Chapter 600: Bringing Up the Past
Chapter 600: Bringing Up the Past
Sure enough, when people are cooped up in the same place too long, they become gossipy. Even the tiniest speck of a matter gets spread as though it were earth-shattering news.
What was Tang Siluo doing, holed up in her room all the time?
“She? She’s always been so clueless anyway.” One of the women, seemingly aware of some past friction between An Ran and Tang Siluo, spoke with a note of disdain in front of An Ran: “Ever since she was a child, she was spoiled rotten. She doesn’t understand the ways of the world at all. I heard she used to look down on you, right, An Ran?”
An Ran nodded slightly, thought for a moment, and said, “Seems like it. But I only met her a few times—it wasn’t a big deal.”
“Not a big deal? Who says it wasn’t?” Another woman, worked up now, leaned on the icy wall of the courtyard and tattled to An Ran: “You don’t even know how much she looked down on you before. She said that back then that you only managed to travel from Xiangcheng to Tiesi Village by seducing Brother Tao… basically, that you weren’t good enough for Captain Zhan.”
“Yeah, I heard that too! Those words spread so nastily. Tang Siluo really talks without thinking. Did she ever consider how capable you are, An Ran? What did you ever rely on Brother Yun Tao for?!”
“She must have done it on purpose to slander you!”
The women all chimed in at once. Some of what they remembered was probably too ugly to repeat aloud, so they skipped over it.
An Ran only furrowed her brows and said with faint sarcasm: “That rumor really spread far and wide.”
“How could it not? Back then, Tang Siluo ran her mouth over and over, saying those things about you and Yun Tao in front of so many people. With her big voice and no filter, how could the gossip not spread?” Zhao Ru’s voice rang out. She was still bundled up like a bear, standing in the doorway. She glared at the women outside the courtyard wall and said sharply: “Look, right is right, wrong is wrong. Don’t go stirring things up again. Tang Siluo was thoughtless and loud back then, that’s true. She’s never cared about how her words or actions affect others—that’s also true. But now, with all these new people in Hexi, and you digging up old grudges again, aren’t you just deliberately making things harder for An Ran?”
Plenty of things were never true to begin with, yet those spreading them talked as if they were fact. Over time, half-truths solidified in people’s minds as reality.
The rumors about An Ran and Yun Tao had always been like shadows in Fatty’s team. And since Zhan Lian didn’t seem to care, and Yun Tao and An Ran lived in the same house, gossip inevitably colored the whispers with suggestive tones.
After all, with no television and no square-dancing, what else did people do for entertainment but chew over idle gossip?
At Zhao Ru’s scolding, the women looked embarrassed. They glanced at An Ran with apologetic faces and said:
“Sorry, An Ran, we didn’t mean to stir up trouble.”
“Exactly. It’s just—we can’t stand Tang Siluo. She really has some nerve. Back then, when she and Lei Jiang abandoned us, how could she just come back now as if nothing happened?”
“I don’t think things between her and Lei Jiang were clean either. Look at her eyes and brows—that foxlike charm only comes from going through that.”
“Ha! And she even looks like she’s been well kept!”
The women broke into laughter again.
An Ran turned her head aside, speechless, and exchanged a look with Zhao Ru. And then—by accident—she caught sight of Tang Siluo.
Dressed in a long golden down coat, Tang Siluo stood right behind the group of women, her face fragile and stricken.