“Click.”
The faintest metallic scraping sound was magnified endlessly in the silence of the dead of night.
It was the sound of someone slowly picking open the window latch with a thin blade.
Su Man stood barefoot against the wall, gripping a pair of scissors so tightly that her palms were slick with cold sweat.
She stared fixedly at the window as it slowly began to move.
Her heart was pounding so hard it felt as though it might burst through her chest, yet she kept her breathing as shallow and quiet as possible.
A black-gloved hand snaked through the opening like a poisonous serpent, groping along the windowsill.
Now!
A ruthless glint flashed in Su Man’s eyes. Without the slightest hesitation, she lunged out of the darkness, raised the scissors high, and drove them down toward the intruder’s hand with all her strength!
“Thud!”
The scissors sank into flesh—or perhaps into some thick leather material.
Clearly, the person outside had not expected the woman inside to still be awake, much less to strike so viciously.
The intruder let out a muffled grunt, low and suppressed, making it impossible to tell their age.
But their reaction was astonishingly quick. With a sudden twist of the wrist, an enormous force flung Su Man backward.
“Bang!”
Su Man slammed into the table behind her, pain shooting through her waist. The scissors flew from her hand and clattered onto the floor.
The shadow outside the window shifted.
Through the narrow gap, a pair of eyes coldly glanced at Su Man from the darkness.
They were icy and merciless, carrying the chilling scrutiny of a predator sizing up its prey.
Ignoring the pain, Su Man snatched up the enamel mug on the table and was about to hurl it when she shouted at the top of her lungs,
“Thief! There’s a thief!”
Her cry exploded through the silent residential compound like thunder.
The figure outside clearly had no intention of letting things escalate.
After taking one last deep look at Su Man, the intruder clutched their injured hand, turned, and leaped away.
Their movements were as light as those of a black cat. In an instant, they vaulted over the two-meter-high courtyard wall and disappeared into the vast darkness of the night.
Su Man rushed to the window, but all she could see was the fleeting outline of their back.
The courtyard was eerily quiet, as though nothing had happened.
Only a few drops of dark-red blood on the windowsill proved that someone had really been there.
And that person carried a very faint scent.
It wasn’t body odor or cigarette smoke.
It was a faint fragrance resembling the woody aroma of agarwood from a traditional Chinese medicine shop.
Su Man gasped for breath as she leaned against the wall, her body trembling uncontrollably.
It wasn’t fear.
It was the aftermath of fear.
That person’s skills were far too good.
If they had really wanted to kill her, a pair of scissors would have been utterly useless.
Had they come for that redwood box?
Or had they come for Lu Zhan?
Su Man didn’t know.
She only knew that Lu Zhan wasn’t home, and right now, she was the only one who could protect this household.
“Mom! What happened?!”
The door to the west room was slammed open. Dabao came rushing out barefoot, holding up the crossbow Lu Zhan had left behind.
Erbao followed close behind, gripping a broom. He was still bleary-eyed with sleep, but his expression was fierce.
Seeing the two children standing protectively in front of her, the chill in Su Man’s heart eased somewhat.
“It’s nothing.”
Su Man took a deep breath, went over, shut the window tightly again, and braced it with a wooden stick.
“Just a big rat. I scared it away.”
She didn’t dare tell them the truth, afraid of frightening the children.
Dabao suspiciously glanced at the bloodstains on the windowsill, then at Su Man’s pale face. He pursed his lips but didn’t expose her lie.
“From now on, I’ll sleep in the main room.”
Clutching the crossbow, Dabao plopped down onto a small stool in the main room, looking like a little guardian deity.
“I’m the man of the house. Dad isn’t here, so I’ll keep watch.”
Looking at his stubborn little back, Su Man’s eyes grew hot.
No one slept soundly that night.
At the first hint of dawn, Su Man got up.
She looked at her reflection in the mirror, dark circles faintly visible beneath her eyes, and splashed a handful of cold water onto her face.
The icy water jolted her completely awake.
You can’t rely on a mountain forever—it can collapse. You can’t rely on people forever—they can leave.
Although Lu Zhan protected her, he was a soldier. His life didn’t belong entirely to himself. At any moment, he might have to risk his life for the country.
What had happened the previous night had sounded an alarm in her mind.
She had to become stronger.
Not just physically, but financially as well.
In this era, money wasn’t everything, but without money, nothing was possible.
With enough money, she could raise the courtyard walls, buy a guard dog, or even hire someone to help.
Su Man touched the money and ration coupons Lu Zhan had left behind in her pocket.
That was dead money. Every cent she spent meant one cent less.
She needed to make her money work for her.
“Dabao, stay home and watch your brother. Lock the door. Don’t open it for anyone.”
Su Man left breakfast for the two children, changed into practical clothes, tucked the money away, and headed out.
Her destination was clear—the supply cooperative.
It was the end of the year, and supply cooperatives usually conducted inventory and clearance sales around this time.
According to what she remembered from her previous life, there would often be a large number of defective or surplus goods being sold off cheaply.
To ordinary people, they were practically junk.
To her, however, they were gold mines.
The residential compound was about two kilometers from the supply cooperative.
Su Man walked quickly, mentally calculating various business opportunities along the way.
When she arrived at the supply cooperative, however, the scene before her made her pause.
The entire hall was in chaos.
The area in front of the counters was packed with people, and the noise was as loud as a bustling market.
“What is going on? I’ve been waiting in line for half an hour! Are you going to ring me up or not?”
“Exactly! Do you even have any of this fabric left? If not, I’ll buy it somewhere else!”
“Your calculations are wrong too! I clearly gave you five yuan. Why did you only give me two mao in change?”
Behind the counter, an elderly accountant with graying hair and reading glasses was sweating profusely as he frantically worked the abacus.
The beads clicked and clacked, but his hands were trembling badly. The more anxious he became, the more confused his calculations grew.
Several young sales clerks beside him were equally frantic, comparing their account books over and over, yet the numbers simply wouldn’t match.
“Everyone, stop arguing! Stop arguing!”
A middle-aged man in a Sun Yat-sen suit stood behind the counter, anxiously slapping his hand against the desk.
This was the director of the supply cooperative, Director Wang.
“It’s the year-end inventory. There are some discrepancies in the accounts. Please wait a little!”
“Wait for what? I think you’re trying to embezzle public funds!”
Among the crowd, Aunt Zhang—the same woman Su Man had shut down at the bathhouse the previous day—was shouting at the top of her lungs.
She held a piece of blue khaki fabric in her hands and was refusing to back down.
“This fabric is clearly one yuan and two mao per chi! I wanted five chi, so that’s six yuan!”
“And that senile accountant claims I didn’t give him a coupon! I absolutely did!”
The elderly accountant was so angry that his face and neck had turned red.
“Comrade, it’s recorded right here in the ledger. This particular transaction indeed has no coupon entered…”
“Bullshit! You old fool!”
Aunt Zhang’s spit flew everywhere as she spoke. She was just about to reach out and grab the old accountant by the collar.
The situation was on the verge of spiraling completely out of control.
Standing outside the crowd, Su Man had originally only come to see if there were any cheap goods she could buy.
But the racket was giving her a headache.
She frowned and looked through the crowd at the ledger spread open on the counter.
Just one glance.
Her “data eye,” honed through decades of experience navigating the business world in her previous life, immediately pinpointed the problem.
Su Man sighed.
She pushed her way through the crowd and strode forward.
“Excuse me.”
Her voice wasn’t loud, but it carried a calm authority that made people instinctively move aside.
Aunt Zhang was in the middle of her tirade when she felt someone push past her. She turned around and immediately saw Su Man.
Her temper flared.
“Oh! Isn’t this that woman from the Lu family—”
Before she could finish, Su Man had already walked past her and stopped directly in front of the counter.
She reached out her fair hand and pressed it over the old accountant’s trembling hand.
“Uncle, stop calculating.”
The elderly accountant froze and looked up at the young, beautiful woman before him.
“You… what are you doing?”
Su Man ignored the astonished gazes around her.
She picked up the pencil lying on the counter and circled the third and eighth entries in the ledger.
“This transaction is overcharged by three fen.”
She pointed at the third line, speaking slowly and clearly.
“The blue khaki fabric is indeed one yuan and two mao, but it’s year-end clearance today, so it’s twenty percent off. This transaction should be one yuan and seventeen fen per chi.”
“After rounding, you’ve charged too much.”
Then her finger slid down to the eighth line.
“And here.”
Su Man turned toward Aunt Zhang, who was preparing to explode again, and curled her lips into a cold smile.
“This woman claims she gave you a coupon.”
“She did.”
“But the coupon she gave you was last year’s expired fabric coupon.”
“According to the regulations, expired coupons are invalid. You were right not to enter it into the accounts.”
“However, the inventory is short by three chi of blue khaki fabric. It isn’t because it wasn’t recorded. It’s because it’s buried underneath that pile of white cotton fabric.”
Su Man raised a hand and pointed toward the messy pile of cloth in the corner of the counter.
“If you don’t believe me, go look.”
The entire hall fell deathly silent.
Everyone stared at Su Man as if she were some kind of monster.
Was this woman psychic?
She hadn’t even looked through the entire ledger, yet she could identify the problem from this distance?
Director Wang looked skeptical as he walked over and lifted the pile of white cotton fabric.
Sure enough!
A roll of blue khaki fabric was lying quietly underneath.
Exactly three chi.
“Unbelievable!”
Director Wang exclaimed, then abruptly turned to look at Su Man, his eyes filled with shock.
The elderly accountant hurriedly recalculated the figures on his abacus.
Click! Click! Click!
Finally, he cleared the abacus back to zero.
He looked up, his face filled with disbelief.
“It’s… it’s balanced! Not a single fen off!”
“Was it really an expired fabric coupon?”
Director Wang demanded sternly.
Aunt Zhang’s face instantly went pale. She instinctively covered her pocket.
“I… I grabbed the wrong one… I was in a hurry when I left…”
She muttered guiltily before slipping away through the crowd under everyone’s contemptuous stares.
“Oh, Comrade! You’re incredible!”
Director Wang excitedly hurried out from behind the counter and clasped Su Man’s hand.
“I’m the director here. My surname is Wang.”
“Your brain is sharper than the abacus we’ve been using for more than a decade!”
“Are you an accountant at some unit?”
Su Man calmly withdrew her hand and smiled.
“No. I’m from the military residential compound. I just happened to have some free time and came to take a look.”
“From the residential compound?”
Director Wang’s eyes lit up even more, as though he had discovered an unpolished gem.
“Comrade, would you be interested in working at our supply cooperative?”
“We happen to be short of an accountant. It’s only a temporary position, but if you perform well, you could become a permanent employee as early as next month!”
“This is a coveted government job!”
A wave of envious gasps swept through the crowd.
In this era, supply cooperative employees were practically untouchable royalty. Who wouldn’t put on a smile when dealing with one?
Getting a job at the supply cooperative was an opportunity countless people would fight tooth and nail for.
Everyone assumed Su Man would immediately agree, perhaps even thank him profusely.
Yet—
Su Man shook her head.
“Thank you for the offer, Director Wang, but I still have two children to take care of at home. I can’t take a job.”
She refused?
She had actually turned down a secure government job?!
Director Wang looked genuinely disappointed.
“That’s such a shame… But, Comrade, you did us a huge favor today. From now on, whenever you come here to buy something, I’ll give you the internal price!”
A glimmer flashed through Su Man’s eyes.
That was exactly what she had been waiting to hear.
She pointed toward the large pile of printed fabric lying discarded on the floor in the corner.
Some pieces had unevenly dyed colors, some had water stains, and some were merely leftover scraps.
In this era of scarce supplies, these fabrics were still usable, but people in the cities looked down on them, while people in the countryside considered them too expensive.
As a result, they had been sitting there unsold for a long time.
“Director Wang, forget about the internal price.”
Su Man walked over to the pile of defective fabric and squatted down, rummaging through it.
“If you’re looking to get rid of these defective fabrics, could you sell them to me at a cheaper price?”
Director Wang stared at her.
“What do you want this junk for? It’s been sitting here for a year. We couldn’t even give it away!”
Su Man smiled, confidence shining in her eyes.
“Junk is junk when it’s left in a garbage pile.”
“But in my hands…”
“It becomes a treasure.”