Lin Qiao gently stroked her brother’s back, piecing together the situation from his broken, intermittent sobs.
Exhausted from crying, Lin Xuan gradually fell asleep in Lin Qiao’s arms.
“Xiao Xuan has suffered so much these past years, following me,” Su Peilan said, her gaze on Lin Xuan full of both pain and guilt.
Lin Qiao sighed silently. Her brother was thirteen but looked only eight or nine. He hadn’t changed much since leaving with her—these past years must have been truly harsh.
While she had been hoping day and night that her mother would come to rescue her, her little brother had probably been hoping for his sister to save him too.
She tugged slightly at the threadbare corner of his blanket.
“Mother… what exactly happened? Why did Captain Li step down? And grandmother and grandfather…”
Su Peilan wiped her tears. Deep vertical lines between her brows added a layer of sorrow to her already thin, anguished face.
As her mother slowly recounted the events, Lin Qiao gradually understood the whole story.
Two years ago, former Captain Li Huairen led the villagers into the mountains to hunt wild boars. He injured his leg and, given his age, retired shortly after.
The new captain was Zhao Shizhong. At first, he hadn’t done anything outrageous.
Zhao Shizhong’s son, Zhao Jianjun, was the village militia captain.
One day, without warning, he led people to seize the Su family’s elderly grandparents, claiming their “background” was problematic and that they needed ideological “re-education.”
Li Huairen tried to mediate, but as a retired captain, no one listened to him.
With the new captain’s attitude, even the villagers who had previously treated the Sus kindly dared not contact them anymore.
The Su grandparents were already old and fragile. Not long after, the grandfather fell ill and died, and the grandmother, unable to bear it, hanged herself.
After that, Su Peilan’s life became even more miserable. Zhao Jianjun seemed to take a particular dislike to the Su family, frequently showing up to cause trouble.
The village assigned the hardest, most exhausting labor to her family. Refusing meant being labeled disobedient or ideologically flawed, accused of not participating actively in production.
Over the years, Su Peilan endured not only physical torment but mental anguish as well.
No one remembered the good deeds the Sus had done for the village; everyone avoided them.
Zhao Jianjun often “took” Su Peilan alone under the guise of correcting her “wrong thinking.” Each time, she returned battered. The so-called “education” was just an excuse for violence, piling new injuries on top of old ones.
If not for the young Lin Xuan following her, her mother might have already passed away alongside her parents.
An adult woman was supposed to earn seven work points per day, but no matter how much labor Su Peilan did in the production team, she only earned five.
Dongshan Village was a poor mountain village; work points were nearly worthless. A woman with a child could barely survive on the low-quality grain she received.
While other families occasionally got meat, Su Peilan and Lin Xuan had to forage wild vegetables in the mountains to avoid starvation.
Lin Qiao shuddered at the thought: if she had arrived a year or two later, would the Su family even exist?
She went to the kitchen. There were only small amounts of poor-quality cornmeal, sorghum flour, and wheat flour mixed with bran and husks. She could see no sand or chaff—these were clearly leftovers picked over by others.
A jar of pickled vegetables had likely been sitting there for years.
Even this small amount was barely enough to last until the year-end work-point reckoning. With only wild vegetables to supplement, it was just enough to avoid starvation.
Worse, there was no fat or oil. Lin Qiao remembered her brother’s thin frame with a distended belly, unsure how long it had been since he’d had a proper bowel movement.
Adults would struggle with this; a child, all the more so.
Looking around, Lin Qiao’s expression remained calm, but inside, a storm raged.
Even yesterday, just after she had “worn” the original owner’s body, facing Liu Meili’s schemes, she had never felt such rage.
The Su family’s life was worse than that of pigs or dogs!
Lin Qiao went outside and brought everything she had stashed behind a tree—white rice and flour, vegetables from her space, essential seasonings, soybean oil, two wild rabbits and a mountain chicken she had caught early that morning—everything into the house.
Su Peilan looked at the bounty, embarrassed.
“Xiao Qiao… where did all this come from? Xiao Xuan told me you’re married. Is this from your in-laws? Maybe you should take it back…”
“Eat without worry, Mother. This is all mine,” Lin Qiao reassured her. She feared telling her mother about her current situation and causing her more worry.
She led Su Peilan into the room, and the two sat on the kang.
“Mother, does the Su family have a grudge against Zhao Jianjun’s family?”
Su Peilan shook her head. “The Zhao family used to be poor; my father even helped them.”
Li Huairen tried to reason with Captain Zhao, but Zhao Shizhong just said his son was reckless and ambitious, scolded him lightly, and didn’t really intend to manage the matter. Since then, Zhao Jianjun had intensified his harassment of the Su family.
Su Peilan had her daughter rest on the kang while she went to the small makeshift kitchen to cook.
Her daughter had come, bringing so many ingredients—Su Peilan wanted to cook something good for the child herself.
Seated on the kang, Lin Qiao thought to herself: Zhao Jianjun had no personal grudge against the Sus, so why did he show up so often? Without Zhao Shizhong’s backing, Lin Qiao didn’t believe it.
Why would Zhao Shizhong do this? Lin Qiao suspected there was a hidden motive she didn’t know.
Searching her sparse memories, Lin Qiao realized Zhao Shizhong had close ties to the Yuan family.
Old Master Yuan had a cousin who was Zhao Shizhong’s wife.
Could all her mother’s suffering have been orchestrated by the Yuan family?
Whether or not the Yuan family was involved, Lin Qiao made a note of them in her little book. She had been too lenient before—this was simply intolerable!
Lin Qiao was an orphan, never having experienced family love.
Even when she had been a “top dog” stirring up trouble in the apocalypse, she had treated the Li and Yuan families as entertainment.
Looking at her sleeping brother and her mother busy in the kitchen, Lin Qiao felt a new emotion: responsibility.
From now on… she would take care of this mother-and-son pair herself!
The Zhao family? Another ungrateful, treacherous clan.
Lin Qiao regretted she couldn’t stay in the Su household too long—she already had her own in-laws.
Liu Xiangyang would probably be discharged in three or four days, and before that, she had to visit the Yuan family to “stir the pot,” then return home to “take care” of her broken man.
So she had only three days to deal with the Zhao family.
That was enough.
Zhao Shizhong probably wouldn’t confront the Sus personally. She just needed to handle Zhao Jianjun first.
Later, when her mother was free, she would ask about the other people who had been there earlier.
To resolve this, it would have to be all or nothing.
Lin Xuan woke to the aroma of food.
He scrambled up and, seeing Lin Qiao, smiled in relief.
His sister had truly come back to see him—this wasn’t a dream!
Lin Qiao gently tapped his forehead. “Hurry up and grab a bowl for breakfast!”
Lin Xuan grinned and ran to the kitchen.
Su Peilan carried a large bowl, shyly glancing at Lin Qiao.
“Xiao Qiao… I wanted to give this rabbit meat to Mrs. Lin next door. Over the years, if not for the Lin family helping us from time to time, Lin Xuan and I might have starved.”
Lin Qiao jumped down from the kang, taking the bowl from her mother. “Mother, rest. I’ll deliver it.”
Su Peilan watched her daughter carry the bowl, guilt welling up. The child had grown into a young woman without her noticing.
Their little neighborhood was shabby, mostly inhabited by families of lower status.
Lin Qiao knocked lightly on the neighbor’s broken gate. “Aunt Lin, are you home? I’m from the Su family next door.”
After a long pause, a young man came out.
His gaze was deep, his features handsome and sharp. His hair still wet, bare-chested, wearing only work pants.
Perhaps just out of the bath, he revealed broad shoulders, a narrow waist, and a perfect eight-pack.
The young man asked, “What do you want?”
Lin Qiao’s eyes lit up. This man not only had an impeccable waist, but his deep, magnetic voice could make anyone swoon.
A true catch!