Chapter 19

Zhuang Chunsheng finally realized that Silly Girl had returned to her biological parents, and indeed, she deserved to have an official name.

“Silly… Comrade Qiao, here’s the thing: the note you gave me last time wasn’t quite right. Please rewrite a letter of forgiveness and send it to me,” Zhuang Chunsheng said. He had only just learned yesterday that a receipt for the compensation money wasn’t as useful as a letter of forgiveness personally written by the victim. The receipt only proves the payment of compensation, but the letter of forgiveness carries much more weight. A letter of forgiveness together with the compensation receipt is even more powerful.

“I absolutely won’t write a letter of forgiveness,” Qiao Xinyi flatly refused. “The receipt for the compensation is the extent of the concession I’m willing to make in this case.”

Zhuang Chunsheng became anxious, “But without a letter of forgiveness, my son and the others will all be sentenced!”

“I believe the law is fair and just. With this receipt, if the police decide they only serve one day in jail, I won’t complain. But if they’re sentenced to ten years, then that’s what they deserve,” Qiao Xinyi said firmly and was about to hang up.

Zhuang Chunsheng hurriedly pleaded, “I’ll pay you! Name your price!”

“No matter how much you pay, I won’t write a letter of forgiveness,” Qiao Xinyi said, then hung up.

Of course, she knew a receipt is just a receipt, and a letter of forgiveness is a letter of forgiveness. That’s why, when she was in the hospital, she interrupted Zhuang Chunsheng and voluntarily offered to write a note. After receiving the compensation, she cheerfully wrote the receipt and even found a witness. But she never wrote a single word of forgiveness on the receipt.

Later, Zhuang Chunsheng asked someone knowledgeable and finally understood the difference between a receipt and a letter of forgiveness. He then realized the receipt Qiao Xinyi gave him held little key significance for conviction and sentencing.

After Qiao Xinyi hung up, Zhuang Chunsheng didn’t give up and called again, but Qiao Xinyi didn’t even blink. She slipped her hands into her pockets, nodded to Li Jun, and walked away.

After getting off the bus, Qiao Xinyi didn’t go straight home. Instead, she found a quiet spot and opened the system mall. A promotional message popped up immediately:
“Mid-year big sale, everything 25% off.”

Qiao Xinyi’s eyebrows twitched. This was great! Nowadays, the mall had everything, and it didn’t require any vouchers. Prices were already competitive with the market, and now with the mid-year sale, it was an incredible deal.

She saw the sale started today and would last a full two weeks, so there was no rush to spend all her starting bonus. After all, her 5,000 yuan couldn’t be spent in the system mall; only the salary and benefits paid by the system could be used there.

A jin (about 0.5 kg) of pork leg originally cost just 0.8 yuan, now only 0.6 yuan with the discount. Rice was 0.13 yuan per jin, flour a bit more expensive at 0.16 yuan. Beef and lamb were 1.8 yuan per jin, chicken and duck also 0.8 yuan per jin, and fish prices were similarly cheap.

Thinking about having guests over tonight and how it was hard for everyone to afford meat these days, Qiao Xinyi didn’t hesitate to buy a lot.

After adding everything to the cart and paying at once—plus seasonings, oil, salt, bowls, and utensils—she spent just over twenty yuan in total.

What excited Qiao Xinyi even more were the fans and bicycles available.

All electrical and industrial goods are 35% off. The fan’s original price was 120 yuan, the bicycle 150 yuan, so after the discount, the prices were incredibly good. She could hold off on buying the bicycle, but the fan was something Qiao Xinyi really needed right now.

July in the south was as hot as a steam oven, and according to Li Xiuying, in the provincial city it usually stayed hot until mid-October before cooling down a bit. Even then, the coolness was only in the mornings and evenings; daytime was still hot enough to make people sweat all over.

After paying for the fan, Qiao Xinyi had exactly 200 yuan left in her account. The mall had a storage feature, so after purchase, she didn’t have to take the items right away—they could be stored in the mall’s backpack and taken out anytime.

Qiao Xinyi waited until she was almost home, then found a quiet spot and took out everything except the fan, packing it all into a burlap sack to bring home.

By four in the afternoon, Qiao Xinyi was already busy preparing for the evening meal. Li Xiuying was at home and became Qiao Xinyi’s little helper. As people returned from work and visitors arrived, the borrowed dining table from the Li family was soon piled with dishes.

Liu Guilan and Chen Yubing met Qiao Yunbai at the intersection. When they saw people entering the door, Li Xiuying excitedly said, “Mom, Aunt Chen, Yunbai little brother, Xinyi sister is amazing at cooking! I’m just helping a bit on the side, but the smell is making me so hungry.”

“No need to say you’re hungry—we smelled it from far away at the intersection. At first, I wondered whose cooking smelled so good, but when we got closer, it turned out it was coming from our house,” Liu Guilan laughed, then glanced at the table and froze.

“Xinyi, why did you buy so much meat?” Liu Guilan asked, looking over at Chen Yubing. “This kid probably spent all the money and meat coupons you gave her on this meal.”

Chen Yubing shook her head. She had given Qiao Xinyi 30 yuan cash but no meat coupons, because she didn’t have any herself.

“It didn’t cost much. I got lucky—I wandered around that place and happened to meet some country folks who had come to the city to visit relatives but ended up going home empty-handed. So I bought all the things they were going to give to their relatives. Since I wanted so much, they gave me a discount,” Qiao Xinyi lied smoothly. “The weather’s so hot, the folks themselves didn’t want to eat it. If they hadn’t sold it cheap, the meat would have gone bad.”

At that moment Li Jun came back carrying a few bottles of ice-cold soda. Only then did Qiao Xinyi realize Qiao Baihe wasn’t there.

“Mom, where’s Qiao Baihe?” Qiao Xinyi asked.

“Big sister went back to her own home,” Qiao Yunbai answered first, his voice low and dull. “Not long after Mom and Dad left for work this afternoon, someone from the He family came to the residential compound to pass a message. They gave Baihe a note and told her to take the bus over herself. They said the house was already cleaned out for Baihe, and she should go back soon.”

“Grandma was very angry when she heard that. She was mad that the He family didn’t pay anything and that our family had been supporting Baihe for nothing, so she took it out on Baihe and scolded her. When Baihe was leaving, Grandma only let her wear the clothes on her back and even took the few cents she had on her so she couldn’t take anything,” Li Xiuying blurted out.

“Your grandma really went too far! She expected Baihe to walk back? How far is that?”

In previous conversations, they had heard from Chen Yubing that Qiao Baihe’s biological father was a soldier living in the military residential compound. The military base surely wasn’t in the city center. The provincial city was so large—how long would it take to walk all that way?

“Qiao Baihe wouldn’t really walk all the way back on foot, right?” Qiao Xinyi asked Qiao Yunbai.

“No, I chased after her later and gave Baihe the two yuan I had on me,” Qiao Yunbai said, grinning with clenched teeth. “The money Mom has given me over the years, I haven’t spent—it’s all secretly saved.”

Chen Yubing patted Qiao Yunbai’s head and praised him again, then scolded, “The He family is really shameless! It’s the first time the kid came home and no one even thought to pick her up. Baihe is a girl, going to an unfamiliar place for the first time, and they didn’t care at all whether she could find the place.”