Zhao Qiancheng pedaled his bicycle as fast as he could, and by nightfall, he safely arrived at the home of his eldest brother, Zhao Mangjiang.
Seeing him arrive, Zhao Mangjiang thought it strange, but didn't ask many questions, simply instructing his wife, Lin Manqing, to cook a bowl of noodles for his brother.
"Right!"
Lin Manqing poured them both a glass of water, then took her younger daughter out of the living room. Before long, she returned with a steaming bowl of egg noodles. "Second Uncle, make do with this to fill your stomach, and then you can talk."
Zhao Qiancheng thanked her gratefully, "Right, thank you, Sister-in-law."
With that, he picked up the bowl and began to wolf down the noodles. Lin Manqing frowned slightly, and after a moment's thought, took her child into the study to help her other two daughters with their homework.
Zhao Mangjiang glanced at the departing figures, then sat up straight. Only after his brother finished the noodles did he speak up and ask, "Why are you in such a hurry to come over? Is something wrong?"
"Yes!"
Zhao Qiancheng raised a hand to wipe his mouth clean, then proceeded to tell his brother all about Zhao Jianguo and Jiang Hongmei, leaving out nothing.
Listening to the story, Zhao Mangjiang flew into a rage, his face turning terribly dark. "I warned him from the very start not to get involved with that woman, but he just wouldn't listen! Now look at him—he's been made a cuckold, yet he still can't bear to cut her off. The Zhao family has never produced anyone so spineless!"
*Bam!*
He brought his palm down on the coffee table with such force that the bowls, chopsticks, and tea mug on top rattled noisily. The sound startled Zhao Qiancheng so much that he shivered and quickly looked toward the doorway. "Eldest Brother, don't scare my nieces and sister-in-law."
Indifferent, Zhao Mangjiang pushed the tea mug aside. Even so, he finally reined in his temper, though his expression remained foul.
Pretending not to notice, Zhao Qiancheng lowered his voice and continued, "I came here to ask you and my sister-in-law for a favor. Help Jianguo find a match so he can make a clean break with that educated youth once and for all. Otherwise, if we let them keep entangling each other, I'm afraid Jianguo will be completely ruined by that educated youth."
Hearing this and realizing that Zhao Qiancheng truly wanted to keep his nephew away from Jiang Hongmei, Zhao Mangjiang's expression softened considerably, and his tone grew warmer.
"Don't worry! Jianguo is the hope of the Zhao family. I won't let him be dragged down by that Jiang Hongmei."
He raised a hand to pat his brother's arm and said solemnly, "Tomorrow, your sister-in-law and I will ask around at our respective workplaces. The moment we find a suitable candidate, we'll let you know."
"Thank you, Eldest Brother. I'm sorry to trouble you and my sister-in-law."
Having secured his brother's promise, the weight that had been hanging in Zhao Qiancheng's heart finally settled. He stood up decisively, smiled, and said goodbye. "Then I'll be heading back first."
"It's already dark, where do you think you're going?!"
Zhao Mangjiang stood up and grabbed him. "Stay here tonight, and go back when it's light."
Zhao Qiancheng waved his hand in refusal. "No, no! I..."
*Clack!*
The door was pushed open from the inside. Lin Manqing crowded the doorway with their three girls, smiling broadly at Zhao Qiancheng. "Second Uncle, just stay the night! I was just getting a room ready for you!"
"That's right, Uncle!"
The three girls stepped forward and tugged at him coquettishly. "Just stay at our place for the night! You haven't visited in ages!"
Zhao Qiancheng glanced at the three girls of varying heights, lowered his gaze to hide the irony in his eyes, and put on a touched expression. With a smiling shake of his head, he said, "No, another time!"
Then, amidst everyone's attempts to make him stay, he left his eldest brother's courtyard without looking back.
Zhao Mangjiang stood at the door, watching his brother ride away until he vanished from sight, before walking inside with his hands behind his back. Once the door closed, he stared expressionlessly at Lin Manqing and the three girls for a moment, let out a cold snort, and walked straight into the bedroom, slamming the door shut behind him.
Lin Manqing bit her lip in grievance. There were only so many rooms in the house; although their eldest daughter, Zhao Xiaochuan, was married, there were still three girls left. Add herself and her husband, and having Zhao Qiancheng stay here was already inconvenient.
Still, she didn't dare say much. After all, her own actions were indefensible, so she swallowed her bitter grievances, told the children to go back to their rooms to study, and went into the bedroom to appease her husband.
When Zhao Qiancheng arrived home, the moon was already high in the sky. Hearing the sound of him locking his bicycle, Zhao Jianguo felt his skin tighten. He hurriedly stood up to greet him, but saw that Zhao Qiancheng had already pushed open the door and stepped inside. Stricken with guilt, he quickly called out, "Dad!"
Unfortunately, Zhao Qiancheng ignored him, walking straight to the table and sitting down. Qin Fengying very observantly poured a large mug of water for her husband and placed it gently on the table. "Father of our children, have some water first."
"Mn!"
Zhao Qiancheng picked up the enamel mug and gulped down several mouthfuls, then, panting slightly, slammed the mug down hard onto the table.
*Bam!*
Everyone couldn't help but shiver. Qin Fengying quickly signaled to her daughter and younger son. The two of them understood instantly, lowered their heads, and murmured, "Dad, Mom, get some rest early," before scurrying out of the main room with their necks pulled in. Hearing the door close behind them, Zhao Qiancheng finally raised his eyes to look at his eldest son, who was standing by the table like a frightened quail, and barked angrily.
"What did you tell me yesterday? Today you couldn't wait to rush over and make yourself a cuckold with egg on your face? Why on earth did our Zhao family produce a spineless bastard like you?!"
Zhao Jianguo hadn't expected him to use such harsh language, and for a moment he couldn't accept it. He immediately opened his mouth to retort, "Dad, things aren't the way you think, I..."
"How do I think they are?!"
Zhao Qiancheng raised his voice in a retort. "Weren't you made a fool of and turned into a cuckold by Jiang Hongmei? Weren't you still obsessing over her yesterday? And today you just had to rush over and crawl back to her..."
"Dad!"
Hearing him go further and further, Zhao Jianguo lost his composure and said loudly, "I saw that she had sprained her leg today, which is why I carried her back. It's not what you think."
"Hmph!"
Zhao Qiancheng was laughed out of anger by his forced logic. "You're scattering Sichuan peppercorns on a grave—you're trying to ghost the ghosts!"
"I didn't."
Zhao Jianguo's face flushed red, his hands clenching involuntarily at his sides. Just as he was about to start arguing his case, his father raised a hand to stop him. "Son, I'll spell it out for you today: no matter how much you like Jiang Hongmei, I will never let her cross the threshold of the Zhao family."
Looking at his son's darkening face, Zhao Qiancheng said earnestly, "Originally, I didn't hold such a strong aversion to her. But today, after having the audacity to admit she was Gu Yu's fiancée, she still had the scheming audacity to flirt with you. That is something I cannot tolerate."
Hearing this, Zhao Jianguo couldn't help frowning as he met his father's gaze. "Dad..."
"Let me finish."
Zhao Qiancheng gave a cold, low rebuke, glanced at his reluctant son, and continued, "You've been back for so long—have you ever wondered why she didn't fall sooner or later, but only fell when you appeared? And another thing..."
Pausing for a moment, he analyzed further, "Even though we advocate for free love between men and women nowadays, have you ever seen a woman openly claim she has a fiancé, only to go and flirt the very next day with someone else who has improper designs on her? Unless there's something wrong with her brain, she has to have some other ulterior motive."
Prompted by his father, Zhao Jianguo's previously muddled and heavy head suddenly cleared up. The events of the day flashed rapidly before his eyes.
His face turned as pale as a sheet of paper. He hadn't even seen through Jiang Hongmei's crude tricks—he truly must have been madly in love with her.
Zhao Jianguo gave a bitter laugh and spoke in a soft murmur, "Dad, I was a fool."
Hearing this, the anger in Zhao Qiancheng's heart mostly dissipated, and his tone unconsciously softened. "Son! Don't blame your father for being ruthless. That Jiang Hongmei is full of flaws, not to mention fickle when it comes to feelings.
Even if you managed to make things work with someone like that, there's no guarantee she wouldn't go behind your back to look for someone else. When that day comes, it will be too late for regrets."
"Mn!"
By now, Zhao Jianguo also recalled how clingy Jiang Hongmei used to be toward Gu Yu, and his romantic notions toward her vanished in an instant. With a gloomy expression, he stared at the edge of the table and whispered coldly, "Dad, don't worry. I won't... go looking for her again."
Seeing that his son had figured things out, Zhao Qiancheng didn't dwell on the matter any longer. He simply gave one final instruction for him to prepare for matchmaking, then told him to go back to his room to rest.
From that day on, Zhao Jianguo truly stopped going to see Jiang Hongmei. Even when going to work in the fields, he would take a detour.
Although Zhao Qiancheng and Qin Fengying saw all this, they were still uneasy, terrified that their son's brain might suddenly short-circuit and send him running back to the Educated Youth Point to find that vixen, ruining all their efforts. To prevent this, they took turns going to work alongside him simply to prevent any contact between the two.
Meanwhile, Jiang Hongmei, who was completely unaware of the situation, had taken three days off to rest. Originally, she had planned to use her foot injury as an excuse to make Zhao Jianguo "go back to how things were" with her, while also prompting Gu Yu to come check on her.
Yet to her surprise, she hadn't even seen a ghost shadow. After thinking it over, Jiang Hongmei figured the two men must have been delayed by something or someone, which was why they hadn't come to see her. She ended up begging team leader Wang Hongbo to pass a message to them.
Wang Hongbo hadn't wanted to go at the start, but he couldn't withstand Jiang Hongmei's shameless persistence. The moment she heard them coming back from the fields, she would holler at the top of her lungs, calling "Brother Wang, Team Leader Wang" back and forth.
Driven to his wits' end, he finally agreed to make the trip. But upon reaching the fields and walking up to Zhao Jianguo, the moment he uttered the character "Jiang," before he even had a chance to deliver the message, Qin Fengying cut him off with a sneer.
"Has Educated Youth Wang earned too many work points lately, and now your food rations are overflowing? Well then, next month you should be able to pay back the grain you borrowed from the production brigade, right?"
"No!"
Wang Hongbo's face turned beet red. Lowering his head, he nervously picked at the seam of his trousers and muttered, "N-next month isn't good."
"Hah!"
Qin Fengying put her hands on her hips, raised an eyebrow slightly, and mocked him, "Since you can't pay it back yet, you still have the leisure time to play Good Samaritan here? Why aren't you hurrying back to work? Are you trying to get your work points docked?!"
"N-no!"
Rebuke-stung and red-faced with embarrassment, Wang Hongbo scampered off in a flurry. Spitting toward his fleeing back, Qin Fengying scoffed, "Peh!"
Then she turned her gaze back to her eldest son, who was keeping his head down and working. Seeing that he showed no reaction at all, she finally eased her mind and walked off to weed another patch.
Wang Hongbo ran a good long stretch until he was certain she couldn't see him anymore before daring to stop. He patted his chest, panting heavily, only to accidentally lift his gaze and spot Gu Yu and Shen Jianan working not far away.
Figuring he had already come this far, he might as well just deliver the message and get it over with, so he walked straight over to call out to them. To his surprise, before he could even mention that Jiang Hongmei was injured, Gu Yu spoke up first.
"Brother Wang, do me a favor and pass a word to Jiang Hongmei. Tell her to stop throwing around my fiancée's title everywhere she goes to avoid creating a bad impression. We were never engaged in the first place; that's just a wishful fantasy of hers and her parents."
Gu Yu leaned both hands on his hoe, frowning slightly. "Jiang Hongmei's father used to be under my father's command, and her mother served by my mother's side..."
He paused for a fraction of a second, then looked up at Wang Hongbo, hesitating before adding, "Even though my family has fallen... to this state, we're still not just anyone's..."
Before he could finish, Wang Hongbo understood. The subtext was clear: the engagement was entirely a fabrication of the Jiang family's imagination, and the Gu family had never acknowledged it.
As for Jiang Hongmei, the high-society Capital lady persona she used to hint at both openly and covertly was a complete sham. To put it bluntly, back in the old society, her entire family would have been household servants to the Gu family.
Wang Hongbo mentally spat at Jiang Hongmei. The woman really was a toad lusting after swan meat. Back when the Gu family hadn't fallen, Gu Yu's parents had probably rejected her parents repeatedly; her family had simply been shameless enough to play dumb all along.
As for why they sent Jiang Hongmei down to the countryside, it was obviously because they figured that while the Gu family looked down-and-out on the surface, Gu Yu's aunt had married a high-ranking official, and he had an uncle who fled abroad.
In the future, even if the Gu family couldn't regain its past glory, just by relying on those two connections, Gu Yu only needed to hold on a bit longer before he might be transferred back. When that day came, his life would still be comfortable. That was probably why Jiang Hongmei kept clinging onto Gu Yu and wouldn't let go!
Thinking of this, Wang Hongbo felt a shred of sympathy for Gu Yu. He was truly unlucky to be entangled with someone like Jiang Hongmei.
"I got it. I'll tell her when I head back after work."
Hearing this, a smile bloomed on Gu Yu's face. "Great! Thanks, Brother Wang."
"N-no problem."
Wang Hongbo was momentarily unused to seeing him so warm and polite. After all, in the past, while this man had always been courteous, he had never smiled at anyone like that except for Shen Jianan.
Nodding to Gu Yu, he turned and hurried away. Watching him dash off as if chased by a ghost, Gu Yu couldn't help twitching the corner of his mouth. He turned to Shen Jianan, just about to say something, when the whistle signaling the end of the shift blew.
Instantly wiping the smile from his face, he strode over to Shen Jianan and murmured softly, "Don't wait for me for dinner."
With that, he stepped briskly across the field ridge and hurried rapidly in the direction of the cattle shed. Shen Jianan frowned slightly, watching his retreating figure with a look of hesitation.
Ever since their heart-to-heart talk that day, Gu Yu had grown busy. Shen Jianan didn't know what he was busy with; he only knew that Gu Yu spent longer and longer periods over by the cattle shed. The day before yesterday was even more absurd: barely after work had started, Gu Yu had faked an illness, foaming at the mouth in a way that scared the life out of people.
Zhao Hongjun and Zhao Gang had wanted to take him to the health clinic, but the guy had spasmed and claimed it was a hereditary condition that even the famous doctors in Beijing couldn't cure. What could the two of them say? They had no choice but to let him go home and rest.
And would you look at that—the moment that guy returned to the Half-Mountain Courtyard, he slipped away the second nobody was looking, only returning in a dusty rush right when it was time to report for work the next morning.
"Sigh!"
He let out a soft sigh, reined in his thoughts, hoisted his hoe onto his shoulder, and prepared to head back to the Half-Mountain Courtyard.
To his surprise, while passing the fork in the road near the Educated Youth Point, he unexpectedly ran into Jiang Hongmei, who was crying and running while leaning on a walking stick, followed closely by Wang Hongbo, Lu Xiaoyue, and the others trying to persuade her.
"Stop trying to hold me back! Zhao Jianguo didn't even pay attention to me, his mother humiliated me, and Gu Yu too—@￥＃Б@……"
It turned out that Jiang Hongmei's attempt to use Wang Hongbo to pass a message had failed. Unable to accept it, she had insisted on going to confront Zhao Jianguo and Gu Yu in person.
Terrified that she would cross the line and cause everyone to be implicated as "debtors" or worse, offend the Party Secretary's family and make their lives even harder, Wang Hongbo and the other educated youths had desperately tried to block her path.
Yet what kind of person was Jiang Hongmei? How could she possibly consider things from their perspective? Hearing that Zhao Jianguo was indifferent to her injury and that Gu Yu outright denied their relationship, rage flared in her heart, and she instantly lost her mind.
"I don't believe it!"
She spun around, roaring with bloodshot eyes at Wang Hongbo. "Gu Yu wouldn't say that! Jianguo isn't that kind of person either, they @?%&@……"
Catching the gist of it, the young man figured out what kind of stunt Jiang Hongmei was trying to pull again. Cursing her bad luck inwardly, he expressionlessly shifted the farming tool on his shoulder, hunched his body to give them a wide berth from the roadside, and broke into a fast jog.
*Patter, patter, patter!*
The sound of hurried footsteps instantly caught the attention of Wang Hongbo and the others. Everyone looked up in the direction of the sound and saw a figure flash past. Taking a closer look, who else could it be but Shen Jianan?
"..."
They were rendered somewhat speechless. Why did this guy look like he was dodging a plague?!