The man frowned slightly, his tone calm as he stood outside the crowd and looked at Jiang Hua from afar. To someone who didn’t know him, it would seem as though he was angry.
Li Qingran froze for a moment, then widened her eyes in disbelief. She was extremely surprised to see Xu Chenghuai appear here. Immediately after, her expression shifted again and again as she squeezed deeper into the crowd, trying to reduce her sense of presence.
However, Jiang Hua understood Xu Chenghuai. He was simply asking a question.
She just hadn’t expected the timing to be so perfect. A hint of amusement rippled through Jiang Hua’s eyes. She blinked slyly and raised her voice.
“You came just in time. Comrade Li Qingran seems to have some misunderstandings about you. Why don’t you explain it to her?”
Li Qingran’s expression changed drastically.
Jiang Hua even added fuel to the fire. “If you don’t explain it clearly, I’m afraid everyone here will think you really are what Comrade Li Qingran said.”
When Xu Chenghuai was expressionless, he was quite intimidating. As his indifferent gaze swept over, Li Qingran’s heart tightened. She swallowed and didn’t dare say a word.
Meanwhile, the salesperson standing behind the counter had a face as pale as paper.
In the end, it was Ma Yuanhang, who had chased after Xu Chenghuai, who broke the suffocating scene. He knew his wife extremely well, and at a glance could tell that Li Qingran was stirring up trouble again. He quickly stepped forward to smooth things over.
“Ah, Comrade Jiang Hua, so you’re here. Old Xu has been looking for you all over.” As he spoke, he also went over to pull Li Qingran along. “Why are you here too? Your son’s been looking for you everywhere. Hurry back.”
Li Qingran couldn’t have wished for it more and followed him out of the crowd.
Ma Yuanhang looked at Xu Chenghuai with an apologetic expression and patted him on the shoulder.
Xu Chenghuai didn’t speak. His gaze returned to Jiang Hua.
Jiang Hua smiled faintly at him. Because of his presence, Li Qingran didn’t dare take the fabric away. Jiang Hua didn’t bother looking at the salesperson’s expression, paid the money, picked up the fabric, and left.
The news of Xu Chenghuai’s return quickly spread throughout the entire compound.
Everyone felt secretly relieved that they hadn’t been close to Jiang Hua before. They hadn’t yet had the chance to distance themselves from her. However, those who had deliberately distanced themselves from Chen Auntie after Director Chen’s incident now all felt uneasy.
Since Xu Chenghuai had already returned, could Director Chen’s return be far behind?
For a time, the frequency of knocks on the Chen family’s door became even higher than before.
But that was for later.
She carried the fabric and returned home together with Xu Chenghuai, hurriedly closing the courtyard gate.
The two children weren’t home. Perhaps because they’d seen Xu Chenghuai return, and in order to get back at the rumors they’d suffered among other children in recent days, they’d run out to find their little friends to clear things up.
Jiang Hua set the fabric down, then her gaze swept toward Xu Chenghuai and paused slightly. Aside from looking a bit thinner, there didn’t seem to be any other changes.
She hesitated for a moment, then asked rather awkwardly, “Are you okay?”
It had to be said that in some ways, she and Yunkai really were mother and son.
Even words of concern sounded cold in Xu Chenghuai’s eyes. In the past, she would have rushed up at the first sight of him to check his physical condition, chattering on as she asked questions. That obvious concern radiated from the inside out and was impossible to ignore.
Unlike now, when what was impossible to ignore was the cold indifference.
But Xu Chenghuai had never been good at expressing himself. He moved the fingers at his side, lowered his gaze to hide his emotions, and said in a flat tone, “They just asked a few simple questions.”
Which meant there were no problems.
Hearing this, Jiang Hua immediately felt relieved. As long as there were no problems, it was fine. Otherwise, she’d still have to take care of him.
Absolutely not. In her previous life, she’d been so exhausted and worn out. This time, it was her turn to enjoy herself.
She poured herself a glass of water and casually placed another one in front of him. After weighing her words, she asked, “Has everything been investigated clearly?”
What she really wanted to ask was whether Director Chen had been released, but it felt too deliberate. And with her experience from her previous life, her intuition told her that Director Chen was still under investigation.
Xu Chenghuai, however, saw through her thoughts. He paused briefly and said, “We have to wait for the investigation results. Director Chen still can’t go home for now.”
Jiang Hua looked up at him and frowned unconsciously. Her first thought was whether some things important enough to change the future could only follow their predetermined trajectory.
After all, Director Chen wasn’t an ordinary person. If he hadn’t died in her previous life, perhaps scientific development could have progressed faster, or there might have been new discoveries and breakthroughs in the project under research.
Jiang Hua didn’t continue on this topic and instead brought up Li Qingran’s abnormal behavior.
Xu Chenghuai pinched the bridge of his nose when he heard it. “I know.”
Seeing his attitude made Jiang Hua angry at once. She couldn’t help complaining, “I told you about this before and told you to be careful. What did you say then? You said you knew. And what happened? Weren’t you still taken away?”
Xu Chenghuai: …
He looked at her quietly.
Jiang Hua happened to catch his gaze. Her expression froze, and a wave of nervousness rose in her chest. She twisted her fingers, secretly took a deep breath, and forced herself to calm down.
She quickly recovered and said righteously, “Don’t look at me like that. I’ve thought it through. I can’t live according to my dreams, so I have to change!”
With dreams as a foundation, anything she did was reasonable. Anyway, Xu Chenghuai had no evidence.
Xu Chenghuai indeed didn’t suspect anything. He only frowned slightly. “When I said I knew, I meant I didn’t want you to worry. I would handle it properly. I didn’t ignore the issue you mentioned.”
Even though his tone carried some hesitation, it was still an explanation for his earlier words and actions.
That really was unprecedented.
In her previous life and this one combined, this was the first time Jiang Hua had ever heard such words. Surprise inevitably surfaced on her face.
At the same time, her emotions were complicated. However, that feeling only appeared for a brief moment before she cast it aside. After being reborn, the biggest change in her was that she absolutely refused to engage in inner turmoil. Anything that affected her mood, she would not look at, not think about, and not care about.
She asked, “Since you didn’t ignore it, how did you still end up being taken away for questioning?”
After saying that, Jiang Hua froze again. It did seem a little different. After all, in her previous life, she and the two children hadn’t escaped either. But in this life, up until now, no one had come knocking on her door.
Because her memory of the exact timing wasn’t very clear, she had originally thought that the time simply hadn’t come yet. Now that she looked at it, it was likely that Xu Chenghuai had interfered behind the scenes and had already removed himself from the situation early on.
Xu Chenghuai had indeed done something. He said in a low voice, “The nature of my work means that many things can’t be explained in detail.”
Jiang Hua was taken aback.
She had heard similar words in her previous life as well. But every time, she had felt that Xu Chenghuai was looking down on her, thinking she understood nothing, unwilling and uninterested in communicating with her.
However, perhaps because her mindset had changed, when she heard it now, even though she still felt somewhat uncomfortable, her first reaction wasn’t inferiority or doubting herself.
Instead, it was that Xu Chenghuai was explaining himself.
When Jiang Hua realized this, her mind went blank for several seconds. She processed it on her own for a moment, then suddenly let out a light laugh.
She lifted her eyes to look at Xu Chenghuai, her gaze lingering on his refined features. Thinking carefully, aside from his cold personality, Xu Chenghuai really hadn’t done anything excessive. It was her excessive inferiority that had pushed him farther and farther away.
And even…
Jiang Hua closed her eyes, unwilling to recall that incident she regretted so deeply.
The radical attitudes Yunkai and Yunshu had toward her might also be related to that incident?
Jiang Hua felt as though she had glimpsed the truth. Ridiculous. Truly ridiculous. It turned out that the majority of her misfortune in her previous life had been caused by herself?
She suddenly fell silent, unsure what she was thinking. The expression on her face changed again and again as she became completely immersed in her own world.
Xu Chenghuai had often been ignored by her during this period. At this moment, he strangely felt that he had become somewhat accustomed to it.
The Ma family lived on the other side of the compound. The weather was clear, the breeze warm, and the tree shade a vivid green. In the nursery, clusters of blooming roses shimmered under the sunlight, bright and charming.
Ma Yuanhang returned home together with Li Qingran.
As soon as he stepped into the courtyard, Ma Yuanhang’s expression immediately turned ugly.
He restrained himself, then turned to look at Li Qingran. “What did you do again? Didn’t I tell you not to provoke Jiang Hua?”
Li Qingran shrank her neck slightly. But someone accustomed to being willful wouldn’t easily admit fault. She stiffened her neck and argued, “Don’t slander me. I didn’t take the initiative to cause trouble. I’m the one being bullied now!”
As she spoke, she even felt somewhat aggrieved.
She hadn’t snatched the fabric. The salesperson had given it to her. She hadn’t done anything at all. At most, she’d muttered a few extra words. Yet she’d first been publicly humiliated by Jiang Hua, then intimidated by Xu Chenghuai, and now she was being scolded by her own man.
Ma Yuanhang didn’t feel she was wronged at all. How could he not know what kind of person his wife was?
In today’s situation, she had clearly played a significant role. Otherwise, Xu Chenghuai wouldn’t have given him that warning look, and Jiang Hua wouldn’t have worn such a cold expression.
Seeing that she stubbornly refused to admit her mistake, Ma Yuanhang no longer wanted to say anything. “Do as you please. I’ve already said everything I should. Whether you listen or not is up to you. Just don’t come crying to me when the time comes.”
Li Qingran dismissed it with a curl of her lips.
“What exactly are you worried about? Didn’t you say it yourself, as long as Director Chen moves aside, you can sit in his position? When that happens, what is Xu Chenghuai worth?”
Her reckless words made Ma Yuanhang’s face turn iron-blue. He glared at her in warning. “You keep this buried in your stomach. No matter who it is, you are not allowed to mention it. Do you think the situation now is the same as before?”
Li Qingran’s expression changed instantly.
“What do you mean?” She looked at Ma Yuanhang.
Ma Yuanhang, however, was unwilling to say more. He only warned her, “You keep your mouth under control. Don’t let me find out that you’ve said something you shouldn’t have.”
Li Qingran’s face looked extremely unpleasant.
As Xu Chenghuai returned, some of the rumors in the compound gradually faded away. Jiang Hua’s life returned to calm, as no one pointed at her with strange looks when she walked down the road anymore.
Jiang Hua also hurried to turn the fabric into clothes and had someone customize a signboard.
The clothing shop was located at the end of an alley. Jiang Hua didn’t choose any flashy name and simply named the shop “Alley End.”
After hanging up the signboard, she posted a notice at the entrance.
Alley End would officially open in three days. During the first three days of opening, all clothing in the shop would be 10 percent off, and the labor fee for custom-made clothing would be 20 percent off.
As soon as this news came out, people in the compound who were paying attention to her shop-opening immediately began discussing it.
“A clothing shop called Alley End? That sounds too strange. She really is an outsider. Does she think anyone can do business?”
“Just wait and see. Forget 20 percent or 10 percent off. Even if she cuts prices by half, probably no one will buy anything.”
“Stop talking. She’s a girl from the countryside. It’s already impressive that she dares to try. There’s no need to discourage her like this.”
“Fine, we won’t talk. Let’s just see how long she can hold on.”