The Qu family had no choice but to slink away and find another place to stay for the time being. Without that large sum of money, their plan to go abroad had completely fallen through.
Qu Weiwei was awakened by furious shouting from next door. From the sound of it, it was Steward Hu—he had probably opened the courtyard gate and discovered everything inside was gone. Now he was roaring in rage, kicking at doors.
Listening to his angry outburst, Qu Weiwei smiled like a little fox that had just stolen something delicious.
After listening for a while, she grew bored and turned to sorting through the items she had taken from the Qu residence. These days, wherever one went, identification papers were necessary—otherwise, people might arrest you as some kind of suspicious person.
The area hadn’t been liberated yet, so they still had to wait. It would be easiest to register household documents during the early days after liberation. It was only July now, but it should be soon. She had overheard servants talking earlier—it seemed liberation was approaching. That was why her father had been in such a hurry to grab everything and run.
When she found her mother’s indenture contract, she finally felt relieved. With that, it would be much easier to exchange it for a household registration booklet at the government public security office later.
Only now did Qu Weiwei finally have time to sort through the plot.
“Flower of the Factory” was a sweet romance novel. It told the story of Qu Qingqing, who met the male lead—freshly graduated from university and parachuted into the textile factory as a director—at a small-town textile mill. The two got to know each other, learned and grew together, and eventually turned the small factory into the largest one in the surrounding area. An inspirational love story.
While reading it, Qu Weiwei had felt that Qu Qingqing was like some flawless white lotus—everything she said sounded overly pretentious and insincere. She couldn’t stand it and dropped the book halfway through.
If she had known she would end up trapped in this world one day, she would have read the entire book carefully. Even if it didn’t provide much useful information, at least she would know how things would unfold. After all, she and her mother were just minor cannon fodder—dead as soon as they appeared. Later mentions of them only came up when the female lead tried to comfort the male lead’s younger sister, using their tragic story as an example.
Qu Weiwei couldn’t understand it—why use another child’s tragic fate to comfort a child, especially one who had been dead for years?
Worried that He Youyou might wake up, Qu Weiwei gave her some more medicine. It wasn’t safe outside. Steward Hu and the Fourth Concubine might be lurking somewhere, waiting to capture her. For now, she didn’t dare go out and could only stay hidden in her space, waiting for things to calm down in a few days before making her escape.
That morning, after the Qu family left, Steward Hu’s brothers searched several nearby houses. Finding nothing, they still refused to give up. After all, so many things couldn’t have just disappeared in less than half an hour.
By nightfall, Qu Weiwei used her space and, taking advantage of the most exhausting hour before dawn, slowly inched her way out of the alley.
The streets were pitch black. She was afraid, but she had no choice but to run. He Youyou couldn’t stay in the space forever, and too much medicine would harm her body.
Not knowing He Youyou’s true character, she couldn’t expose the existence of her space. “A man is innocent, but possessing a treasure invites trouble”—she understood that well.
Having grown up in an orphanage, she understood human nature—both good and evil—better than most. Until she was certain what kind of person He Youyou was, she would never reveal her secret.
In He Youyou’s room, there had been a small suitcase in the wardrobe. Inside were two identity documents, along with some silver dollars and loose silver.
When she opened the documents, she discovered that the head of the household was He Youyou, and one of the documents was her own birth certificate.
That meant that with these two identification papers, the indenture contract was useless.
Qu Weiwei couldn’t understand why these documents were here. Shouldn’t they have been kept by the main wife?
Just moments ago, she had been worrying about where to find a place to live. Now, with this address, she and her mother would at least have somewhere to stay.
But the most urgent task now was to find a place to release He Youyou from the space and wake her up.
Qu Weiwei retrieved the small suitcase, packed the documents and money into a pouch, and gathered three sets of the simplest clothes for each of them. She also draped a large cloak over He Youyou. When dawn began to break, the mother and daughter finally emerged from the space and hid in a secluded spot.
As the cool outside air touched her, He Youyou shivered and slowly woke up.
Seeing her awake, Qu Weiwei grabbed her hand and cried out with feigned relief, “Auntie, you’re finally awake! You scared me to death, sob sob…”
“There, don’t cry. What happened? Did those people from the main house bully you again?” He Youyou, still not fully aware of her surroundings, thought the children from the main household had come to bully her daughter again.
“No, Auntie. Our house burned down! If I hadn’t woken up and, together with Fifth Auntie, dragged you out, we would’ve burned to death. The entire courtyard was burned clean. After they came out, the main wife and the others ran off on their own. I was too scared to let them see me, so I hid here. Auntie, why did you wake up so late? I’m so hungry… It’s dark everywhere, I’m so scared.”
Qu Weiwei hadn’t bathed or changed since yesterday. Covered in soot and ash, she looked convincingly miserable.
“What? The house burned down? Weiwei, are you hurt? Let me see.” He Youyou quickly grabbed her and checked her body for injuries.
Qu Weiwei froze for a moment. Upon hearing that the house had burned down, she didn’t even ask about her belongings?
“No, I’m not hurt… but everything in the room is gone,” Qu Weiwei said timidly.
“If it’s gone, then it’s gone. Money can be earned again. Even if we don’t stay with the Qu family anymore, I can still support you on my own. Don’t worry—I won’t let you starve. It’s just… without household registration papers, things will be troublesome. What time is it now? How long have we been out? Why didn’t you wake me earlier? Are you cold?”
He Youyou wasn’t too concerned about the loss of possessions.
In times like these, survival for just the two of them would already be difficult. Without proper documents, things would be even harder. And they had no money—if they did, it would be easier to bribe someone to help with registration.
As she spoke, she rubbed her daughter’s cold little hands and flushed cheeks.
No matter where they went, as long as her daughter was by her side, she could keep going.
“Come on, let’s find a place to stay first, then figure out what to do next. I’ll try to find someone who can help us get new registration papers.” He Youyou sighed, took her daughter’s hand, and removed the two gold hairpins from her head. These should fetch a good price—enough to handle their registration first.
Fortunately, she still had these two items. Otherwise, the two of them would be left starving. This child should have grabbed something before leaving—even something from the dressing table could have been exchanged for money.
Ah… still too young.