Zhan Wenbin took out a cigarette: "Comrade Lü, please help us out."
"I can bring in some clean clothes for you, but visiting is really not possible." The cadre surnamed Lü glanced at the guard booth, put his arm around Zhan Wenbin's shoulder, and led him aside. Covering his mouth, he whispered: "Half an hour ago, your father was taken into custody. According to Deputy Director Kang, someone reported that your father used his position to embezzle power plant property."
Zhan Wenbin's face changed dramatically: "Impossible."
"Your saying it's impossible doesn't matter. If there's a report from the masses, we have to investigate." Comrade Lü patted Zhan Wenbin's shoulder: "Our Deputy Director Huang now has to avoid any appearance of bias. Deputy Director Kang just stated openly in the director's office that Huang Yu and your brother-in-law are university classmates."
That Deputy Director Kang is quite well-informed. Zhan Wenbin had no other choice. He pulled another pack of Peony cigarettes from his left trouser pocket.
"Regardless, I still want to thank you."
"Hey, what are you doing?" Comrade Lü pushed it away: "I'm embarrassed."
Zhan Wenbin: "Please take it quickly. It doesn't look good for us to be pushing it back and forth here. I didn't bring anything else when I came out. Please keep an eye on my dad. He's a worrier and prone to despair. I'm not lying to you—during those few minutes when you and Captain Chen went to the restroom earlier, he even gave me instructions about his funeral arrangements."
Hearing this, Comrade Lü also became serious: "I should thank you for telling me this. Don't worry, I'll go in soon and remind Old Chen and the others not to be careless."
Zhan Lin lowered her head to look at the ground, grinding a small pebble under her foot.
This lifetime, the report targeting her father came earlier than in her previous life. Now she was just waiting to see when Wei Min and Zhang Derun would come knocking at their door.
After leaving the Shi Ge Hui, Zhan Wenbin remained silent the whole way. Only when they were almost home did he suddenly brake, planting one foot on the ground.
Zhan Lin, who had ridden ahead five or six meters, turned her bike around and came back: "Brother?"
Zhan Wenbin: "Sister, now that you've gotten your marriage certificate, you're considered a married woman. You should pack up your things and move out as soon as possible."
"Okay, I'll move out tomorrow." Zhan Lin had already planned for this.
"You're moving out from your parents' home after getting married—it's reasonable and easy to explain to others." Zhan Wenbin looked at his sister, speaking earnestly: "It's not that I'm rushing you out, but mainly because of the current situation, we need to prepare early. I have a bad feeling things might take a turn for the worse."
Zhan Lin: "The money from Dad's deposit certificate has already been withdrawn by me. When should I give it to you?"
"Don't give it to me." Zhan Wenbin thought for a moment and said: "Keep the money with you for now. Don't send it to Grandma yet, to avoid making her worry too. I'll take you downstairs in a moment, then I'll go find Second Uncle and Eldest Aunt's Husband."
Seeing her brother's furrowed brow, Zhan Lin comforted him: "You don't need to worry too much either. Didn't Dad tell you? Over all these years, he only managed to save 1,600 yuan."
Yes, Zhan Wenbin felt he still understood his father well: "Dad doesn't have the guts for that either."
"Aren't you going to find Second Uncle and Eldest Aunt's Husband? Let's not just stand here."
"Right." Zhan Wenbin stepped on the pedal: "By the way, the TV purchase coupon was given to Huang Baishan by my father-in-law."
"If he hadn't given it, would you have been able to see Dad?"
"That's true. It just feels like a bit of a loss—that was a TV coupon."
When Zhan Lin returned home, Hong Huiying was combing her hair. Seeing only one person enter, she asked: "Where's your brother?"
"He went to find Second Uncle and Eldest Aunt's Husband."
"What would he go to your Second Uncle and them for so late?"
Zhan Lin didn't want to answer that question right now. She put her bag on the sofa: "Mom, did my brother tell you?"
"Tell me what?" Hong Huiying asked.
Zhan Lin was direct: "What Dad entrusted him with."
Hong Huiying's face turned cold: "He told me half of it."
Meaning he hadn't mentioned the deposit slips. Seeing her mother's expression, Zhan Lin felt a bit uneasy: "The money in the family's passbook is left for you. You don't seem very satisfied with that?"
Hong Huiying snorted, glanced up at her daughter, and plucked two hairs from the comb. "How much do you think is in the family passbook? All these years, your father did hand over his salary to me, but I never saw a single cent of his subsidies."
"You really never saw any?" Playing dumb, are we? Zhan Lin spelled it out: "Forget the distant past, just last year, when I renovated the house and my brother transferred jobs, Dad took out 1,100. That money didn't come from you, did it?"
"Do you know how much subsidy your father gets each year?" Hong Huiying stopped combing her hair and threw the comb onto the table.
Zhan Lin: "Not exactly, but I know how much he has left: 1,600."
Hong Huiying paused, but quickly recovered: "Impossible. Who told you 1,600? Before your father was promoted to deputy factory director, he could get several hundred yuan in subsidies each year."
"Only coming in, never going out?" Zhan Lin asked: "After Dad gave you his salary, did he ever ask you for money? Did you ever give him pocket money? What did he spend?"
Hong Huiying stared at her daughter: "What's gotten into you? Do you even remember who I am?"
"You're my mother." Zhan Lin walked up to her: "Dad has been taken into custody."
What? Hong Huiying's eyes widened: "How… how could that be? Why would they take your father into custody? Didn't Zhu Manyi already go see Huang Baishan?"
Seeing her expression didn't seem fake, Zhan Lin felt slightly better: "You ask me, who do I ask? My brother and I even went to the Shi Ge Hui, but we were stopped."
"How could this happen?" Hong Huiying stood up and paced back and forth in the room.
Zhan Lin: "Dad told my brother to give all his private savings to Grandma for her retirement. The family's money goes to you. My brother and I should work hard and live well. That's all, nothing else."
Hong Huiying stopped and remained silent for a long time.
Zhan Lin didn't want to stand there with her either: "I'm going to boil water for a bath."
That night, Zhan Lin slept lightly. At the slightest noise outside, she would wake up and listen, making sure it wasn't the sound she was waiting for before going back to sleep. When dawn broke and her mother left for work, she finally got up.
Breakfast was on the table: porridge, two boiled eggs, and a plate of smashed cucumber.
After breakfast, Zhan Lin opened the wardrobe. Two new cotton quilts she hadn't used yet—she would take them today. She found a bedsheet, spread it on the bed, folded the two quilts on top, and tied the opposite corners of the sheet tightly.
The bundle was too bulky, so she found two ropes and tied them around it twice.
Carrying the quilts to the bike shed, Zhan Lin heard Zhu Xiaohe, who was playing with children in the yard, ask, "What's our little Zhan up to?"
Her tone was odd. Zhan Lin forced a smile and greeted her: "Sister Xiaohe, come help me out, quick."
Since she was called, Zhu Xiaohe couldn't refuse: "What are you carrying? Quilts?"
Zhan Lin: "Yes, I want to tie this onto the back seat."
Walking to the bike shed, Zhu Xiaohe looked and looked at Zhan Lin's slender wrist, curled her lips, and still took the rope: "You hold the handlebars, I'll tie it."
"Thank you, thank you!" Zhan Lin held the quilt with one hand and pressed down on the handlebars with the other.
Zhu Xiaohe threaded the rope under the seat and pulled hard, causing the large bundle to immediately collapse. After tying it securely in a few moves, she went to the corner of the wall, picked up a small stone, and placed it in the front basket: "It's the middle of summer, what are you doing with a quilt?"
"I'm already married, after all. I can't keep living at my parents' house forever." Zhan Lin straightened the handlebars, making sure they wouldn't tilt up, then let go and pulled two pieces of White Rabbit milk candy from her pocket.
Zhu Xiaohe unceremoniously took the candy: "That makes sense." Just like herself, after getting married, she never dared to stay at her parents' house for more than three days. But speaking of marriage, she sized up the person in front of her again.
"How did you and Ning Yunshu suddenly get married?"
"It wasn't that sudden. Ning Yunshu and I have known each other since we were kids." Zhan Lin stepped out of the bike shed: "Sister-in-law Xiaohe, I still have some things to pack up, let's chat another day."
"Hey…" Zhu Xiaohe chased after her a couple of steps, watching as the Zhan family gate closed.
Zhan Lin folded three sweaters and several Bulaji dresses, stuffed them into a cloth bag, dawdled at home for another half hour, then picked up her leather bag, put on a large straw hat, and went out.
Today she still had to continue copying the account books, and in the afternoon she would go to her grandmother's house again. She wondered if Second Uncle and Second Aunt had gone to find Old Lady Feng last night?
They had gone, and Zhan Guoli had even asked Old Lady Feng what he wanted to know. In the morning, after he and his three apprentices finished repairing two large trucks, he told his supervisor and went home.
Just as he reached the entrance of the alley, he saw his wife pushing her bicycle out. Even from a distance, he could feel the anger radiating from her.
"Where are you going?"
"Husband, you go back and get the tools. I'm going to the machine tool factory to call our second son. Today we're going to beat that ungrateful Shi Xiangying until it hurts."
"What did Shi Xiangying do?"
"He's gotten bold. He's been telling people that Zhan Guocheng has been pining after his mother for over ten years, that his mother never wanted to be with Zhan Guocheng, saying his mother's heart only belongs to his dead father. Now over at Dao Bamen, everyone's saying Zhan Guocheng raped Qin Xiaoqin." Ma Yanling spat angrily.
"That black-hearted, rotten-lunged bastard. Back then, his mother almost got torn apart by the Shi family to keep the job his father left behind. His mother hasn't been gone for long, and he's already cozying up to those Shi family people. What an animal. Why didn't that fall Shi Dahu took back then kill him?"
Hearing that Shi Xiangying had joined up with the Shi family, Zhan Guoli also turned back: "Where's Mom?"
"At home feeding Xiao Wuzi." Ma Yanling threw out her words: "If Xiao Wuzi doesn't find that incense today, when I get back I'll skin it, chop it up, and throw it in the pot. I've raised it for nine years, it better be of some use."
A quarter of an hour later, Zhan Guoli led his three apprentices, pedaling their bicycles furiously toward Dao Bamen. Zhan Wenkai carried his mother closely behind, while the small local dog curled up in the basket trembled.
In the middle courtyard of No. 9 Dao Bamen, the doors of both west wing rooms were open. In the northern room, seven people—men, women, old, and young—were gathered around a table eating.
Zhan Guoli and his four apprentices entered the courtyard, rushed forward, and pinned the three who could fight to the ground. Those who couldn't fight were chased out into the yard.
Jiang Daxia in the east wing had been keeping an eye on things; she absolutely had to witness today's commotion. It was she who had run to the Zhan family to report the news after hearing Shi Xiangying's wild talk outside. She hadn't eaten the Zhan family's sunflower seeds for nothing.
As soon as they arrived, Ma Yanling jumped off the cart and picked up Xiao Wuzi. She pulled a small paper packet from her pocket, unwrapped it, and held it under Xiao Wuzi's nose.
Zhan Wenkai said, "Sniff carefully. Whether your brother can beat that bastard to death today depends entirely on you."
Xiao Wuzi was terrified. Placed on the ground, his legs trembled uncontrollably. He sniffed and sniffed, barked twice, then dashed into No. 9 courtyard. Ma Yanling followed him, running here and there, until they finally charged into the Shi household. After circling the main room twice, Xiao Wuzi scurried over to Shi Xiangying.
Shi Xiangying, his glasses askew on his face, struggled. "Let me go! This is a crime! Let me go! I'll report you to the police! I represent the proletariat in overthrowing you bullies…"
"Woof! Woof! Woof!" Xiao Wuzi barked fiercely, trying to bite Shi Xiangying.
Zhan Wenkai searched Shi Xiangying from head to toe. Summer clothes were thin, leaving nowhere to hide anything. He shook his head at his mother.
Ma Yanling gave Xiao Wuzi a light tap on the head. "Keep looking."
With such a ruckus, several rings of onlookers had already gathered outside. Jiang Daxia stood in the front row, chattering away to those around her.
Xiao Wuzi sniffed his way into the side room of the Shi house. He circled around the charcoal stove again and again, then excitedly pawed at a small pile of crushed charcoal residue.
Zhan Wenkai helped out, and after a few scrapes, they uncovered several small broken sections of incense.
"Found it." Ma Yanling pushed her son aside, crouched down, and carefully picked up all the broken incense. She walked out of the side room and said, "Husband, bring that beast out here."
She held out her hand for everyone to see. "If I hadn't found this, I wouldn't have believed there could be such a beast in this world who would harm his own mother. Qin Xiaoqin has been a widow since she was twenty-two, raising him all by herself until today. How much hardship has she endured? Is he even human?"
Author's note: