When Huo Zheng came back with the mug of hot water, chopsticks were already moving at the table.
Six people around one long table.
Gu Mingsong and Qiao Yurou on one side, Gu Mingyang and Qiao Yuxin opposite them.
Huo Zheng’s enamel basin sat on the empty seat beside Qiao Yujie. Before he even sat down, he set the mug of hot water firmly by her hand.
Thunk. Not loud, but just enough for her to hear.
Qiao Yujie looked up at him.
He didn’t look at her. He pulled out the stool beside her and sat, picked up his chopsticks, and started eating. As natural as if he’d sat there for years.
Gu Mingyang chewed his cornbread, cheeks puffing, eyes darting back and forth between Qiao Yujie and Huo Zheng. Suddenly he cleared his throat.
“Comrade Qiao Yujie, winters aren’t cold in Guangdong, right?”
“Mm. Coldest is around ten degrees. A thin cotton jacket is enough.”
“Ten degrees?” Gu Mingyang’s chopsticks hovered midair, eyes wide.
“That’s about the same as our early spring! Coming here all of a sudden, you must be freezing, right?”
He even shrank his neck, making an exaggerated shivering face.
Qiao Yujie’s eyes curved slightly at his antics. She nodded honestly. “The wind cuts your face like a knife.”
“Then…” Gu Mingyang dragged out the word, glanced sideways, and lowered his voice, a note of probing in it.
“This place is freezing, and you don’t know anyone… do you still want to go back to Guangdong?”
The question was blunt. Everyone at the table paused.
Huo Zheng’s chopsticks stopped midair for a second, then he casually picked up a piece of pickled vegetable and put it in his mouth, chewing slowly.
Gu Mingsong’s hand on his mug paused slightly. His gaze swept past Gu Mingyang, landed on Qiao Yujie’s face, then withdrew unobtrusively.
Qiao Yuxin lowered her head, fingers brushing the rim of her enamel basin.
Qiao Yurou, by contrast, lifted her head, lips slightly curved, a flicker of anticipation hidden in her eyes.
Qiao Yujie didn’t rush to answer.
She finished the bite in her mouth, picked up her mug, took a sip of water, and only then spoke, her tone even.
“Earlier at the bathhouse, I asked the auntie at the front desk. She said there’s a supply truck going to the county the day after tomorrow. It can give me a ride part of the way.”
No complaints. No drama. Just a feasible option she’d looked into.
The table went quiet for a moment.
Only the distant noise of the cafeteria and the faint clink of bowls and chopsticks.
Huo Zheng’s chopsticks paused again. Longer this time. He didn’t look up, but his jaw tightened for an instant.
Gu Mingsong’s brow moved almost imperceptibly. He glanced at Qiao Yujie. There was something new in that look. Unidentifiable. Like surprise, or like he was seeing her again for the first time.
Gu Mingyang opened his mouth, seemed about to say something, then swallowed it.
Just then—
“Little Sister Xiaoyu.”
Qiao Yurou set down her chopsticks and looked at Qiao Yujie, a gentle smile on her lips, her voice carrying the concern of I’m only thinking of you.
“I’m afraid you can’t go back to Guangdong.”
Qiao Yujie glanced at her and didn’t respond, continuing to nibble her cornbread.
Qiao Yurou waited three seconds. Seeing she wouldn’t take the bait, she couldn’t hold back any longer.
“Do you know why, when you were doing perfectly well at your job in Guangdong, Mom and Dad suddenly dragged you back to the capital?”
She paused, making sure everyone’s attention was on her.
Gu Mingyang stopped chewing, eyes fixed.
Gu Mingsong set his mug on the table, softly, but with the air of I need to hear this clearly.
Huo Zheng still had his head down, but the cornbread in his hand was crushed flat.
Qiao Yuxin raised her eyelids and glanced at Qiao Yurou. The look was flat, but if looks had temperature, it was probably below zero.
“A while ago, a male classmate suddenly got very close to you. Did you think he was interested in you?”
Qiao Yurou sighed softly, her tone carrying a note of I’m sad for you too.
“He wasn’t. It was his father, the head of the Revolutionary Committee, who took a fancy to you. Your classmate wanted you to be his stepmother.”
The table went utterly silent.
Not ordinary silence. The kind where the air has suddenly been sucked out of the room.
Gu Mingyang forgot to chew. His eyes went round as bells. The vegetable leaf on his chopsticks dropped without him noticing.
Gu Mingsong’s brow furrowed. His finger tapped the table lightly. He said nothing, but something complex flickered in his eyes.
Surprise, and a certain faint scrutiny. Not aimed at Qiao Yujie. At Qiao Yurou.
Huo Zheng finally raised his head.
He didn’t look at Qiao Yurou. He turned his head and looked at Qiao Yujie.
It was quick, almost impossible to catch. But Qiao Yujie felt it.
Not sympathy. Not pity. More like he was checking. Are you all right?
Qiao Yuxin sat across from them, watching Qiao Yurou with a blank face. Her finger traced the rim of her enamel basin, once, then again.
She said nothing, but there was something in that silence heavier than speech.
Only Qiao Yujie’s face showed nothing. She had indeed found this memory in the original owner’s mind.
There had been a male classmate who’d kept coming around during that period, with suspiciously high frequency for “catching up.”
So that was it.
“Oh.”
She nodded, her tone as flat as if she’d said nice weather today.
“I didn’t even know, and I was the one involved. How did you find out?”
Qiao Yurou’s heart tightened, but her face didn’t change. Her tone was natural.
“I overheard Mom and Dad talking. They were so worried about it they couldn’t sleep for nights.”
“Overheard?”
Qiao Yujie tilted her head slightly, a touch of perfectly calibrated confusion on her face, then nodded as if in sudden understanding, her tone so sincere it was infuriating.
“Mm, I get it. You’re so resourceful about receiving other people’s life-ruining secrets. It’s a shame our country’s security agencies haven’t discovered your talent.”
Gu Mingyang snorted, nearly spraying cornbread from his mouth. He clapped a hand over it, shoulders shaking.
Gu Mingsong’s mouth twitched. He suppressed it quickly, but the scrutiny in his eyes faded a little, replaced by a hint of barely perceptible amusement.
Huo Zheng lowered his head and poked at the pickled vegetables in his basin with his chopsticks. He didn’t eat, but the corner of his mouth wouldn’t flatten.
Qiao Yuxin raised her head and looked at Qiao Yujie. There was a faint flicker of surprise in that look, and something else she couldn’t name.
Not quite a smile, but the ice in her eyes had thawed another layer.
The gentle mask on Qiao Yurou’s face finally cracked. Her breath hitched. “You—!”
She took a deep breath, barely holding her tone together. “I’m just asking if you can go back or not!”
“Can’t go back?”
Qiao Yujie blinked, then suddenly smiled. There was a careless slyness in it. “Why can’t I?”
“Are you going to go back and be your classmate’s stepmother?!” Qiao Yurou’s voice rose, then she caught herself and forced it down, nails digging into her palm.
Qiao Yujie rolled her eyes, like she was looking at an idiot.
“Can’t I take a second path?”
Her tone was light, almost joking, as she counted on her fingers.
“For example, turn my classmate, join forces with him to take down his father, and put him in charge of the Revolutionary Committee?”
The table went silent.
Gu Mingyang finally swallowed his cornbread, but his expression looked like he’d choked.
Gu Mingsong’s hand on his mug hovered midair. He looked at Qiao Yujie.
This look was different from before.
Before it had been polite, courteous appraisal. Now it was a warm, this person is interesting kind of gaze.
Huo Zheng didn’t look up, but his movements slowed noticeably.
He was listening. Very carefully.
“Or,”
Qiao Yujie propped her chin on her hand, eyes drifting into the distance as if seriously considering it.
“I could try myself, see if I can be a committee head for fun?”
Gu Mingyang finally couldn’t hold it in. He burst out laughing, clapping a hand over his mouth, and mumbled through his fingers.
“Comrade Qiao Yujie, that idea of yours… is very ahead of its time.”
Gu Mingsong said nothing, but the corner of his mouth lifted.
Very faint. Very brief. But it lifted.
Huo Zheng put a piece of pickled vegetable in his mouth, chewed twice, and thought today’s pickles didn’t seem as salty.
Qiao Yurou sat across from them, her smile barely holding. She looked at Qiao Yujie.
In her past life, Qiao Yujie had been lively and clever, but she’d never had this kind of presence.
Now she could sit here casually talking about being a committee head for fun, and make the whole table laugh?
She clenched her palm, nails sinking into flesh. Completely different.
But she didn’t care.
The marriage contract was in her hands. Huo Zheng was hers. Gu Mingsong was hers.
So what if Qiao Yujie was clever? Without an introduction letter, she couldn’t go anywhere.
She took a deep breath, adjusted her expression back to gentle mode, and was about to say something else—
“Comrade Qiao Yujie.”
Gu Mingyang’s voice had suddenly turned serious. “You probably really can’t go back. You don’t have an introduction letter now.”
“Introduction letter?” Qiao Yujie blinked. “Didn’t I have one when I came?”
“You did.” Gu Mingyang nodded. “But that one was to get you from the capital to here. One-way.”
One-way.
The two words hit like a basin of cold water to the face.
Qiao Yujie’s smile froze for an instant.
She lowered her eyes, looked at the half-eaten cornbread in her basin, and was silent for a few seconds.
She’d known it wouldn’t be that easy.
She should have known from the moment she opened her eyes. This wasn’t a trip you could just walk away from.
This was 1975. No ID card. No phone. No bank card.
One piece of paper, one stamp, and you were stuck where you stood.
She looked up and glanced around.
The cafeteria had mostly emptied out. The area around their table was deserted.
Gu Mingyang wore the expression of someone who’d said something he shouldn’t have, sneaking glances at Huo Zheng’s face.
Gu Mingsong held his mug without drinking, his gaze fixed somewhere on the table, as if thinking.
Huo Zheng—
He was looking at her. Not the fleeting, stolen glance from before.
He was looking at her directly, openly. No sympathy in that look, no pity, not even worry.
Just looking at her.
As if to say: I know.
In a corner no one was watching, Qiao Yurou’s lips curved up slightly.
Can’t go back. Those three words were the best she’d heard in this lifetime.
Qiao Yujie withdrew her gaze, took a bite of cornbread, chewed twice, and suddenly spoke, her tone back to its earlier lightness.
“I wonder if radishes are easy to buy here.”
“Radishes?” Gu Mingyang looked up, baffled. “What do you want radishes for?”
The others looked over too, not understanding how the topic had jumped to radishes.
Qiao Yujie chewed her cornbread and pickles leisurely, deadpan.
“An introduction letter is just a piece of paper with a few lines and a stamp, right? Paper’s easy to find, we can write the characters, we just need a stamp. Buy a radish, carve one, done.”
Her voice was low and even, as if she were discussing the most ordinary thing in the world.
The table went quiet for two seconds.
Gu Mingyang was the first to react. He burst out laughing, doubling over, nearly knocking over his enamel basin. He glanced around and lowered his voice.
“Comrade Qiao Yujie! Don’t let outsiders hear that! Carving a radish stamp—you think this is a game?”
Gu Mingsong laughed too.
Not the subtle lip-curve from before. A real laugh, eyes crinkling. He shook his head, his tone carrying a hint of resignation.
“Definitely don’t say that outside. If it gets out, even with an introduction letter you won’t be going anywhere.”
Qiao Yuxin lowered her head, the corner of her mouth twitching again. No sound, but the ice thinned another layer.
Huo Zheng didn’t laugh.
He just pushed the dish of pickled vegetables toward Qiao Yujie. So gently it barely made a sound.
But Qiao Yujie felt it.
She turned her head and looked at him.
He’d already lowered his head and gone back to eating, cheeks puffing, chewing hard, as if wrestling with something.
Qiao Yujie withdrew her gaze and picked up a piece of pickled vegetable.
Salty. But not that hard to stomach.