“Was it you who wrecked the motorcycle and beat up Fang Jinhui?” Song Qingshan asked.

Su Xiangwan hummed in response, not replying directly.

“Doesn’t Fang Jinhui look pretty fat? I heard from my sister that she wasn’t even his match,” Song Qingshan added.

He hadn’t met Fang Jinhui yet, only seen a few photos of him.

In Song Qingshan’s impression, Fang Jinhui was still a chubby, round, innocent, and cute kid.

Su Xiangwan rolled her eyes. “That’s because your eldest sister loves him. If you love someone, you always leave some room to spare. If you didn’t love him, you’d beat him to a pulp. Who wouldn’t be able to beat him?”

Song Qingshan was still holding a woven bag. Seeing that Su Xiangwan looked a bit displeased, he quickly handed it over. “Is there no flour at home? The flour my sister’s unit gave us—use it to make something to eat.”

Su Xiangwan took a handful from the bag, smelled it, and her eyes lit up.

What Lu Dan and Gou Dan had been bragging about eating—so-called white flour—wasn’t real wheat flour, but a mixture of various kinds of grain flours.

Real wheat flour in this era was in limited supply, and only someone like Song Dahua, a leader, could get their hands on it.

However, Song Qingshan still wanted that piece of jade. “Hurry up and hand it over. That thing belongs to someone else.”

“It’s gone, lost, don’t know where it is. I can’t give it to you.”

That thing was priceless. In the future, it would be sold to wealthy foreign merchants. Su Xiangwan would never give it to him.

Song Qingshan patiently explained that while he had a godfather relationship with Li Shizhang, there was no real father-son bond.

Li Shizhang only had one daughter, Li Xiaoping. After she married, she had a son, but Song Qingshan had recently heard that Li Xiaoping had passed away.

Li Xiaoping’s son, though carrying his mother’s surname, was someone Song Qingshan didn’t know.

He wanted to find that child and return the jade lotus and jade watermelon to him.

Su Xiangwan replied firmly: “You can’t find that child, and I’m not giving you anything. It’s not because I’m a thief. Don’t ask me, I just can’t give it to you. As for the jade lotus, you’ll have to give it to me.”

Song Qingshan became anxious: “Su Xiangwan, no matter my salary or my benefits, I’ve always given them to you without hesitation. What’s mine is yours. I have a responsibility, but this thing doesn’t belong to me.”

Li Shizhang had been an important leader in the provincial military district, a bold and straightforward man. He would often curse and threaten to send heavy artillery to greet the enemy.

He passed away the year before, during the year Song Qingshan was ambushed, and the process was incredibly brutal.

While Su Xiangwan was kneading dough in the basin, Song Qingshan mustered up the courage to say: “Don’t think that just because we’ve been like that, you can do whatever you want. I have my principles. Within those principles, you can do whatever you want. I’ll help you, even build you a ladder to reach the heavens, but outside those principles, this house must listen to me.”

“Do whatever you want?” Su Xiangwan chopped down with a knife onto the cutting board: “You don’t even know how much I hurt, and you dare say I do whatever I want?”

“I’m sure I’ve put enough strength into it,” Song Qingshan said.

He was being foolish, and not just any fool—he was made of the finest wood, solid to the core.

Lu Dan, the most cautious of the children, had already rushed in from outside: “Dad, what are you doing?”

Song Qingshan tried to play it off, intending to send his son away: “Go practice more, you’re still not skilled enough.”

But Gou Dan wasn’t having it: “I clearly heard you yelling at Mom.”

“Su Xiangwan, did I yell at you?” Song Qingshan was irritated now.

He felt like Su Xiangwan’s kids were little revolutionaries, constantly watching him, ready to overthrow him.

Su Xiangwan handed Zhi Zhi to Gou Dan: “Here, take this half-bowl of egg custard and make sure she finishes it.”

Once Gou Dan left, Su Xiangwan finally said: “I told you, I come from a future far ahead of yours.”

Song Qingshan, unwilling to believe it, reluctantly asked: “If you say so, then it must be true.”

He was stubborn on this issue, refusing to admit anything.

“I was 29 before I came here. I wasn’t married yet. But I owned a house in the capital, had tens of millions in savings, and worked as HR for a large heavy machinery company. I’m not the kind of woman who listens to you, takes your salary, and helps raise your children. My principle is to live comfortably first before thinking of anything else. Whether inside or outside, this house should listen to me,” Su Xiangwan said, chopping the cutting board as she spoke.

Song Qingshan chuckled: “29 and still unmarried? You must be very ugly.”

Su Xiangwan raised her knife, and Song Qingshan hurriedly added: “Well, even if you’re not ugly, there must be something wrong with you if you’re not married at 29. You’re not one of those women who can’t have children, are you?”

“If I can’t have children, your daughter Xiao Su can’t either because she looks exactly like me,” Su Xiangwan retorted.

“So, you came here, and you’re not worried about your family? Won’t your parents cry? Don’t you want to go back?” Song Qingshan was thinking in a straightforward manner.

Su Xiangwan slammed the bowl down loudly: “What’s the point of worrying? If I could go back right now, I would leave you all behind without blinking an eye.”

Song Qingshan smiled slyly: “You won’t. Last night, you even did that with me. You even let me kiss you. People don’t usually do that unless they care.”

He mistakenly thought their relationship had reached the point where they could hold hands.

“I’m not killing you today, but I have to say this: You can’t go looking for that child from Li Shizhang’s family. You can’t give him the jade watermelon or jade lotus either. I’d rather donate them to a museum than give them to him, really,” Su Xiangwan said.

“You’re really obsessed with money. That wasn’t even ours to begin with,” Song Qingshan retorted.

Su Xiangwan couldn’t hold back anymore: “You’ve been searching for that child, right? I’ll tell you, his name is Li Chengze. He’s ten years old this year. But you’d better never meet him. Do you know why? Because in the future, people will call him ‘Toxic Lord.’ Not only is he a drug dealer, but he will also abduct our Zhi Zhi and force her to join him in drug trafficking. In the end, they’ll both be buried alive at the border between China and Myanmar.”

Song Qingshan stared at Su Xiangwan for a long time, looking like he was seeing a ghost.

“Fine. Take the thing for now. We’ll talk about this later,” he said, wanting to avoid a confrontation.

Su Xiangwan, however, felt more hatred for Li Chengze than for Gou Dan. She hated the idea of him leading her beloved Zhi Zhi down the path of destruction.

“Mom, what’s for dinner tonight?” Gou Dan asked cheerfully. He had just grabbed a rearview mirror from a motorcycle and was admiring himself in it.

“What’s for dinner? We’ll eat the northwest wind,” Su Xiangwan said as she chopped the board.

Jinggui, who had been licking his lips, followed behind Gou Dan. Recently, he was so greedy he was licking the fine white flour on the cutting board.

The child hadn’t pulled his tongue back when he looked up curiously and asked, “Aunt, can we eat the northwest wind?”

“No, you can’t eat the northwest wind. And you can’t lick raw flour either. Why are you licking raw flour?” Su Xiangwan asked.

Jingui’s stomach growled loudly, and he bit his lip without saying anything.

Su Xiangwan couldn’t hold back.

She grabbed a millet-flour steamed bun from the pot, broke half of it off for him, and the little guy, not even washing his dirty hands, took big bites and finished it in no time.

After swallowing, he licked his lips and said, “Thank you, Aunt.”

Such a little brat.

He never had a father, but with the old lady protecting him, he had been wild.

Now, he was just like a weed, no one cared or guided him.

As night approached, the brothers, Lu Dan and Gou Dan, huddled together, discussing the motorcycle. Jingui, on the other hand, hung his head and went back to the old house of the Song family.

Of course, Su Xiangwan couldn’t make the northwest wind to eat.

Real wheat flour, she first kneaded it, then rolled it into thin noodles.

As she was thinking about what to do without vegetables, she suddenly saw little Jingui coming in with a small basket.

Without saying anything, he threw some daylilies and small cabbage to Su Xiangwan, turned around, and ran off.

The child, though a little scared, was more sensible than his mother, knowing to return a favor when someone had given him something.

With daylilies and cabbage, Su Xiangwan made bowls of hand-pulled noodles.

As Gou Dan would say, he could finish a bowl in one go without needing to breathe.

After dinner, Song Qingshan led Dashan to Fang Gaodi’s old house in the Hongxing Commune to find Fang Jinhui.

His nephew, who came with a lackey to the uncle’s house to hit people and try to rob things, Song Qingshan figured he’d need to give him a civil lesson with a bit of discipline.

Fang Gaodi’s father, known as Fang Lame, also had a nickname, “The Smiling Tiger.”

According to people from the Hongxing Commune, the Smiling Tiger’s family was rich—really rich. But on the surface, you wouldn’t be able to tell.

“Jinhui hasn’t come back, really hasn’t. But Qing Shan, I heard you’re the team leader at Qingshui Gorge. Didn’t you think about finding a proper job for the third son?” Fang Lame said while lighting a cigarette.

Song Qingshan frowned. “Has the third son been to your house?”

He only had Fang Jinhui’s motorcycle with him. Earlier, he had let Dazhan sniff it, then released him to smell around.

Dazhan sniffed all over but obviously, Fang Jinhui hadn’t been there because he didn’t catch his scent.

Fang Lame hurriedly said, “No, no, really not.”

The old-fashioned courtyard was neat and tidy, with several rooms filled with large heated brick beds. Fang Lame’s father had died in the Korean War.

Although there was little compensation, there were several martyr certificates and old photos of his father holding a gun on the walls of the living room.

This family was the most traditional, with strong roots.

Song Qingshan already knew that although Fang Lame always smiled, he wasn’t a good person.

But he still tried to persuade him earnestly: “Tell Jinhui he’s my nephew. I won’t harm him. If he wants to distance himself from those revolutionary groups, I won’t say anything. I’ll just give him a little lesson. If not, tell him that the money he tried to blow up with explosives yesterday took half his leg. If he doesn’t listen, he’s coming with me to the dam.”

Fang Lame nodded like pounding garlic. “Right, right, he needs a good beating.”

However, if Fang Jinhui stopped acting recklessly, he wouldn’t be Fang Jinhui anymore.

On the way home, with Dazhan in tow, Song Qingshan felt pretty good.

He’d eaten his fill yesterday, and hoped for more today.

He had something else he wanted to eat but hadn’t dared to act out.

But when he got back home, waiting for Su Xiangwan to climb into bed with him, he found that she had set up two stools in the corner of the room. “That’s where you’re sleeping.”

“Are you crazy? I have a bed, why would I sleep on that?” Song Qingshan was furious. He’d rather go back to the team.

“Quickly make the big kang bed, and you’ll have a real bed to sleep on. Like your mom said, you can roll around however you want,” Su Xiangwan said, lifting the blanket and lying down.

Song Qingshan stared at the two stools and nearly lost his mind. He had only seen his wife’s family three times.

Every time, they slept together once and then turned hostile the next day.

When they used to bathe together, Chen Aidan and the others would laugh and say that the team leader was big and had hooks, probably serving women very well.

But Song Qingshan wondered if this thing might be poisonous.

“If Fang Jinhui dares to come tomorrow, what will you do?” Song Qingshan asked. “You can’t run him over with the motorcycle again, right? Or, maybe come stay with me at the team?”

He figured Jinhui could still be adjusted and said, “The police are restricted now, but tomorrow I’ll have Tingxiu look for him. If we find him, we’ll take him to the dam for education.”

Su Xiangwan responded, “You know, he broke Yedan’s back. Your eldest sister paid fifty yuan for it, but he didn’t even apologize. He also urinated into little Ashe’s mouth. That’s actually molestation. He played around with a bunch of kids in the city and almost kidnapped Xianghong. Can this kind of thing be adjusted? Your nephew? I’ll make sure he’s done for.”

In Su Xiangwan’s eyes, such a person couldn’t be fixed.

He had no moral boundaries, just wearing a human disguise, but deep down, he was a beast.

Song Qingshan immediately blew up. “What do you mean by playing around? What do you mean by molestation?”

Su Xiangwan remembered that this man couldn’t even kiss properly. His experience with women was like the water in the Sahara Desert—just a legend.

“Exactly, a woman, playing with a group of men.”

“Playing what?” Song Qingshan was utterly confused.

“Playing sex,” Su Xiangwan snapped angrily.