“Did you hear?”
“Oh my god!”
“Tsk, how utterly shameless!”
“That Qin Shengli is so pitiful!”
Before they even reached the communal courtyard, news of what had happened at the steel factory was already flying everywhere.
Bai Lan was utterly impressed by how fast people spread information back then. No cell phones, no internet—and yet, word of the steel factory incident had spread far and wide. From the moment they left the factory, to boarding the bus, to getting off—the story echoed in their ears the entire time.
Bai Lan couldn’t help but glance at her eldest sister again. Confirming that Bai Lian wasn’t showing much emotion outwardly, she tugged worriedly at Xu Jianbei, who had come back with them.
Xu Jianbei shook his head, signaling Bai Lan to wait and see how things went.
But before the two could exchange more words, a neighbor in the alley spotted Bai Lian. Immediately, someone rushed over.
Bai Lan signaled Xu Jianbei to help hold them off, while she quickly pulled her sister toward home. Given the scale of what had happened at the steel factory today, this wasn’t going to blow over anytime soon.
The Bai family had already heard about the incident at the steel plant. When someone outside shouted that Bai Lian was back, Old Mr. Bai was the first to rush out of the house and shield his daughter.
Xu Jianbei took charge of the rear, keeping everyone at bay, and finally shut the door directly.
“This is insane!”
Bai Li rarely said anything so critical. She was clearly angered by the commotion outside.
Bai Lan also noticed that the people crowding their doorstep were mostly unfamiliar neighbors from the alley—not their usual courtyard neighbors. Quite a few of their courtyard neighbors had already stepped out and were trying to shoo these people away.
—
“You two go rest. Don’t worry about anything else. Your mother and I will handle it.” Old Mr. Bai looked cautiously at his eldest daughter, afraid she might be affected by all this mess.
Seeing her family’s worried expressions, Bai Lian smiled and shook her head. “I’m actually fine. I was worried before that Qin Shengli might have gone down the wrong path. But after what happened today, even if he wanted to go astray, he won’t be able to go far.”
Even as she said this, Bai Lian wondered if she was being too calm. But honestly, after today’s events came to light, she felt a huge weight lift off her shoulders. She was still worried about Qin Shengli—because deep down, she genuinely wanted him to do well. After all, the better off the father was, the more benefits their daughters would receive.
After today, Qin Shengli’s situation would actually become quite favorable, even if his pride had taken a terrible blow.
Seeing how relaxed his eldest daughter was, Old Mr. Bai smiled too. But after smiling, he couldn’t help but reflect that Qin Shengli had really taken a massive fall. Thank goodness his daughter had divorced him.
Bai Mama felt the same relief. She was in the inner room with her two granddaughters. Hearing the conversation outside, she gave a faint smile.
The two little girls had no idea their father had become famous today. Seeing their grandmother smile, they smiled too.
For a moment, the atmosphere in the Bai household was surprisingly good.
Seeing this, Xu Jianbei marveled at the family’s warm dynamic. When something like this happened, they all understood each other—and with that, no difficulty was insurmountable.
—
Things were going smoothly for the Bai family. And surprisingly, things were going quite smoothly for Qin Shengli too.
“Factory Director Song, I’ll accept whatever the organization decides. I have no objections to whatever punishment the two of them receive.”
Inside the steel factory’s security department, Qin Shengli looked utterly dejected as he stood before the factory leaders and said these words. Immediately, he earned sympathetic looks from many.
After all, the green hat he’d been made to wear was rock solid. And soon, it wouldn’t just be the steel factory—people in the northern part of the city, even as far as Tianjin and Hebei Province, would probably know that Qin Shengli’s head was greener than green.
For a man to be brought so low in life—it was worse than death.
Under these gazes, Qin Shengli’s posture shrank even further. This temporarily dispelled the suspicions of Factory Director Song, who had been questioning him.
True, he thought—any normal man wouldn’t want the world to know he’d been cuckolded.
But his wife had mentioned that Qin Shengli had been standing guard right by the main speaker switch in the workers’ canteen.
Qin Shengli felt Song’s suspicious stare. His expression didn’t change, but inwardly, he sneered coldly. He was going to nail that bastard Xiao to the wall. Otherwise, given the connections of that man’s wife, the one in trouble might end up being Qin Shengli himself.
Thinking back on the past few days, Qin Shengli sneered again—this time, inwardly.
—
From the moment he discovered that Wang Juan was having an affair with Director Xiao, to learning that Wang Hao had approached him with ulterior motives, to realizing that his so-called “intimate relationship” with Wang Juan was all a setup—the whole process had taken less than a day.
Back then, he had wanted to go crazy. He wanted to kill everyone who had deceived him. But then he thought of his family, and he stopped himself from acting on that insane impulse.
At first, Qin Shengli had actually considered just enduring it. Even when Wang Hao extorted 500 yuan from him, he’d thought of it as paying money to avoid trouble. But then Wang Juan had the audacity to show up at his door, pregnant, and threaten him. And his mother, blinded by her own greed, had insisted he marry Wang Juan.
Talking about sons, sons—maybe in the past, Qin Shengli might have thought sons were important. But being forced into raising another man’s child made him realize that nothing mattered anymore.
Since they were all pushing him to the brink, if Qin Shengli endured any further, he really would be a turtled cuckold.
What followed came naturally.
That fat, greasy Director Xiao had no shame—and had even tried to drag Qin Shengli down with him. So don’t blame Qin Shengli for going all the way.
The guests at the banquet? He had asked that bastard Xiao to help invite them. The reason he gave was that he wanted everyone to witness his happiness.
The wine that got Xiao’s blood boiling? Qin Shengli bought it. He’d even taken several days off work just to find that wine.
He had specifically arranged for Wang Juan and that bastard Xiao to have a place to carry on their affair. He had asked Xiao for help borrowing the broadcast room, using the excuse that it was for Wang Juan to rest.
Every link in the chain was meticulously arranged. And that bastard Xiao looked down on Qin Shengli so much that he never suspected a thing. What followed unfolded naturally.
The only pity was that, after today’s spectacle, no one from that bastard Xiao’s wife’s family showed up to intervene.
Then again, although that family had some influence, there was no way they could cover this up.
Dozens of loudspeakers broadcasting across a factory of ten thousand workers—so many people had heard that bastard’s dirty deeds. There was no chance for him to turn things around.
And Wang Juan, Wang Hao, and the rest of the Wang family—they wouldn’t get off easy either.
And that was exactly how it played out.
Although Factory Director Song was deeply dissatisfied that Qin Shengli hadn’t turned off the speaker switch in time—causing the incident to spread so widely and with such terrible impact—he couldn’t bring himself to criticize Qin Shengli. Instead, he immediately had the security department interrogate Old Xiao, Wang Juan, and Wang Hao.
Once the general facts were established, they couldn’t even wait until the next day. That very afternoon, the disciplinary results were announced.
—
Director Xiao was summarily fired from the steel factory and forced to be paraded through the streets in humiliation. After that, he would be sent to a labor camp in the far northwest.
Wang Juan, not being a factory employee, wasn’t under the factory’s jurisdiction. But the factory had a committee, and they dealt with her directly. Same punishment: paraded through the streets, then sent to a labor camp in the northwest.
As for Wang Hao, he was also fired from his unit.
On the surface, the matter was considered closed. But the aftermath was enormous. A whole week passed, and the buzz showed no signs of dying down.
That week was quite eventful for the Bai family. Many people came to their door asking for details. Of course, the Qin family next door, as Qin Shengli’s relatives, got nearly as much attention as the Bais.
All in all, both families had a tumultuous week.
And right in the middle of all this commotion, Qin Shengli showed up at Courtyard No. 3.
—
“Oh? Is he here to make amends?”
“Definitely. Now that it’s proven he wasn’t messing around outside, Bai Lian will surely forgive him!”
Previously, no one knew why Bai Lian had divorced Qin Shengli. But after the Wang Juan scandal broke, everyone assumed that Wang Juan was the reason. Now that Wang Juan was out of the picture, naturally many people thought Bai Lian would get back together with Qin Shengli.
After all, first spouses are the best.
“Not a single one of them dares to come near,” Bai Lan remarked to Xu Jianbei, who was standing beside her as she watched Qin Shengli being invited inside by her father for a talk.
Xu Jianbei found it pretty amazing too. Over the past week, he had witnessed plenty of people gossiping about Qin Shengli. And Bai Lian, as Qin Shengli’s ex-wife, had been harassed quite a bit.
Yet now that the man himself had appeared, no one dared to go up and talk to him.
“By the way, we’ll go get the lime this afternoon. Is one week enough time?”
Xu Jianbei nodded. “We’ll re-plaster the walls first. Then we can modify the furniture and it should be about ready.”
As she spoke, Bai Lan suddenly realized that they sounded like a young couple about to get married, discussing how to renovate their home.
And that was exactly it. Winter was approaching. Xu Jianbei wanted to fix up his half-room in the courtyard before winter set in. The screw factory had already allocated him a one-bedroom unit.
After fixing up the courtyard room this week, he would start moving.
Neither of them deliberately tried to eavesdrop on the conversation inside, but soon, fragmented words like “leave” drifted out.
Bai Lan simply pulled Xu Jianbei into the room to sit down.
—
No one inside paid attention to the two of them. At that moment, Qin Shengli was explaining his follow-up plans.
“My application to go to the northwest with my father has been approved. I’ll leave before winter sets in. I don’t know when I’ll be back. But every year, I’ll try my best to come back once to see Xiaofen and Xiaofang.”
Hearing Qin Shengli’s plans, Bai Lian looked surprised for a moment, then nodded.
The Qin Shengli standing before her now had a completely different spirit and energy compared to before. More precisely, the man before her now overlapped somewhat with the young man who had made her heart flutter in her youth.
This showed that he had already started to change.
“I thought you might try to talk me out of it.”
After rambling on for a while, Qin Shengli suddenly let out a self-deprecating laugh.
Bai Lian slowly shook her head. “The past is in the past. People have to look forward. Going to support the northwest is a good thing. You and your father—one with technical skills, one with talent—if you work together, who knows what you might achieve.”
Qin Shengli smiled. “I knew you’d say that.”
Truth be told, before coming, he had harbored some small hopes. But hopes were just hopes—they weren’t going to come true.
“Don’t worry about that 1,500 yuan. It came from a legitimate source. It was money my parents and grandparents gave me to bribe me into marrying Wang Juan.”
Back then, when he refused to marry Wang Juan, his family had used every trick in the book. In the end, when Qin Shengli pretended to give in, he had demanded that money.
He had given the money for the children. Even if things were tight at home afterward, it wasn’t impossible to get by.
Now that he was leaving for the northwest, there would be even fewer places to spend money.
Qin Shengli figured that once he got there, he would save up carefully. He would set aside money and ration tickets for the children—it was the only thing he could do as their father.
“From now on, I’m leaving the children in your care. Thank you. Thank all of you.”
He directed this last sentence to the rest of the Bai family. After speaking, Qin Shengli gave them a deep bow. Then he left the Bai household, left Courtyard No. 3.
After this, Bai Lan never saw Qin Shengli again until ten years later. But that, of course, is a story for another time.
With Qin Shengli’s departure, winter drew near. Xu Jianbei finished fixing up his room in the courtyard and was ready to move that week.
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