It must be that she came back to cause trouble, forcing Father to consider selling the house. Otherwise, no matter how difficult things got, Father would never touch the ancestral home.
He gnashed his teeth, turned around, and sprinted toward Qiao Qingyan’s workplace. He moved at a rapid pace, the wound beneath the gauze throbbing dully, the scab splitting open and seeping blood, yet he didn’t even notice.
Qiao Qingyan had just arrived at the dormitory building, hadn’t even changed her shoes, when suddenly someone darted out from the side and blocked her path.
The hallway light flickered, illuminating half of the person’s face wrapped in gauze.
She paused mid-motion, then bent down to pat the dust off her pant legs.
“Qiao Qingyan!”
Qiao Rongwei, half his face wrapped in bandages, the exposed eye shot through with blood vessels, growled at her: “The home is gone! The house is gone! You forced this! Are you satisfied now?!”
Spittle sprayed onto her face. She frowned slightly, slowly raised her eyes, and let her gaze settle on his contorted face.
Qiao Qingyan stared at him for two seconds, said nothing, and raised her hand.
Her wrist cut through the air.
“Smack!”
A hard slap landed across his face.
With that sharp crack, stars burst before Qiao Rongwei’s eyes. Half his face went numb as if struck by a club. His hand instinctively flew up to cover it, and he stood there frozen in place.
“Wide awake now?”
Qiao Qingyan shook out her wrist—it was a bit sore.
“Dad sold the house, and Bai Wanwan came up with the idea. What are you going crazy at me for?”
“They held a family meeting that day. You weren’t there, and neither was I. But the one who signed was your father, and the bank transfer was made by him personally. I never touched a single cent, and I never said a single word about ‘selling.'”
“I haven’t been part of your Qiao family for a long time now. Don’t drag me into your messy affairs.”
She took a step back, creating distance, her voice clear and cold.
“You—”
Qiao Rongwei’s lips trembled, his throat too choked to form a complete syllable.
He shook with rage and took a step forward, but one look at Qiao Qingyan’s icy gaze made him stop dead in his tracks.
Qiao Qingyan couldn’t be bothered with him. She simply tossed out one line.
“If you dare come here and make a scene again, I’ll call the police and report you for harassment. Think it over yourself.”
With that, she turned and went straight upstairs without looking back.
Qiao Rongwei stood alone at the bottom of the building, the heat on his face refusing to subside.
The streetlight stretched his shadow long and crooked against the ground, swaying in the wind.
He had just reached the hospital entrance when he ran straight into Qiao Rongze.
“Second Brother? What are you doing here?”
“Third Brother? What are you doing here?”
The two brothers stared at each other, silent for a moment, then both let out long sighs.
“Now we don’t even have a place to stay. We scraped together what little money we had and rented a shabby courtyard to make do.”
Qiao Rongwei couldn’t sit still listening to this. He shot to his feet and brushed the dust off his pants.
“We can’t just sit around wasting time!”
He paced back and forth a couple of steps, the soles of his shoes grinding a clump of dried mud into the ground.
“Don’t worry, Third Brother. Your big brother here has plenty of ways to make money! But first, we need start-up capital!”
The two put their heads together and immediately turned around, heading straight home to demand money from Qiao Dehai.
They didn’t speak another word along the way, but their footsteps grew faster and faster.
As they passed the old locust tree at the village entrance, the wind happened to blow a few leaves down, landing on their shoulders. Neither bothered to brush them off.
Qiao Rongwei got his share of seventy yuan from the old man.
Then he stood before the whole family, face brimming with bravado as he spoke.
He folded the bills neatly and tucked them into the inner pocket against his chest, then straightened the front of his clothes.
“Dad, Mom, Sister Wanwan, rest easy! Within six months, I’ll have you living in a house even finer than before!”
The moment the money was in hand, he was gone by the next day.
When Qiao Rongze came by to bring food, he found the bed neatly made and all the luggage taken.
First, he exchanged the cash for ration coupons, then used the coupons to buy two burlap sacks full of goods.
Soap, matches, sugar, and biscuits—he hauled them back to the county on his back, the load so heavy he was gasping for breath, deep red welts carved into both shoulders by the hemp rope.
By the time he reached the county town, the sun was already dipping west.
He didn’t bother eating. He went straight to a corner, spread out a cloth on the ground, and started setting up.
Qiao Qingyan silently counted the days in her heart—three days until she left.
She sat at her desk flipping through an old calendar, her finger pausing on the square for the third day.
In her mind, she planned what she would say when she reached Shanghai, and what gifts she should bring for her mother.
Going to Shanghai to see Mother—she couldn’t show up empty-handed.
She pulled out the passbook hidden under her pillow, took out the money she’d received from the division, and counted it carefully.
She passed several small shops along the way without stopping.
Instead, she walked while observing the signs of the shops on both sides of the street, thinking about which kind of fabric would be suitable.
When she reached the intersection, where carts, horses, and pedestrians crowded the road, she slowed her pace.
An oxcart loaded with wooden planks creaked past.
She sidestepped the flow of people and pressed close to the eaves as she moved forward.
Suddenly, a glimpse from the corner of her eye made her stop—a figure crouching in a corner.
It was Qiao Rongwei.
He was still wearing that same faded jacket, his hair a bit disheveled, head bent as he tidied the opening of a cloth sack.
Beside him sat two large burlap bags, and he was pulling goods out from inside.
One by one, he laid them out on the old cloth spread on the ground.
First soap, then matchboxes, followed by a few packs of sugar and biscuits in tin boxes.
Qiao Qingyan didn’t approach. She quietly retreated to the other side of the street and hid behind a large locust tree.
The tree bark was rough, and she leaned against it without moving, her gaze fixed on Qiao Rongwei.
Qiao Rongwei opened his mouth and started shouting at the top of his lungs.
“Come take a look! Step right up! Soap and candy, no ration tickets needed! First come, first served! Once it’s gone, I’m out of here!”
The buyers were drawn by the convenience—no need to worry about ration coupons.
As long as they had money, they could take it on the spot.
Before the words even faded, a few curious onlookers immediately gathered around.
A woman picked up a bar of soap and turned it over, asking the price.
Beside her, a man in a hat had his eyes fixed on the candy box.
Not far from the alley entrance, a few others were also setting up stalls.
But they kept silent—hand over the money, take the goods, and pack up to leave the moment the deal was done.
The moment they collected payment, they rolled up their cloth and stashed their wares, leaving no trace behind.
When Qiao Rongwei made that racket, the others all froze mid-motion.
One of the men stubbed out his cigarette, his gaze turning cold.
A scar-faced man lowered his voice and asked the person next to him, “Where the hell did this kid come from?”
His mouth twitched as he spoke, his eyes locked tightly on Qiao Rongwei.
The man beside him spat on the ground.
“Never seen him before. Daring to shout like that—he’s got a death wish.”
He bent down, picked up a length of frayed rope from the ground, and wound it around his wrist, as if ready to leave at any moment.
“He’s broken the rules. Cutting into our livelihood.”
Qiao Qingyan leaned against the tree trunk, watching silently.
Then she turned and walked into the phone booth by the roadside.
Within a few minutes.
A military-green jeep screeched to a halt at the curb, tires smoking from the sudden brake.
“Official investigation! Nobody move!”
One of them had an especially booming voice—when he bellowed, it was like a thunderclap.
The crowd that had been packed tightly around suddenly felt their hearts clench with fear.
In less than ten seconds, the entire street corner was left with only Qiao Rongwei, crouching alone in place.
The crowd that had gathered around him to watch the commotion scattered in terror, fleeing without a trace.
Qiao Rongwei stood frozen on the spot, then scrambled to crouch down in a panic, grabbing the scattered items from the ground and stuffing them into his cloth bag.