RGL – Chapter 102

Sun Hai watched the two come up the stairs from the hallway and asked, “Sis, everything okay now?” Just now, he’d heard the commotion and went downstairs to take a look. When he saw his brother-in-law’s relatives arguing, he didn’t go over, not wanting them to think he was just there to watch the drama. Seeing that his sister and niece were unharmed, he then returned to his apartment.

Sun Qiufang shook her head. “It’s fine, they’ve already left.”

Li Meng also came out of the apartment. Seeing Sun Qiufang and the others, she said, “It’s already so late. I’ve finished cooking—why don’t you just eat here? Saves you the trouble of cooking again at home.”

Sun Qiufang wasn’t in the mood to cook anyway, so she didn’t stand on ceremony. “Alright, then I’ll trouble you tonight.”

Li Meng smiled and said, “Sis, no need to be so polite with us.”

Although Sun Hai had trained as a chef and was the best cook in the family, it was usually Li Meng who did the cooking at home. Today, she hadn’t known Sun Qiufang and the others would be coming over, so she only made a couple of dishes. But after hearing the noise downstairs and guessing that they’d probably stay for dinner, she deliberately added two more meat dishes.

Sun Qiufang immediately noticed the two extra meat dishes and understood her sister-in-law had made the effort. She smiled and said, “Don’t go to all this trouble next time. We’re not guests—just family. A simple meal is fine.”

Li Meng served rice for everyone and said with a smile, “Even a simple meal should fill the belly, right? It wasn’t any trouble. I’d already prepped everything earlier—just had to heat it up.”

“Your sister-in-law cares about you. Just enjoy the food,” Grandma Sun said cheerfully.

Ever since her son and daughter-in-law reconciled after their earlier quarrel and came back from the city, their relationship had actually improved. Even the bond between daughter-in-law and daughter was better now.

As the elder of the family, she was truly pleased.

At her age, she no longer hoped for wealth or success—just peace and harmony in the family.

Su Changrong wasn’t shy and after a few bites, asked about what had happened earlier.

“Changgui and Shao Yun came by just now and started arguing. Before you got back, they’d already left. This time, Changgui even got physical and mentioned divorce again.”

Hearing it was once again a family matter, Su Changrong couldn’t help but feel a bit awkward. He didn’t press further but instead brought up the topic of buying a car to Sun Hai.

Back when Su Min first started school in the city, he had already been thinking of getting a driver’s license and buying a car, so it would be easier to visit his daughter. Now that they had moved to the city, and he had to travel back and forth between two shops, buying a car seemed even more necessary.

When Grandma Sun heard her son-in-law talking about buying a car, she grew worried. “That’s not cheap, is it?”

Su Changrong smiled. “I’ll just get a decent one. It doesn’t have to be expensive.”

Sun Hai said, “Getting a car is necessary, especially if you’re doing business. People with better conditions all have one—it gives you confidence when negotiating. But brother-in-law, just make sure you drive carefully when you’re out.”

Hearing his brother-in-law’s support for his plan made Su Changrong feel even more determined.

With the earlier topic left behind, the two men began discussing what kind of car to get.

Su Min noticed that although cars weren’t yet as widespread as they would be later on, they still held an important place in men’s hearts. Even her usually low-key uncle was full of enthusiasm when talking about them.

After dinner, Li Meng didn’t let Sun Qiufang wash the dishes and told her and Su Changrong to go rest. She suggested they all go out together the next day.

Back home, Su Min poured hot water for her parents, and the family sat together watching TV. Taking advantage of the moment, Su Changrong asked about what had happened with Su Changgui and his wife.

After hearing the whole story, his brows furrowed tightly.

“What’s going on with Changgui? Marriage is a serious matter. He’s already been divorced once, and now he’s talking about divorcing again. What does he think this is—playing house?”

Sun Qiufang said, “I think he’s just a restless person. Gao Hong kept him in check all those years, but now that they’re divorced, he’s running wild. If this continues, I really think he’ll end up divorcing Shao Yun too. Honestly, Shao Yun might not be amazing, but she’s alright for a life partner. If he keeps being picky, he’ll be left with no one when he’s old.”

Su Changrong agreed. After all, it was his own brother, so he couldn’t help but worry. But Changgui didn’t listen to him anymore, and he didn’t know what else to do.

“I’ll try to bring it up with Dad when I get the chance. Changgui still listens to him somewhat.”

“I think you should stay out of it,” Sun Qiufang said sternly. “Neither Shao Yun nor Changgui are easy to deal with. You meddle and you’ll only get yourself in trouble.”

Su Changrong sighed. “He’s still my brother. I can’t just watch him head down a dead-end path. I’ll just say my piece. If he doesn’t listen, then there’s nothing more I can do.”

Sun Qiufang said with a stern face, “Fine, go ahead and get involved. Just don’t come complaining to me afterward.”

Although Su Changrong wanted to find a chance to return to the village and talk to Grandpa Su  about the situation, a call came early the next morning from one of the shops—they were in trouble.

Even though it was the New Year holiday and no one was working, Su Changrong hadn’t felt at ease, so he had arranged for workers to take turns checking on the store and call home if anything happened.

Sure enough, that morning one of the workers came to check the shop and found the door open and the inside a complete mess. He immediately called Su Changrong.

Su Changrong told him to call the police right away, and he and Sun Qiufang rushed back to the city.

Naturally, Su Min and Liao Zhaodi went with them too.

When Xue Mian came to Su Min’s home after breakfast to find her, the door to the Su household was tightly shut. He knocked several times, but no one answered. It was Grandma Sun downstairs who heard the noise and came out to tell him that Sun Qiufang and her whole family had left early in the morning to return to the shop.

“There was some trouble at the store in the city. It was urgent, so they rushed back. You’re Minzi’s classmate, right? I saw you yesterday. Don’t blame Minzi—it was just that they were in such a hurry that they had to leave abruptly.”

Hearing that something had happened to Su Min’s family, Xue Mian’s initial feelings of disappointment and slight resentment were instantly replaced by concern.

“Grandma, what exactly happened to Su Min and her family?”

“They said the shop was broken into,” Grandma Sun replied vaguely. Her daughter had left in such a rush that morning that she hadn’t explained much. But it must’ve been something serious.

When he heard the shop had been robbed, Xue Mian let out a breath of relief—at least no one had been hurt. He quickly thanked Grandma Sun and rushed back home.

Once he returned to the Zhao family’s home, he started clamoring to go to the city and check on them.

Grandpa Xue asked in confusion, “Why are you going to the city?”

“What else could he be doing? Of course, he went running after that girl.” Zhao Xue looked at Xue Mian with a mischievous smile.

Being called out like that, Xue Mian’s face flushed red with embarrassment.

Hearing Zhao Xue’s words, Grandpa Xue’s expression turned stern. “Mianmian, you already met Su Min yesterday. As friends, that’s enough. If you start trailing after her everywhere, that’s not appropriate. I don’t care what you do in the future, but for now, I can’t approve of you acting like this.”

The boy’s still so young—if he starts learning to chase after girls at this age, where’s the blood and fire of youth going to go? Where’s his drive and ambition?

Xue Mian frowned. “Grandpa, I heard something happened at Su Min’s house, and I just wanted to go check on her.”

“And what good would that do? Can you help? You’re still a child yourself, you need our help just to get by—what ability do you have to help others? You’d just add to the mess. If someday you’re capable, I won’t say a word about how you want to help. But right now, no.”

Grandpa Xue was a man of strong principles.

Grandma Xue asked, “Something happened? Wasn’t everything still fine yesterday?”

“I heard their shop was broken into.”

Just then, Xue Nian came over with hot tea for the elderly couple. Hearing this, she said, “That shouldn’t be a big problem. As long as they reported it, the police can help recover the stolen items.”

Truthfully, she liked Su Min too—she was a good girl. But her nephew was still too young. She didn’t want him falling too deep into this. If he veered off track because of it, that would be a shame.

Seeing that Xue Mian was looking more and more upset, Zhao Xue quickly grabbed him by the arm and pulled him into his room.

“I think you should listen to your grandparents. At your age, it’s not the time to be putting too much thought into this. If you help Su Min too much now, are you hoping she’ll be with you in the future because she feels indebted, or because she truly likes you?”

“Of course because she likes me,” Xue Mian answered without thinking.

As soon as he spoke, he realized he had let his feelings slip. His face turned even redder.

Zhao Xue didn’t laugh this time. Instead, he said seriously, “Exactly. But if you help her too much, she might only remember the things you’ve done for her. If you pursue her later, she might feel bad turning you down because of those favors. But what kind of relationship would that be?”

Hearing Zhao Xue’s reasoning, Xue Mian thought about it from Su Min’s perspective. If he were in her shoes, he wouldn’t feel good about it either. That kind of affection wouldn’t be real.

He did like Su Min, but he didn’t want her to agree to be with him just out of gratitude.

He sat heavily on the edge of the bed and let out a deep sigh.

Su Min, meanwhile, had no idea Xue Mian had been going through such an intense inner struggle for her sake.

At that moment, she was standing in her shop, fuming with anger.

The shop door had been pried open from the outside, likely during the night when no one was around to see anything. Inside, many items had been smashed, and the place was a mess. Strangely, though, nothing seemed to be missing.

After the police came to collect evidence, Su Changrong and Sun Qiufang began cleaning up the place. Workers who lived nearby and heard about the incident came over to help. Su Changrong made sure to pay them overtime.

Su Min was eager to find out who had done this, but she also knew this wasn’t something that could be rushed. She helped clean the shop while thinking to herself how useful it would be to have security cameras—every snake, ghost, and monster would be caught on film.

By nightfall, the store was mostly cleaned up.

Once Sun Qiufang sent the workers home, she and Su Changrong locked up the store.

“Do you think someone will come back to cause more trouble?” Sun Qiufang asked.

“The police said they’ll notify the patrol units to keep an eye on this area tonight,” Su Changrong replied with a sigh. “But this isn’t a long-term solution. We have to catch whoever is behind this.”

“So what do we do?” Sun Qiufang asked worriedly.

Back in the county town, everything had been fine. Why did things go so wrong as soon as they moved to the city?

Su Min pursed her lips and thought for a while before suddenly saying, “I have an idea to catch them.” This time, she was determined to get serious and catch the culprits.

The police had too many cases to handle—they couldn’t keep watch over their store forever. Even if they kept an eye on it for a while, it only meant the culprits would lie low for a bit. Once the police left, who’s to say they wouldn’t come back?

If they wanted to catch the perpetrators, someone had to keep watch long-term.

So Su Min suggested hiring two people to take shifts and secretly watch the shop until the culprits were caught.

That way, if anything happened, someone would be there to call the police immediately. Even if they only caught one of the people, they could use that to trace the mastermind behind everything.

Su Changrong and Sun Qiufang had been worrying about exactly this. Hearing Su Min’s plan, they immediately agreed. No matter what, they had to be more cautious from now on.

Spending a bit of money didn’t matter. What mattered was catching those responsible.

The next day, Su Changrong started looking for people to watch the shop.

Even though the city’s economy was better than the county town’s, there were still plenty of locals looking for jobs. Under the pretense of hiring store clerks, he hired two people and privately told them the real job. He instructed them to watch the store from the outside. To the rest of the staff, he just said the new hires weren’t a good fit. No one suspected anything. Since the shop had been having problems, the boss had grown more cautious—understandably so.

Everyone was worried. If the shop kept having problems and the boss decided to shut it down, they’d all be out of work. Secretly, they cursed whoever had caused the trouble.

But oddly enough, after that last incident, everything had been quiet for over a week.

Su Min was swamped—between getting ready for school and preparing to stock new inventory for the shop.

Sun Yan had come to the city with the delivery truck from Sanye.

After helping move the clothes into the shop, she finally relaxed. She took a sip of water and rested for a bit before nervously looking at Su Min, who was busy sorting the clothes.

“Minzi, I have something to tell you.”

Su Min looked up, sensing her serious tone. “What is it?”

“You know I went to the factory this morning to wait for the truck, right? Guess what I saw?”

“What?”

Sun Yan looked stunned. “I saw a woman go into the factory. She looked really familiar. At first, I couldn’t place her, but once I got on the truck, I realized—she looks exactly like the woman who came and made a scene at our shop that first time!”

“Sun Yan, are you serious?” Liao Zhaodi was just as shocked.

“I’m great at recognizing faces. If someone leaves a strong impression, I never forget them. That woman smashed our shop—I’d definitely recognize her.”

Hearing this, Su Min fell into silence.

If that woman really was the one who wrecked her shop, why would she show up at Sanye? Could the factory be involved in the shop attack? Or was she being used to set someone up?

Su Min had no idea what to think anymore.

She’d interacted with Factory Director Ye many times and couldn’t believe he’d be behind this. But if not him, then who? Could it really be Li Hua?

But what would be the point of all this?

Su Min rubbed her forehead and asked Sun Yan, “Did that woman wear a factory uniform?”

“No, not the uniform. But it looked like she went in—no one stopped her.”

That meant she was familiar with someone inside.

Su Min figured that regardless of who was behind this, if that woman had access to Sanye, then the factory had to be involved somehow. Still, Sun Yan had only caught a quick glimpse—there was no solid evidence. Going there now wouldn’t help much. Worse, they might tip someone off.

“Sun Yan, how about this—let’s go back to Sanye in the county tomorrow. You come with me, and we’ll walk around the factory. See if you can spot her again.”

“Alright. If I see her, I’ll definitely recognize her.”

Liao Zhaodi looked worried. “Minzi, what if something happens? Shouldn’t we go to the police?”

Sun Yan said, “What’s the point? Without evidence, the police can’t just go in and search a factory. If that worked, our shop wouldn’t have been vandalized so many times. Just thinking about it makes me mad.”

That evening at home, Su Min told Su Changrong and Sun Qiufang everything.

She suspected that all the attacks on their shop came from the same mastermind. Otherwise, it couldn’t be such a coincidence—someone messing with their family again and again.