Su Mian had never imagined she could sink this low, unable to even scrape together a dinner.
Being hungry herself was fine. She was fat anyway. Going hungry wouldn’t kill her, right?
But the two children couldn’t take it. They were nearly skeletal.
“Mom, me and sister aren’t hungry. You don’t need to go out looking for food.” Seeing Su Mian seemed about to leave, Dabao grabbed the hem of her clothes.
This child. So considerate, all so he wouldn’t trouble her.
“No. You have to eat something. I’ll go look around, see if I can borrow some rice or flour to cook for you.”
There happened to be a bit of firewood at home, enough to light a fire and cook.
If there were no firewood, bringing back rice and flour would be useless.
There was firewood to be gathered on the hill behind the slum, but it was getting dark, and going to the back hill now was clearly not wise.
Just as Su Mian and the two children were at a standoff, the door was knocked on.
Knock, knock, knock. Knock, knock, knock.
Su Mian’s heart lurched.
The three of them, a widow and orphans. If a bad person really had come to the door…
But Su Mian glanced at her own figure again and decided the odds of someone wanting to assault her were low.
Robbery, though? Even less likely.
Suddenly, Su Mian thought of her pocket watch.
But she had just put it back in its hiding place, to take out in the morning.
“Su Mian? If you’re home, open the door. It’s me, Qin Chuan.” A young man’s voice came from outside.
At this, both Dabao and Erbao grabbed Su Mian’s hem.
Dabao said excitedly, “Mom, it’s Uncle Qin!”
Uncle Qin?
Right! Su Mian had nearly forgotten about Qin Chuan entirely.
Mainly because he didn’t appear often, so she had forgotten he existed.
According to the novel’s plot, Qin Chuan was the devoted second male lead, in love with the female lead, Chen Zhiyi, for a long time.
After the male lead, Lu Zheng’s family was sent down, Qin Chuan pursued Chen Zhiyi fiercely.
Chen Zhiyi herself wasn’t moved, but the Chen family was.
Their daughter had been involved with Lu Zheng, her reputation was ruined. Someone willing to take her in, and from a decent family, no less, was the best possible outcome.
So Chen Zhiyi’s parents ignored her wishes and agreed to the marriage between Chen Zhiyi and Qin Chuan.
Just as the wedding date approached, the Lu family returned from the countryside.
Good grief. Would you call this plot thrilling or what? Even a dog would stop to watch.
And Qin Chuan and Su Mian, as the vicious female side character and the devoted second male lead, naturally had to team up to break apart the male and female leads.
It was just that Su Mian had no backing, no background, which was why she was so miserable now.
But Qin Chuan was different. Even though he had done other things against the male and female leads, he was still the son of the Qin family, still protected by his family.
After the male and female leads cleared up their misunderstanding and Su Mian was driven out by the Lu family, Qin Chuan, out of consideration for their past partnership, would occasionally help Su Mian.
So part of the reason Su Mian could live in the city for so long without doing any work was that Qin Chuan was a good man who valued loyalty and friendship.
As expected of the devoted second male lead. Coming to the door now was probably to bring Su Mian some warmth. This character setting really couldn’t be broken.
Su Mian hurried to open the door. Seeing Qin Chuan outside, dressed fashionably and expensively, yet with a casual, devil-may-care air, Su Mian instantly felt a sense of pressure.
She had to lose weight!
When you’re fat, you really can’t help feeling inferior, especially when the other person is handsome or beautiful.
“Why are you here?” Su Mian asked.
Qin Chuan made a disgusted tsk at Su Mian, then glanced inside before replying, “Why am I here? I came because I was worried about your two kids. Not to nag, Su Mian, but how long are you going to wallow like this? Lu Zheng is already married to Chen Zhiyi. You should let it go.”
Su Mian was exasperated. She had only just woken up in her own body today. What could she do?
But that was something she definitely wouldn’t explain to Qin Chuan.
“I’ve already pulled myself together. Really,” Su Mian stressed.
“You serious?” Qin Chuan asked, skeptical.
“Really! Today, I suddenly just woke up. From now on I’ll live well with the two kids, raise them well, and I won’t bother Lu Zheng and Chen Zhiyi again.”
In fact, after being driven out of the Lu family, Su Mian hadn’t seen the male and female leads again.
Hearing Chen Zhiyi’s name, Qin Chuan fell silent.
After a moment, he suddenly pulled out a wallet from his pocket and took out all the money inside.
“Su Mian, I’m leaving.”
Su Mian was speechless.
She couldn’t take the money, and she couldn’t not take it.
After all, this money was important to Su Mian right now, but Qin Chuan’s words put her in a bind.
Wait, he wasn’t thinking of doing something drastic, was he?
The devoted second male lead’s character setting couldn’t collapse, after all!
It seemed after the novel’s ending, there was some extra chapter saying Qin Chuan never married or had children his whole life.
“Where… where are you going?” Su Mian couldn’t help asking.
Qin Chuan smiled, shrugged with an air of indifference, and said, “Private businesses are allowed now. I want to go to the southernmost region to do business. This place… I don’t want to stay. I haven’t been in Xiangcheng lately because I went to the southern region to scout it out. It’s developing fast there. I want to give it a try.”
Su Mian felt Qin Chuan probably didn’t want to stay in Xiangcheng, the city that broke his heart.
Come to think of it, Qin Chuan might look like a playboy, but he was quite devoted.
“Then go. I wish you a smooth journey,” Su Mian said.
She didn’t really have feelings for Lu Zheng anyway, so it didn’t matter where she stayed.
But she definitely wouldn’t stay here long. The two children were already over four, old enough to understand and remember. She couldn’t let people keep calling them bastards forever.
So after learning the whole truth, Su Mian had decided that once she saved up some money, she would take the two children to find their biological father.
In Su Mian’s own memories, she didn’t know who she had slept with that night after drugging herself.
But the novel explained the other party’s identity. He seemed to be a soldier, and his family background wasn’t ordinary either.
Never mind the family background. In this era, being a soldier was a highly desirable status.
The two children were living too bitterly with Su Mian now. And in this world, without money, background, or family protection, Su Mian, a woman with two children, even if she made money in business, probably couldn’t keep it.
So for the children’s sake, she decided to find that man and tell him about the two children.
How the two of them would handle things after that could be discussed when they met.
Su Mian wasn’t an irrational person. She knew that with nothing to her name and her life a mess, insisting on raising the children alone would only mean more suffering for them.
But if she could find the children’s biological father and they could have a better life, then she was willing to let go.
After all, the current Su Mian had a ruined reputation, an ugly appearance, and nothing at all.
Even her own family home was somewhere she couldn’t return to.
Until she improved herself, Su Mian didn’t have the face to go back and see her parents and brothers.