"Yu Ping, is there anything I can help you with?"

Jiang Yuping pulled her hands out of the basin and looked at Qiu Jingwen.

"Roll up my sleeves so they don't get flour on them."

After saying that, she stared into her husband's eyes.

"What did you say to Qiu Shui?"

Qiu Jingwen helped his wife roll up her sleeves while responding to her.

"He didn't say anything, just asked Qiu Shui where Qiu Shou and Qiu Chan, the brother and sister, had gone."

Jiang Yuping withdrew her hand and continued kneading the dough. She did not discuss her children's affairs, but stared at Qiu Jingwen with a strange look.

Qiu Jingwen deduced from his wife's gaze that she must want to know what he meant by asking how much money was in the family savings account that afternoon.

"Hey, Yuping, why are you looking at me like that, like you don't know me?"

“Jingwen, since last night, I really feel like you’re a stranger, like you’ve become a different person. We’ve been married for over twenty years.”

"Why do you say that? What about me makes you feel unfamiliar?"

"Don't you know your own limits? Tell me, what do you want to do if you come to my clinic this afternoon and ask me how much money I have at home?"

"Yuping, is our family's money in a current account or a fixed deposit?"

"Tell me first, what do you need the money for?"

"Tell me first, is it a current account or a fixed-term account?"

"There are living terms and death terms."

"How much is in your current account?"

"How many do you want?"

"Hmm, do you have three-three-three thousand?"

"How much? Three thousand?!"

Jiang Yuping immediately stopped what she was doing and stared at her husband's eyes in horror.

Three thousand yuan was an astronomical sum for people in that era, even though they were both employees of the Hongqi Factory.

Qiu Jingwen did not respond.

He couldn't very well tell his wife the truth: he was a secret agent. Now his superior, Liu Han, had found him and was forcing him to hand over three thousand yuan under the pretext of exposing his secret agent identity.

Qiu Jingwen didn't want to tell his wife the truth until he had thought of other solutions, otherwise how could she accept it?

Thinking of all this, he looked at Jiang Yuping and said:

"Never mind, you make the pancakes first. I have to go out after dinner. We can talk slowly when I get back tonight."

Jiang Yuping stared at Qiu Jingwen in surprise again.

"What, you're going out tonight?"

"Okay, go out."

"Where are you going? What are you going to do?"

As Jiang Yuping asked the question, her inner tension began to surge again.