“After causing such a big commotion, you still didn’t get your hands on the thing?” An impatient voice came from inside the small room. “What kind of pig-brain do you have?”
Hu Aimin drooped his head and stared at Zhu Cheng, who was speaking, with a very unpleasant expression on his face. If Zhu Cheng hadn’t paid him a hundred yuan, he wouldn’t have been happy to help in the first place.
Hu Aihua could see her older brother’s displeasure and couldn’t help trying to smooth things over. “Brother Cheng, my brother really did his best this time. Who knew that Ning family business would come up?”
Hearing this, Zhu Cheng became even more irritated. He also couldn’t understand why things had gone so poorly.
He had planned to take advantage of the workday when few people were in the courtyard, create a fake fire, and have Hu Aimin search Bai Baowei’s room to see if he could find the item. But then, that Ning Geda fellow had attracted so many people from the textile mill. And after that, he’d also drawn in people from the surrounding alleys.
With so many people responding to the fire, each of them pitching in to put it out, the fire was extinguished without much effort. Hu Aimin hadn’t had much time to search at all.
Such a perfect opportunity, all wasted because of this stupid incident.
The more Zhu Cheng thought about it, the more dissatisfied he became.
While Hu Aihua was putting in a good word for Hu Aimin, Hu Aimin himself wasn’t one to tolerate mistreatment. Seeing Zhu Cheng still glaring at him with a dark face, he decided not to stick around. He slapped his backside, jumped up from his seat, and said, “I don’t care whether you found the thing or not. I set the fire, I searched the room. If the thing wasn’t found, that’s not my problem. I’m not refunding that hundred yuan!”
With that, Hu Aimin ran off without looking back, already thinking about how to spend the hundred yuan. If only such good fortune would come every day. But then again, he wondered—what exactly was the thing Zhu Cheng was looking for, and what was it used for?
——
“This thing…”
In the main room of the Bai household in the courtyard, Bai Lan was also asking Bai Baowei about the pendant hanging around his neck.
Bai Baowei pulled the pendant out from under his clothes and glanced at it, then chuckled and shook his head. “I’ve had this on me since I was little. It was given to me by Grandma Fang. Before I left Haicheng, I mentioned to Dad Fang that I wanted to return it to the Fang family. But Dad Fang said it was Grandma Fang’s way of blessing my safety. He told me to keep it and pass it on to my children in the future.”
Bai Lan looked at the pendant in Bai Baowei’s palm. It was an ordinary white jade Guanyin pendant. Neither the kind of imperial green jadeite commonly seen in novels, nor top-grade mutton-fat white jade. Looking at the jade quality, it might have been worth several hundred thousand yuan in another twenty years. But in this era, the thing truly wasn’t worth much.
So, did that fire have anything to do with this pendant? On the surface, it seemed not. But Bai Lan’s intuition told her that this object was indeed connected to that fire.
Xu Jianbei saw Bai Lan’s thoughtful expression and knew that the couple was thinking along the same lines. He sighed and said, “Brother, you’d better ask Factory Director Fang if there’s anything special about this pendant. I have a feeling that fire was related to it.”
These words snapped Bai Baowei out of his reverie. He frowned, thinking to himself that he had worn this thing since the day he was born. There was nothing particularly special about it. He wanted to shake his head at Xu Jianbei’s words, but a small voice in his heart told him there must be a connection.
Seeing that Bai Baowei was taking it seriously, Xu Jianbei continued, “Anyway, be careful coming and going for a while. First, find out whether this pendant has some kind of history or special significance.”
If it had no special significance, then the arsonist’s target might have been something else. But the chances of that were almost zero.
——
After lunch and an afternoon nap, Bai Lan and Xu Jianbei got ready to go out and buy a few things.
Just as they stepped out of the house, they ran straight into Hu Aimin returning, reeking of alcohol.
Drunk in broad daylight—several of the older men and women in the courtyard frowned at the sight.
“The sight of him is really unpleasant.”
Bai Lan’s rare complaint made the corner of Xu Jianbei’s mouth curl up slightly. “Anyway, whatever his goal is, if he didn’t succeed the first time, he’ll try again.”
The couple chatted as they walked, each having formed some guesses about what might happen next.
They didn’t go far—just to the department store to buy some fabric for summer clothes.
But that day was clearly not an ordinary one. Before they even reached the department store, they saw Bai Ping and Zhu Cheng walking together. Strictly speaking, the two were maintaining a social distance of about a meter. But they were walking and talking, their mouths moving non-stop.
Every now and then, they’d wave their hands—the kind of body language that suggested they were discussing something heated.
Bai Lan and Xu Jianbei exchanged a glance. They immediately had some ideas, but they didn have superhuman hearing and couldn’t make out what the two were saying.
At that moment, Bai Ping had no idea that Bai Lan and Xu Jianbei were not far behind her. She was busy laying into Zhu Cheng.
“The thing is what you wanted. I was just trying to help out of kindness. It’s not my fault you were useless and couldn’t find it. What does that have to do with me?”
Zhu Cheng sneered at her words. “Don’t try to wash your hands of this. This is the Fang family’s thing. As a daughter of the Fang family, how could you not want it?”
Bai Ping shot back, “Even if we got our hands on it, it wouldn’t be my turn anyway. Otherwise, why would you and Sister-in-law be so eager? Has Big Brother given up on wanting it?”
Zhu Cheng said, “Stop dancing around the issue. You’re the Bai family’s adopted daughter. Even if you’ve had a falling out with them, you could go back and beg them to mend the relationship. Once the relationship is repaired, you could get your hands on anything.”
When he said those last words, Bai Lan and Xu Jianbei happened to be much closer. They heard the conversation clearly.
Because of this, Bai Lan and Xu Jianbei confirmed that the thing they were looking for was precisely that pendant.
How very strange.
The couple didn’t waste any more time. They abandoned their plan to buy fabric and hurried back home, intent on having Bai Baowei call Factory Director Fang right away to find out the pendant’s origin.
——
Bai Baowei didn’t drop the ball. As soon as he heard about the pendant, he immediately called Factory Director Fang. But the result was beyond Bai Lan’s expectations. Factory Director Fang knew about the pendant but had no idea where it came from.
“Your grandmother found it outside. I don’t know who the previous owner was either. Going back three generations, our family has always been poor. We never had any gold or jade. This thing isn’t particularly rare. What your grandmother gave you is yours. I’m not taking it back.”
Phones back then didn’t have great soundproofing. Bai Lan could hear everything clearly from the side. She once again sighed inwardly at how decently Factory Director Fang conducted himself. It was just a shame that back in the day, Qian Chunyun had caused so much havoc.
After hanging up the phone, Bai Baowei touched the pendant, now tucked back under his shirt, and sighed. He had worn this thing since childhood. Father Fang, who had the right to take it back, didn’t want it. So Bai Baowei wasn’t willing to let anyone else have it. If someone wanted to come and take it from him, he wouldn’t be polite about it.
Xu Jianbei patted his brother-in-law on the shoulder. “We’ll help you look into this. But since we don’t even know where it came from, we’ll just have to wait for the other side to make a move.”
Bai Ping, Zhu Cheng, Hu Aimin, Fang’s eldest sister-in-law, even Fang Baoguo—these people were all connected through marriage. And they all wanted that pendant. That meant the thing must have some kind of use. And an important enough use to make them take such risks.
Thinking this, Bai Lan and Xu Jianbei’s eyes lit up at the same time.
There was a way to find out.
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