That piercing cry was like a spark thrown into a pan of boiling oil.
The entire warehouse exploded into chaos!
The crowd, which had been keeping itself under tight control, was like a hornet’s nest that had just been poked. In an instant, everything descended into complete disorder.
Screams, curses, and the sounds of things being knocked over filled the air.
Countless flashlight beams wildly swept through the darkness as people became like headless flies, shoving one another and rushing toward every possible exit.
The square-faced man’s face instantly turned pale.
His first instinct was to flee with the crowd.
“Stop!”
A hand grabbed his arm tightly.
It was Su Qiao.
While everyone else was drowning in panic, she remained unnaturally calm for a woman who supposedly was supposed to be weak.
Her astonishingly bright eyes stared straight at him in the darkness, without the slightest trace of panic.
“The goods and the money!”
She spoke only three words. Her voice wasn’t loud, but it carried the commanding authority of a queen.
The square-faced man was stunned by her composure.
Looking at this “rural woman” who still stood straight-backed amid the chaos, he felt a trace of fear for the first time.
“What time is it now?! Staying alive is what matters!”
He was sweating profusely as he tried to shake off Su Qiao’s hand, only to discover that her grip was astonishingly strong. His arm hurt from the force with which she held him.
“The goods. The money. Or we can stay here together and have a chat with the police.”
There was not the slightest emotion in Su Qiao’s voice, yet the threat behind her words was more direct than any intimidation could have been.
The square-faced man shuddered.
He gritted his teeth, pulled out a thick bundle of money wrapped in oilcloth from inside his clothes, and shoved it into Su Qiao’s arms.
“That’s the deposit! Come with me! There’s a secret passage over here!”
He growled, then grabbed Su Qiao’s hand and dragged her toward the darkest corner at the back of the warehouse.
Su Qiao didn’t resist. She let him pull her along, but her footsteps remained unhurried. She even had enough composure to observe the chaotic scene around them.
The two of them weaved around mountains of discarded wooden crates until they reached an inconspicuous corner.
The square-faced man forcefully pushed aside a wooden panel disguised as part of the wall.
Behind it was a pitch-black opening barely wide enough for one person to squeeze through.
It was a dog hole.
“Quick!”
The man bent down and crawled through first.
Without hesitation, Su Qiao followed him out.
On the other side of the opening was an overgrown railway track, while the sound of police sirens could be heard approaching from the distance.
The two didn’t dare stop. They ran along the shadows beside the railway for more than a thousand meters before finally stopping once they could no longer hear any movement behind them.
They bent over, clutching their knees and gasping for breath.
“Damn… today’s really not my lucky day!” the square-faced man cursed, still shaken.
Su Qiao merely dusted off her clothes, completely calm.
She untied the gray cloth bag she had been carrying all along and tossed it to the man.
“I’ve accepted the deposit. Here’s the merchandise. Tomorrow night, same time. The abandoned kiln factory in the west part of town. I’ll wait for you there.”
With that, she turned around and left without the slightest hesitation.
The square-faced man stood frozen in place, watching her figure disappear into the darkness. It took him a long while to recover.
He opened the cloth bag and shone his flashlight inside.
The watches, stockings, and fabric were all there, lying neatly inside.
He took a deep breath and silently gave a thumbs-up in the direction Su Qiao had gone.
“Girl, you’ve got guts!”
……
When Su Qiao returned home, the sky was already beginning to brighten.
She locked the door from the inside, and her entire demeanor instantly changed.
She casually tossed the shabby clothes she had worn as a disguise onto the floor. She wiped the grime from her face, revealing her stunningly beautiful features.
She walked to the bed and opened the heavy oilcloth bundle she had been clutching.
A thick stack of large-denomination bills spilled out, carrying the combined scent of ink and sweat, piling up on the bed like a small mountain.
In an era when the average monthly salary was only twenty or thirty yuan, the pile of money before her was an enormous fortune capable of changing an ordinary family’s destiny.
Su Qiao spread the money out and counted it one bill at a time.
Two thousand yuan in total.
And this was only half of the deposit.
Once the transaction was completed tomorrow night, she would make a net profit of four thousand yuan!
“Good grief.”
Looking at the banknotes covering her bed, Su Qiao sighed in satisfaction.
“I’m another big step closer to becoming a ‘ten-thousand-yuan household’!”
In high spirits, she took a premium wagyu steak and a bottle of 1982 Château Lafite from her space and gave herself a simple celebration.
The steak sizzled as it cooked, paired with rich red wine.
Outside the window was the monotonous and silent dawn of a county town in the late 1970s. Inside, however, was the luxury and indulgence of the twenty-first century.
The intense clash between the two eras gave her an unprecedented sense of excitement and pleasure.
This narrow escape also made her even more clear-headed.
The black market was too chaotic and too risky. It wasn’t a long-term solution.
That square-faced dealer might be worth developing into a reliable downstream contact.
He could be responsible for distributing the goods, while she would become his sole supplier. That way, it would be both safer and more convenient.
Now that she had money, it was time to properly plan the days ahead.
First, she planned to buy a bicycle—the best means of transportation available in this era.
Then she would replace the furniture in her home, using modern furniture from her space as the core and having a carpenter build wooden exteriors using materials from this era to disguise them. She would completely replace everything.
Her happy life in this era had only just begun.
Su Qiao’s life became more and more comfortable at a speed visible to the naked eye.
In this family housing compound, every household was still living frugally, carefully budgeting every grain of rice and every penny.
Only Room 301 would occasionally send irresistible aromas of meat drifting through the building.
The neighbors noticed, but no one dared say anything.
After all, the legend that “Commander Gu’s wife is not someone to mess with” had already become deeply ingrained in everyone’s minds.
Everyone simply assumed that Battalion Commander Gu doted on his wife and had sent all his allowances and various subsidies home, which was why she could afford such a good life.
As for this beautiful misunderstanding, Su Qiao was more than happy to let everyone believe it.
She was munching on an apple while planning what kind of “rare goods” she should take out of her space next time to pry open the square-faced man’s wallet.
Suddenly, the familiar, loud voice of the mailman came from downstairs.
“Comrade Su Qiao! You have a package! A big package!”
Su Qiao’s movements stopped.
A package?
Judging by the timing, her “complaint letter” should be arriving soon.
Could it be Gu Changfeng’s reply?
No. Letters wouldn’t come in packages.
She walked to the window and saw the mailman struggling to unload a huge package from the back of his bicycle. It was wrapped tightly in military-green canvas.
The package was square and looked extremely heavy.
And in the sender’s section were three names she knew better than anyone.
Gu Changfeng.