Ruan Wen leaned against the car window, watching the rows of poplar trees rapidly receding outside. It was as if the “war without smoke” that had just taken place had nothing to do with her at all.
But he had seen it clearly with his own eyes—how, with just a few words, she had laid bare Huo Guoan and Sun Lanlan’s vile intentions in the most proper, dignified way, and delivered the sharpest possible slap to their faces.
“You…” Lu Jingheng’s throat bobbed as he struggled for words. After a long pause, he finally asked in a muffled voice, “How did you come up with that?”
“With what?” Ruan Wen turned to look at him.
“Sending rice and flour… and saying those things in front of so many people.” Lu Jingheng chose his words carefully. “I just thought… I’d go in and beat him up directly.”
“And then what?” Ruan Wen countered. “You beat him up, you feel better—but word gets out, and it becomes you, Captain Lu, using your power to bully others, assaulting your cousin-in-law who just got promoted. He lies in the hospital, gains sympathy, and maybe even benefits from it.”
Lu Jingheng was left speechless.
He wasn’t unaware of these twists and turns—he had simply spent too long in the military, used to being direct: if he was angry, he acted; if he was upset, he let it out.
“People like that,” Ruan Wen continued, looking out the window again, her voice cool and steady, “the more angry you get, the more satisfied they are. He wanted face, he wanted to climb up using us—so we gave him all the face in the world, enough to burn him alive and see whether he could actually hold onto it.”
Lu Jingheng fell silent.
He looked at the woman beside him. Her frame was slender, her shoulders delicate, yet her calm composure carried more authority than even him, a battalion commander issuing orders on the training ground.
The remaining anger in his chest slowly transformed into something else—something hot.
Admiration, and a faint ache of concern.
How much calculation and malice must she have endured to see through people so clearly… to wield these tactics so effortlessly?
The jeep entered the military compound. Qin Lan was already waiting at the gate and hurried over as soon as she saw the car return.
“How did it go? What was their reaction?” she asked, opening the door eagerly.
Before Lu Jingheng could answer, Ruan Wen had already stepped out. “Cousin-in-law accepted the gifts. She was very happy,” she said flatly.
Qin Lan immediately understood from her tone—and from her son’s complicated expression—what had happened. She slapped her thigh and burst into laughter.
“Well done! Wenwen, that’s exactly how it should be! Strike at the weak point—deal with people like that, you don’t leave them any dignity!”
She affectionately looped her arm through Ruan Wen’s and pulled her toward the house, completely forgetting about her own son.
At dinner, Qin Lan enthusiastically retold the entire story to Lu Yongjie, embellishing it so much that it sounded like she had personally been on the battlefield.
After listening, Lu Yongjie simply smiled and lifted his glass, raising it in Ruan Wen’s direction from afar.
“Wenwen,” he said, “well done.”
That simple praise carried more weight than all of Qin Lan’s excitement combined.
Ruan Wen understood then that she had truly been accepted by this family.
……
In the days that followed, life in the compound remained peaceful on the surface. But rumors about the “generous gift” from the Lu family to Huo Guoan spread like wildfire.
Some said Huo Guoan was capable, having climbed up the social ladder; others said he was shameless, deliberately trying to freeload.
Every time Huo Guoan and Sun Lanlan went out, they could feel the sideways glances and whispers behind their backs, and the couple fought more than once because of it.
Ruan Wen, however, only heard about it occasionally from Qin Lan as gossip and paid it no mind.
She continued her quiet life—tending the courtyard plants during the day, reading in her room at night, and sorting through the antique finds she had collected.
Lu Jingheng had changed in recent days. He was no longer the silent, brooding type who simply followed behind her.
He began initiating conversations, asking what she was reading, asking what the jars and bottles were for. His questions were often naive, but his desire to get closer was obvious.
One afternoon, while Ruan Wen was sorting herbs in her room, Lu Jingheng walked in holding a cup of soaked loquat leaf tea.
“I noticed you’ve been clearing your throat a lot these days. Drink this—it’ll soothe your throat.”
He placed the enamel cup on the table and didn’t leave immediately, leaning against it while watching her sort dried roots into small cloth bags.
“What’s this?” he asked, pointing at a dark, gnarled root.
“Fo-ti root.”
“And this?”
“Atractylodes.”
Ruan Wen answered patiently one by one.
The room was softly lit. The air carried a faint herbal scent, calming and almost drowsy.
“Ruan Wen,” he suddenly called her.
“Mm?”
“If something like this happens again,” he said seriously, looking at her, “tell me. I’ll handle it. I may not be as clever as you, but I’ve got fists—and this uniform. I can protect you.”
Ruan Wen’s hands paused slightly.
She looked up and met his dark, bright eyes. There was no calculation in them, no probing—only a pure, stubborn desire to protect her.
Her heart felt as if it had been warmed by the loquat tea—soft and steady.
She didn’t answer, only lowered her head and gave a quiet “mm.”
It was as light as a feather, yet it struck Lu Jingheng’s heart with a heavy echo.
He grinned silently, looking both foolish and deeply satisfied.
However, that peace did not last long.
Three days later, the mailman delivered another letter from the northwest.
It was still the familiar kraft envelope, still written by Wang Gan-shi.
But as soon as Ruan Wen opened it, the color slowly drained from her face.
According to the letter, Ruan Yuzan’s condition had worsened—not physically, but mentally.
The trigger was a letter sent from the labor farm.
It was written by Liu Shufen.
In the most vicious language, she cursed both Ruan Yuzan and Ruan Wen as ungrateful. She accused Ruan Wen of abandoning her roots after marrying into wealth, enjoying a good life while leaving her biological mother to suffer in the countryside. She even claimed that Ruan Wen’s marriage into the Lu family was only possible because of her maternal family’s influence, and now she had thrown them aside…
The letter twisted facts and was full of slander.
Ruan Yuzan, already emotionally fragile, was deeply shaken after reading it. He fell ill on the spot, refusing food and drink, repeatedly muttering apologies to Liu Shufen and Sun Lanlan.
At the end of the letter, Wang Gan-shi subtly hinted that the leadership was already dissatisfied with Ruan Yuzan, saying his thinking was problematic, and if this continued…
The sentence was left unfinished, but the meaning was clear.
Ruan Wen’s fingers tightened around the paper, her knuckles turning white. Her eyes were filled with a chilling coldness.
Liu Shufen. Sun Lanlan.
She had thought that pushing them far away would be enough to keep things quiet.
It seemed she had been too naive.
Some people were like rotten flesh attached to bone—if you didn’t cut them out completely, they would continue to rot, dragging everything into the abyss along with them.