A few days ago, when something happened to the family, Director Lin had been afraid it would affect Lin Guoan’s work, so he hadn’t told him. Now that the child had been found, Director Lin had specifically asked Lin Guoan to come home. For one thing, he wanted the family to share a reunion dinner; for another, Old Mrs. Lin had taken a liking to Xiao Mandong.
When Old Mrs. Lin learned that Xiao Mandong was divorced, a thought quietly began to take shape in her mind. Although Xiao Mandong’s class background was considered problematic, Director Lin had already thoroughly investigated the Xiao family. They had none of the troubling issues they were accused of—chances were, they had been maliciously framed.
What Old Mrs. Lin valued even more was Xiao Mandong’s character. She was sincere with others, brave and resourceful, steady and perceptive. She also wholeheartedly cared for her younger sister. A woman like that, Old Mrs. Lin believed, would certainly treat Lin Guoan’s motherless child well if she married Lin Guoan.
More importantly, with Mr. Lin’s position as a director, as long as Xiao Mandong became part of the Lin family, no one would ever dare criticize her or Xiao Manxue over their class background again. Old Mrs. Lin even planned to use her connections to find Xiao Manxue a temporary position at a supply and marketing cooperative, then slowly look for an opportunity to get her the job permanently.
Old Mrs. Lin’s plan had been a win-win arrangement. She hadn’t intended to rush things. She merely wanted to use the dinner as an opportunity for Xiao Mandong and Lin Guoan to meet and become familiar with each other, allowing their feelings to develop gradually. Even if the two of them ultimately didn’t work out, she would still sincerely treat Xiao Mandong like a daughter.
Who could have expected that Lin Wenya’s loose tongue would give away the news of Lin Guoan’s return? It had actually prompted Director Huang to bring his niece over to meet him.
She had completely disrupted Old Mrs. Lin’s carefully laid plans.
Just then, the sound of the front door opening came from outside. Lin Wenya was the first to react.
“My brother’s home.”
Old Mrs. Lin hurriedly took the Xiao sisters out of the bedroom and into the dining room.
By then, Director Huang had already begun chatting with Lin Guoan. In fact, Director Huang knew that coming over today was somewhat inappropriate, but opportunities to see Lin Guoan were simply too rare. The last time he had seen him was half a year ago. He was confident in his own judgment: once Lin Guoan saw the girl he had brought, he would almost certainly take a liking to her. After all, this little beauty was truly gorgeous.
“Uncle Huang, what brings you here?”
“Guoan, I heard you were coming home, so I thought I’d drop by to see you. I’ve been waiting for you for ages. You really are a busy man.”
Lin Guoan merely smiled without saying anything. He had never been a man of many words; even the greeting had been offered purely out of courtesy.
“Guoan, let me introduce you. This is my niece, Liu Mengyao. She’s twenty-two this year.”
“Hello.”
Lin Guoan gave her a brief greeting, then shifted his gaze away.
At that moment, he happened to see the Xiao sisters coming out of the room.
The instant Xiao Mandong saw Lin Guoan, it was as if she had been struck by lightning. The blood coursing through her body seemed to freeze in her veins.
Him? Lin Guoan.
That name, that face—Xiao Mandong suddenly remembered. After the country opened up and began its reforms, sometime around 1982, she had attended a public trial. The man named Lin Guoan had been condemned by the entire nation, denounced as a parasite on the state and a disgrace to the people. He was supposedly a key engineer at a military factory, yet consumed by greed, he had embezzled a huge sum of public funds and secretly sold the country’s core secrets. With multiple charges piled against him, he had been sentenced to death. There had been more than twenty defendants on trial that day, but he alone had protested his innocence from beginning to end.
Xiao Mandong shifted her gaze to Director Huang, who was not far away. Smiling broadly, he was nudging Liu Mengyao toward Lin Guoan, while Liu Mengyao kept her head lowered in a coy show of shyness.
Xiao Mandong’s heart pounded wildly, and cold sweat had already soaked her back.
Director Huang was an official in the Revolutionary Committee, with real power in his hands. He called Liu Mengyao his “niece,” but the two clearly had an improper relationship. As for Lin Guoan, he was a technical expert at the military factory who possessed its core secrets—and the son of the police chief.
How could this possibly be a chance blind date? It was clearly a carefully laid trap!
In her previous life, Lin Guoan probably hadn’t embezzled anything, much less sold the country’s secrets. He had been framed by Director Huang and Liu Mengyao working together! Liu Mengyao had approached him and married him in order to steal the military factory’s secrets, while Director Huang had used his authority to fabricate evidence and pin all the crimes on Lin Guoan.
Xiao Mandong forced herself to suppress the turmoil in her heart and put on a composed smile. She couldn’t panic, and she certainly couldn’t let anything show. Sun Wenbin was already watching her closely; she couldn’t afford to make Director Huang suspicious as well. She had to get her younger sister out first.
“Daddy…”
A babyish voice rang out. A little girl of two or three stood barefoot in the doorway of the bedroom.
“Daddy, carry me.”
Her soft, nasal voice was thick with sleep, like a little kitten that had just woken up.
The tension in Lin Guoan’s face vanished in an instant. He bent down and picked up his daughter, carefully supporting her bottom.
A flash of disgust passed through Liu Mengyao’s eyes, but it was quickly replaced by a gentle smile. She took something from her bag and beckoned to the little girl.
“Auntie has something fun here. Would you like me to give it to you?”
The little girl was drawn to the tin wind-up frog in Liu Mengyao’s hand. She wriggled free of Lin Guoan’s arms and went over to look at the toy.
That woman had obviously come prepared.
Xiao Mandong didn’t try to amuse the little girl. After raising someone else’s child in her previous life and being left with deep emotional scars, she wasn’t particularly fond of children.
Liu Mengyao coaxed the child into playing with her. At dinner, she patiently fed the little girl one bite at a time, as carefully as if she were a loving mother.
By the end of the evening, she and the little girl had grown quite familiar, and they seemed to get along remarkably well. Even Old Mrs. Lin appeared somewhat swayed. Lin Guoan himself had never expected his normally wary daughter to get along with Liu Mengyao so well.
Xiao Mandong barely touched her food. Her eyes remained fixed on Liu Mengyao and the little girl.
Liu Mengyao played the part of a gentle future stepmother from start to finish. One moment, she was putting food on the little girl’s plate; the next, she was serving soup for Old Mrs. Lin, all the while showering her with flattering words. She had coaxed a few more smiles onto Old Mrs. Lin’s face.
Even Lin Guoan’s gaze toward Liu Mengyao had softened considerably. After all, apart from her own family, this was the first time his daughter had ever been so close to an outsider.
At last, dinner was over, and night had already fallen. Director Lin spoke first.
“Mandong, it’s so late. I’ll write you a note so you two can stay at the guesthouse near the hospital tonight and head back tomorrow.”
His son was at home, so he couldn’t let two young women spend the night there. It wouldn’t be good for their reputations.
Xiao Mandong hadn’t planned on going back either. She didn’t want to stay in the village for the next few days, so she agreed readily.
Director Lin drove them to the guesthouse and didn’t leave until he had completed the check-in formalities.
Xiao Manxue was the first to fall asleep. Using the bathroom as cover, Xiao Mandong slipped into her pocket space, intending to take a bath there. But then she unexpectedly heard some indescribable sounds coming from the room next door.
The man’s voice was filled with pleasure. “You’ve been married for so many years, and this is actually your first time?”
The woman whimpered through her tears, as if she were enjoying it despite crying.
“I—I don’t know either. It hurts… Be gentler. Mmm…”
