Little Nie Weimin cried for a while, then said, “What if Liu Xiaohong tries to steal you away? Aunt Ai always scolds her, calling her Zhang County Yao Po.”

“What’s Zhang County Yao Po? Isn’t Aunt Ai nice? Besides, Er Dan is naughty, always getting his clothes dirty, and you’re even worse—you don’t dare go out to play, and you always bully the weak.

When you see Chen Tiantian dressed nicely, you like her, but when you see Liu Xiaohong not dressed so well, you always push her away.

If you keep bullying girls like that, I might just adopt Liu Xiaohong as my daughter. I pity her,” Chen Lina said.

This moment was exactly the right time to teach the child a lesson, to instill some sense of crisis in him.

But Nie Weimin was unsure if Chen Lina was serious or just joking.

He didn’t dare go out and play because the older boys at the base liked to bully him.

Unlike Er Dan, who had no shame and would just laugh when he was beaten, Nie Weimin always felt humiliated.

He would think to himself, “I’m so useless, how could I let them beat me?”

If anyone dared to hit Er Dan, Nie Weimin would feel even more sorry for him.

As the older brother, he would always blame himself for not protecting his younger brother.

That’s why he didn’t dare go out to play.

Over time, his grandmother’s beatings had made him a timid child who only dared to play within the safety of his own yard, like a little monkey.

“How about this? I’ll ask my dad to give you love. He will,” the round-faced little guy with beautiful almond-shaped eyes suddenly said after thinking for a while.

Chen Lina burst out laughing. “Oh my goodness, what are you talking about, kid?”

When she laughed, Nie Weimin immediately became embarrassed and angry. “I knew it! You don’t really want to take care of us,” he said, about to run away.

Chen Lina grabbed the thin little body and, ignoring his protests, ruffled his hair. “Little guy, love is a very precious thing. It’s not something you can just give to anyone. For example, if you meet a girl who wants to marry you and have children with you, then you can give her your love. But love isn’t something you can see; it only exists if you feel it. And if you ever eavesdrop on me and your dad talking again, I’ll spank you.”

“My love, will Chen Tiantian want it?” Nie Weimin asked curiously, after thinking about it.

Chen Lina instinctively answered, “Yes, as long as she likes you and you like her, that’s love.”

Suddenly, she paused, a thought crossing her mind.

She slapped her head, remembering why Liu Xiaohong seemed so familiar to her.

Back when she was in Hongyan Province, she had always been following the tragic story that Nie Bozhao had never mentioned—the two children who were executed.

In a cheap tabloid, she had once seen a picture of a very beautiful little girl named Liu Xiaohong.

The report claimed she was a worker’s child from the Umayi Mining Area, sentenced to death for drug trafficking.

However, according to that tabloid, Liu Xiaohong was also the mistress of the black boss, Nie Weimin.

The drugs were supposedly planted on him by another gang trying to frame him.

Liu Xiaohong took the fall and became the first young woman to be executed in the history of Xin Hua Country.

At that time, Liu Xiaohong was only about eighteen years old.

Despite the poor printing of the tabloid, it was clear that the girl was truly beautiful.

Chen Lina sighed inwardly. “What a drama,” she thought, looking at Nie Weimin now—he seemed to like Chen Tiantian.

“Little Nie, let me ask you, do you think Chen Tiantian is pretty, or do you think Liu Xiaohong is prettier?”

“Chen Tiantian,” the child answered without hesitation.

“Hah! You’re wrong, Liu Xiaohong is definitely prettier.”

She had big eyes, a high nose, but not in an awkward way like people from other ethnic groups.

Liu Xiaohong was really beautiful.

Nie Weimin, now in a better mood, was busy picking green vegetables for the rabbit from the large tub.

The vegetables Chen Lina had grown were so precious that she only dared to pick a little each day to get the green energy from them.

But these kids—especially Nie Weimin and Er Dan—had no such concerns and just picked them all for the rabbit.

“Chen Tiantian likes to smile, and she eats so deliciously,” the child said.

Chen Lina thought to herself, “Girls who like to smile and eat happily usually don’t have bad luck.”

When they came home that evening, they saw a rabbit cage hanging outside.

Nie Bozhao stood staring at it thoughtfully.

Little Nie Weimin and Er Dan immediately rushed out from the house. “Dad, you can’t eat the rabbit, okay?” they both shouted.

“But it looks pretty fat,” Nie Bozhao was deliberately teasing the child.

There were plenty of gray rabbits in the borderlands, running all over the mountains, but pure white rabbits like this, with snow-white fur, were quite rare.

However, why was there so much rabbit droppings near the cage that looked like sheep droppings?

It was obvious that the kids had been overfeeding the rabbits.

“Even if it’s fat, you can’t eat it. Do you want to be like my uncle?” Nie Weimin was particularly angry. “Why do adults always think about eating?”

Nie Bozhao laughed and said, “You don’t have to eat it, but feeding the rabbit is your job. If it poops, you need to clean it up immediately. Otherwise, when we wake up tomorrow morning, the rabbit will still be there, but it’ll only have two legs left.”

Er Dan counted the legs and said, “It has four legs now, so where are the other two?”

“Your mom and I will each take one and eat them.”

Er Dan burst into tears, crying loudly, “The rabbit can’t have only two legs!” He couldn’t even imagine what a two-legged rabbit would look like.

“Then remember to clean its poop, because your dad really likes to eat rabbit legs.” Chen Lina

The two brothers scrambled to grab small brooms and went to clean the rabbit droppings.

“Did you find out who sent people after us from Mulan Farm?” Chen Lina served him a bowl of yogurt.

Well, the family had switched to a new bowl, a nice chunky ceramic one.

Chen Lina didn’t know where it had come from.

Nie Bozhao looked a bit uneasy and said, “They say it’s from their security team. They probably took us for smugglers or maybe Soviet sympathizers.”

“Security team? I heard your uncle is in the security team. Could it be him?” Her eyes were as sharp as an X-ray.

Nie Bozhao quickly waved his hand, “I didn’t ask the details, but the labor union is talking to them. We don’t need to worry about it, but the driver got hit pretty badly. I heard they took him to the mine hospital this morning.”

Chen Lina smiled inwardly, but understood. It was probably his uncle.

The man was feeling guilty, she thought with a smirk.

Sun Dabao, who was twenty years old, was the pride of the Sun family.

Although spoiled, his mother, Huang Huacai, believed in loving without indulging and raising a son without making him a mama’s boy.

It was quite an achievement for him to be the head of the security team.

Well, since he had chased her car, he deserved to be hit—his own fault.

Er Dan, holding his bowl, stared up at his dad.

Nie Bozhao, seeing this, started spooning yogurt into the child’s mouth.

He changed the topic: “How about the car? It’s a used one from a leader. It’s the only one in the whole Umayi Mining Area. If you like it, you can drive it yourself. If it runs out of gas, go to the security team leader, Qin Sheng. He’ll fill it up for you. Our base never runs out of fuel.”

Nie Bozhao sounded a bit smug, his voice faltering as he asked, “Do you like it?”

Chen Lina secretly felt pleased but raised an eyebrow, adopting a calm, indifferent demeanor.

She took the bowl and went to feed Er Dan. “It’s fine, I guess.”

The little princess couldn’t make herself appear too eager.

Back in November, Chen Lili had sent a telegram saying that she and her ex-husband, Wang Hongbing, were on their way to Umayi.

But even though it was already close to the end of the year, Chen Lina hadn’t received any word yet.

She had been preparing for her sister’s arrival all this time.

She had bought a rooster, saved up mutton, and even sourced enough cotton to make two large quilts, as well as a yard of black velvet.

While making cotton shoes for the kids, she also made two pairs of large cotton shoes for her sister to wear when she arrived.

It had been almost a month, and thinking of the poor intellectuals who had gotten frostbite from the cold on the big trucks, her anxiety grew.

Finally, on the third day of the twelfth month, she received news.

Someone from Umayi had brought a message, saying that Chen Lina’s relatives were at the Umayi Mining Area, asking her to hurry and pick them up.

The younger two were hard to take care of, so Chen Lina entrusted them to Wang Jie and took little Nie Weimin with her in the red flag sedan to go pick up her relatives.

At the Umayi Mining Area security office, Chen Lili and Wang Hongbing were huddled together, crying with their heads in their hands.

Wang Hongbing, being a bad element, couldn’t get a letter of introduction, so he had to sneak aboard a train.

The hardship of sneaking on the train was something only he knew.

Because there were random checks for tickets and introduction letters on the train, he had no ticket.

He had to crouch under two seats for two days without food or water.

That wasn’t even the hardest part.

Once they arrived at the border, they discovered that the local household registration system was much stricter than inland areas.

Without the introduction letter, Wang Hongbing couldn’t buy a bus ticket to Umayi.

So, they joined a group of other troublemakers trying to sneak into Mulan Farm and planned to walk to Umayi from Uru.