Lin Shu quickly closed the door, pretending she had never come over.
“What are you talking about? Even if you didn’t hear us, shouldn’t you have left some food for us? Don’t you know how to treat guests?”
“Auntie, I didn’t know what you liked to eat. There’s a small shop that specializes in breakfast. Just go out and turn right.”
Jiang Jie chimed in, “I’m sorry, Auntie. You didn’t tell us whether you wanted breakfast or not. Our family buys breakfast according to a set schedule and quantity. Remember to get up earlier tomorrow morning.”
Yang Guifen was rendered speechless and could only swallow her anger.
She took her two sons out to buy something to eat.
After wandering around outside for quite a while, she bought two of the cheapest flatbreads to fill her stomach a little, intending to wait until lunchtime for a proper meal.
Yang Guifen did not go back. Instead, she wandered around near the Lin family home. When she spotted the older woman from yesterday, she went over to listen to their conversation.
“Big Sister, what are you talking about? Let me join you.”
When Auntie Mei saw her coming again, she turned away and faced another neighbor, making it obvious that she did not want to talk to her.
Yang Guifen’s greatest strength was her thick skin.
“Big Sister, yesterday was all just a misunderstanding. The three of us are going to be living here from now on. We’re neighbors, after all, so I thought I’d get to know everyone.”
Auntie Mei and the other elderly woman both snickered and exchanged a glance.
They knew the Lin family’s eldest daughter-in-law fairly well. She was extremely particular about cleanliness.
They looked the mother and two sons up and down. All three were covered in dust and looked rather shabby. They guessed that Lin Shu had only agreed to let them stay temporarily because of the pressure from Director Shao.
“Did you rent a place nearby?”
But Auntie Mei knew very well that housing was extremely scarce at the moment. How could there possibly be a place for her to rent? She was deliberately asking.
“No. We’re going to live here with the children’s cousin. Besides, from now on, this whole household will belong to the Shen family anyway.”
The two women had not expected her to say something like that.
“Who told you that?”
Yang Guifen had already made inquiries. The Lin family had a problematic class background, and they relied on Shen Huai. So in her mind, sooner or later, this house would naturally become the Shen family’s.
“No one told me. I already know that the Lin family are remnants of the capitalist class. Who knows what will happen in the future? But the children’s cousin is different. He’s still young and is already a deputy company commander. He even has the opportunity to become a high-ranking officer in the future.”
The two women clicked their tongues in unison.
They thought to themselves that this woman really had no shame.
The Lin family was certainly in for some trouble.
At lunchtime.
Lin Shu had wisely made sure her little nephew ate something beforehand.
Looking at the mother and her two children sitting across from her, all three of them practically seeming to have grown eight arms just to grab food, Lin Shu completely lost her appetite.
“Sister-in-law, aren’t there still some steamed buns in the pot? Bring them out and let Auntie eat them all.”
Jiang Jie stood up.
She really needed to take the children back to her parents’ home for a visit. How could things continue like this?
After the meal, Jiang Jie endured her discomfort and cleaned up the mess on the table. Then she picked up her bag and carried her son.
“Little Sister, are you coming with me?”
“Sister-in-law, go ahead. Don’t worry about me. Come back later. I still have something to take care of, so I won’t go.”
“All right. I’ll leave first, then.”
After eating, the mother and her two sons lay down and went to sleep.
The sound of the door closing woke Yang Guifen.
Then the telephone rang.
Lin Shu picked it up. It was a call from Xie Hongjun’s factory.
“Is this Lin Shu? I’m Meng Xiaoju. I came to my maternal aunt’s factory today. She would like to see you again. Would that be all right? She wants to talk to you about the pastries.”
Lin Shu understood immediately.
“That fast? It’s only been a day.”
Meng Xiaoju was eating the pastries they had newly made that day. After the improvements, the pastries really did taste even better.
Once the fresh batch was put on the market and distributed among the nearby shops, everything was quickly sold out.
Everyone was urging Red Sun Food Factory to speed up production.
The leaders of Yuncheng’s industrial administration department had also heard about the matter and privately approached Xie Hongjun to ask about it.
When Lin Shu learned about this over the phone, she was not happy. Instead, she became worried.
This was attracting far too much attention.
That might actually be a bad thing.
“How about this? I’ll come over right away. I think we need to have a proper discussion about this.”
Lin Shu hurriedly left the house.
What she wanted was to keep a low profile and quietly make money.
She did not want to attract so much attention that even higher-level government departments became involved.
However, Lin Shu quickly thought of the best solution.
She would give the recipe to the food factory in her personal capacity. After that, the fewer people who knew about the matter, the better.
When Lin Shu arrived at the food factory, the security guard did not recognize her and stopped her at the entrance.
Meng Xiaoju soon came out and brought her inside.
“Director Xie, I hope that my identity can remain confidential from beginning to end.”
“We respect your wishes. Xiaoju, go make some tea. I want to speak with Comrade Lin Shu privately.”
Meng Xiaoju promptly closed the office door.
Lin Shu got straight to the point and stated what she wanted.
“Director Xie, if anyone asks, just say that I personally donated the recipe to your factory. Nothing more. I believe you should be able to do that. At the very least, there are many other ”
“Hey! I guarantee that your personal information will not be exposed. The only people who know about this are Xiaoju and me.”
“All right. Since that’s settled, I’ll contact you myself in January next year. If we launch it right around the Spring Festival, your food factory’s profits at the beginning of the year could increase several times over.”
After they finished discussing the matter, Xie Hongjun took the initiative to bring up the contract.
Lin Shu looked over the contract she had drafted and found nothing wrong with it, but she did not rush to sign.
Signing her name now carried too much risk.
They agreed on a date to officially sign the contract, and Lin Shu left the food factory.
She ate a bowl of noodles outside, then leisurely walked home.
She had been away from home for more than three hours.
Just as she reached the entrance of the alley, Auntie Mei spotted her and slapped her thigh.
“Lin Shu, hurry to the People’s Hospital! I don’t know what happened to your father. He collapsed as soon as he walked through the door! I’ve called an ambulance, and your brother should be on his way there now!”
Lin Shu shoved the pastries Xie Hongjun had given her into Auntie Mei’s hands.
“Auntie Mei, thank you!”
Lin Shu immediately turned around and ran toward the People’s Hospital.
Because she had developed the habit of drinking some spiritual spring water every day, Lin Shu’s stamina and strength were now much better than before.
She ran all the way to the hospital without feeling tired.
After searching around the nurses’ station, she finally found her brother, Lin Hui, in the inpatient department.
“Brother! What happened to Dad?”
Lin Hui shook his head.
“I don’t know. By the time I arrived, Dad was already unconscious. The doctor said he fainted because he was overwhelmed with anger. There’s nothing seriously wrong with him.”
Her father had always been in good health. And recently, she had deliberately given her family plenty of spiritual spring water. He shouldn’t have gotten sick.
“Brother, I’m going to ask the doctor about it.”
While Lin Shu was still puzzled, the mother and two sons from the Yang family were sitting in the backyard of the Lin family home, happily stuffing themselves with food.
That morning, Yang Guifen had discovered that the Lin family had a very large backyard and even kept several dogs.
She immediately cursed the Lin family for being stingy and wondered why they could not have killed one of the dogs to serve their guests.
There were plenty of people in this era who could not even eat their fill. Why else would the family raise so many dogs if not to eat them?
Taking advantage of the fact that no one from the Lin family was home, she caught one dog and killed it. Feeling that one was not enough, she killed another.
In total, she killed two dogs and stewed them together with some seemingly expensive dried ingredients she found in the kitchen cabinet.
She made a huge pot of stew.
When Lin Tianlun returned home to get some materials and opened the door, the first thing he saw was dog fur scattered all over the floor.
He had raised those dogs for more than ten years. Just from the color of the fur, he could tell exactly which dog each strand had come from.
Seeing the dog fur covering the floor and the dried blood, he fainted on the spot.
He had only just opened the front door and exchanged a greeting with Auntie Mei from across the street. The moment he turned around, Auntie Mei heard a strange sound and saw him collapse onto the ground.
She cried out in alarm and immediately found someone to call for an ambulance, while asking a neighbor to contact Lin Hui.
Earlier, Lin Tianlun had stood outside the door calling for everyone for quite some time, but no one answered. Only afterward did he realize that the door was unlocked.
He pushed the door open, only to find this horrifying scene waiting for him.
After learning from the doctor that her father had simply fainted from a sudden fit of anger, Lin Shu was told to make sure she helped keep the patient calm.
But as for what had happened at home…
Lin Shu stood up, already guessing what might have happened.