twelve years old, her father passed away and her mother remained half-ill. Zhang Suping understood after her father passed away that she and her mother were trying to take advantage of the eldest brother and the second brother, and they had to pay more attention to the faces of the eldest sister-in-law and the second sister-in-law. The rules in the village are that men are in charge of the household and women are in charge of the money. Suping told her elder brother when she needed money, but she had to get it from her sister-in-law. The eldest brother has never had any problems with Suping's money, and neither has the eldest sister-in-law. But after my mother became ill, my sister-in-law handed over money more and more slowly.

After her mother passed away, Suping cried for a day and a half and began to think of her own ideas. In fact, Aunt Li's words only moved Suping's heart a little. Suping's desire to get married early came to her mind the night after her mother passed away. She heard the whispers between her elder sister-in-law and her second sister-in-law.

At that time, all the relatives who came to hang paper had left, and Caihong's father and a few people from the family were scattered in the yard eating a big bowl of chowder. The eldest sister-in-law and the second sister-in-law each took a bowl and squatted in front of the soul in the main room, eating slowly. Suping hid in there by herself, leaning on the edge of the kang in a daze. In a daze, I heard the second sister-in-law ask, "How much holes have been made in our family now? How much does the family get?" The eldest sister-in-law sighed softly and said something into the second sister-in-law's ear. 

After hearing this, the second sister-in-law suddenly wanted to stand up, but was grabbed by the elder sister-in-law's hand. A little bit of the vegetable soup in the bowls of the elder sister-in-law and the second sister-in-law spilled out. The second sister-in-law murmured: "It's so much. In the next few years, I have to pay it back slowly and carefully." Later, the two people's voices became even lower, but by the dim light in front of the mother's soul, , Suping still saw the second sister-in-law's hand pointing towards the east room. They must be talking about me, Suping thought quietly...

Later, when she stopped crying, Suping kept thinking quietly.

In the cemetery, when her eldest brother dragged her up from her mother's grave, Suping suddenly couldn't cry anymore. She looked at the red coffin, which was half buried in loess, and knew that she had to get married soon.

Zhang Suping is a person with ideas. Once she has made up her mind, she takes it seriously. She chose a son-in-law for herself, Zhang Zhilin from Beizhang Village.

Both Nanzhang Village and Beizhang Village bear the surname of the Zhang family. According to the genealogy, the ancestors of the two Zhang villages are two cousins. The ancestor of Nan Zhang village is a fisherman, and the ancestor of Beizhang village is a boat repairer. The two Zhang villages used to be less than half a mile apart, but now there are more people and the houses in the two villages are staggered together. Nowadays, many people no longer talk about Nanzhang Village and Beizhang Village, but only Zhang Village. Anyway, the two villages are not much different from one village.

Zhang Zhilin is from Beizhang Village. He also went to junior high school in Dukou Township, one grade higher than Suping. Zhang Zhilin's biggest characteristic is his honesty. He has a brother above him, but he is a harmful person who loves to fight. Su Ping chose Zhang Zhilin because of his honesty and because he had a brother who had suffered a lot of harm. Suping is a bit fat, but she looks smooth. I'm not afraid that Zhang Zhilin won't do it. If Zhang Zhilin is honest, then Suping won't be offended. If Zhang Zhilin's brother is killed, the Suping family will not be offended.

After burning the "Qiqi" paper for her mother, Zhang Suping went to find Caihong's mother. Suping's father and Caihong's father are cousinsn of Sifu and close relatives.

After leaving Caihong's house, Zhang Suping went to Li Ye's house with Zhang Caihong. Li Ye's family is one of the few people with a foreign surname in the village. Li Ye's father works in a machinery factory in the county town, and Li Ye's mother is a public teacher in the village's primary school. Almost every family in the village has her students. Sister Caihongsu and Li Ye have been stuck together since they were young, bringing the adults of the three families closer.

When I entered the second door of Li Ye's house, I saw that Li Ye was also at home. "When will you come back and you won't come to see us?" Zhang Caihong asked strangely. Li Ye smiled a little weirdly, "I just came back. We may be together every day in the future." "You won't go to school, don't you have another year?" Zhang Suping couldn't care less about her own worries.

"Huh, our poor school kid shouldn't have gone there then." Li Ye said, his eyes suddenly reddening.

Li Ye originally went to school in Dukou Township Middle School and was in the same class as Suping Caihong. When I was in the second grade of junior high school, the No. 1 Middle School in the county recruited a special sports class and selected people from various townships. Li Ye's family is a commodity farmer, and he has taken advantage of food since he was a child. 

His height and frame make him stand out among his peers. As a result, I was selected by the sports specialty class and entered the county No. 1 Middle School without taking the college entrance examination, but I had to study from the first grade. At that time, it was said that if you are good at sports, you can enter the regional sports school, which is a public education. If you are not good at physical education, you can directly go to high school in the county No. 1 Middle School without taking the exam, and then be assigned to work as a physical education teacher in a rural middle school or primary school. At that time, Li Ye joined the physical education class, which made the teacher at Dukou Township Middle School, who had done poorly in the high school entrance exams every year, really excited for a while. They all say that if we go to County No. 1 Middle School again, there will be students taught by us.

Li Ye's mother walked out of the back room and said with a wry smile, "You three are all hard-working. Yezi's physical education class doesn't count anymore, alas!"