In the private room of the state-run restaurant, the atmosphere was as heavy as a funeral.
Lu Chenyuan was never much of a talker to begin with, and he was even worse at handling situations like this.
Besides, Su Wanxing had only told him to stall the Su family—she hadn’t explained what she planned to do next.
So he kept his head down and ate. Several times, members of the Su family tried to stand up, only for one sharp glance from him to press them back into their seats.
Su Hongyi and the others didn’t dare ask questions either, afraid that one wrong word would offend Lu Chenyuan and bring up the whole “capitalist” issue again. They could only follow suit and eat in silence.
As for how the food tasted—none of them could tell at all.
The moment Su Wanxing walked in, Lu Chenyuan immediately stood up and attentively pulled out a chair for her.
“Is everything taken care of?”
He had originally been worried about her safety—after all, she had discovered such a huge secret—but Su Wanxing had been calm and confident, even assuring him that it wouldn’t delay their wedding.
So he chose not to ask further and trusted her.
“Don’t worry.”
Su Wanxing smiled sweetly at him.
Su Xueqing stabbed viciously at her food with her chopsticks.
Go on and show off, Su Wanxing. In a moment, you’ll be the one crying.
“Wanxing, you were gone with a stomachache for so long—we thought you’d fallen into the toilet,” Zhou Meijuan said sarcastically.
Su Wanxing picked up her chopsticks and replied calmly, “Aunt Zhou, don’t you often have stomach trouble for hours too? And in the end, you come back in through the Su family’s back door. Someone who didn’t know better might think you fell into our pit latrine, swam out to another one, and climbed back up.”
“You—!” Zhou Meijuan slammed the table, but one glance from Su Hongyi made her sit back down again.
“The dishes are cold. Eat this.”
Lu Chenyuan pushed over a large bowl of meat dishes.
The bowl was still hot—clearly, he had asked the kitchen to keep reheating it for her.
Once again, Su Wanxing felt touched by how considerate this man was.
Just as she lifted her chopsticks, a man suddenly rushed in.
He wore factory work clothes, his beard unkempt, eyes bloodshot. It was He Guoping from the textile factory.
He held up a half-old Plum Blossom brand wristwatch and pointed it straight at Su Wanxing, reeking of alcohol and resentment.
“Su Wanxing, you gold-digging bitch! You clearly accepted my family’s betrothal gifts and promised to marry me! Then you turned around and climbed up the social ladder to marry a soldier instead?”
“Do you have no shame?!”
Seeing Su Wanxing momentarily stunned, Su Xueqing lifted her brows in smug delight.
Su Wanxing, I told you—I won’t let you marry Lu Chenyuan.
The one who marries Lu Chenyuan can only be me!
Feigning shock, Su Xueqing even stood up. “Oh my goodness! Sister, how could you do something like this?”
“Two-timing at the same time? Aren’t you treating Brother Lu like a fool? Brother Lu, you have to see her true face—she’s a shameless, fickle woman!”
Zhou Meijuan hurriedly echoed her, looking heartbroken. “Wanxing! Do you want to marry two men at once? Th-this… this is illegal!”
As she spoke, she secretly glanced at Lu Chenyuan’s darkened face.
Su Wanxing, let’s see how you get out of this now.
Su Wanxing picked up her teacup and took a sip.
Then, under everyone’s gaze, she slowly raised her left wrist.
On it was a half-new Plum Blossom brand wristwatch.
“Are you talking about this?”
He Guoping froze and looked toward Su Xueqing.
Su Xueqing immediately shouted, “Sister, our family has lots of watches! You can’t just wear a similar one and deny giving one to He Guoping!”
“That’s right! That’s the one you gave me!” He Guoping yelled stubbornly. “You even said you wanted to run away with me and be a happy couple together!”
Unhurried, Su Wanxing took off the watch. “Su Xueqing, don’t you find it strange? The watch in He Guoping’s hand looks like yours to me.”
Su Yaozu chimed in, “With a cheap brand like that, my sister wouldn’t even look twice at it. We have one at home just like it—if Dad hadn’t given it to her, she would’ve thrown it away long ago.”
Su Wanxing raised the back of the watch. “That’s right. Dad gave both Su Xueqing and me a Plum Blossom brand watch before, and there are engravings on the back. Mine has the character ‘Xing.’ Su Xueqing’s has ‘Qing.’”
Su Xueqing’s face turned deathly pale in an instant.
It was over. Back then, she had thought the watch was the least valuable thing. Since Su Wanxing had a similar one, she had casually given it to He Guoping.
Su Wanxing continued, “Do you dare turn the watch over and take a look at the back?”
He Guoping slowly lifted the watch, about to check if there really was an engraving.
But Su Xueqing suddenly snatched it from him, smashed it to the ground, and stomped on it viciously. “What’s there to look at?!”
With such a blatant confession, everyone already knew the truth.
Lu Chenyuan’s face darkened to the extreme, his voice sharp as a blade. “Comrade Su Xueqing, you’ve repeatedly sabotaged a military marriage. What exactly are you trying to do?”
“I… I’m the one the Su family intended to marry you off to! It was Su Wanxing who stole you from me!”
Su Xueqing clenched her teeth in hatred.
Lu Chenyuan replied coldly, “I’ll say this one last time. From the very beginning, the person I intended to marry was Su Wanxing. As for you—I don’t even know who you are.”
Su Xueqing staggered back a step, her heart turning ice-cold.
Why?
What does Su Wanxing have that’s better than her?!
Su Wanxing decided to strike while the iron was hot and make the Su family suffer properly.
“Dad, look at how Su Xueqing treated the watch you gave her. In her eyes, you don’t exist as a father at all.”
Su Hongyi’s face darkened.
More precisely, his heart was utterly broken. Those two watches were limited editions—he had spent a fortune on them. Not only had Su Xueqing despised hers, she had even used it to frame her own sister, and in the end, smashed it to pieces just to clear herself!
Only then did Su Xueqing realize how badly things had gone wrong. She hurriedly grabbed Su Hongyi’s hand and acted spoiled. “Dad, it’s not like that. I thought it was just an ordinary watch. If I had known you gave it to me, I definitely wouldn’t have been willing to break it…”
“It must’ve been stolen by He Guoping, he—”
She turned around, but where was He Guoping anymore?
“Hmph!”
Su Hongyi flung off her hand and pulled back his sleeve.
She couldn’t even tell which watch he had given her.
Su Yaozu tried to persuade him, but Zhou Meijuan stopped him.
Su Wanxing continued, “Speaking of watches… Dad, you should hurry home and take a look. I heard people at the textile factory say they saw Accountant Zhang wearing a watch just like yours.”
“They were just looking at the watch and even mistook Accountant Zhang for you.”
Su Hongyi’s expression grew even uglier.
Recently, there had been rumors at the textile factory about Zhang Maocai and Zhou Meijuan being unusually close.
Zhou Meijuan had also been sneaking around at times…
As her husband, he had indeed felt jealous. But Zhou Meijuan always explained things so smoothly that he could never find concrete evidence. The matter had long been a thorn in his heart.
Now that even Su Wanxing was saying this, he had to get to the bottom of it!
Su Hongyi shoved his chair aside and rushed out.
Zhou Meijuan panicked as well, her face drained of color as she followed after him.
Rushing back to the Su family’s small Western-style house, Zhou Meijuan was frantic inside and tried to block him. “Old Su! Old Su, listen to me! Su Wanxing must be talking nonsense! Everything in our house is perfectly fine—”
But the more she tried to stop him, the more suspicious Su Hongyi became.
“Move!”
He shoved her aside and opened the hidden passage in the room—
Empty.
Spotlessly clean! Not even a single hair left behind!
Su Hongyi felt his vision go black, the world spinning.
He staggered and grabbed the wall just to keep from collapsing.
“Ah—my money! My things!”
Zhou Meijuan was on the verge of madness too!
Such a secret place—how could anyone possibly have found it?!
Suddenly, a shrill scream came from downstairs—
“Ah—our house has been robbed—!”