Chapter 13 All of Salty Fish's efforts are for "deliciousness" and "..."

"Think about it, you're back?"

"Yes, I just ran into my uncle downstairs."

Qin Xiangxiang slipped into her parents' room, closed the door, and drew the curtains. She whispered to Zhou Aodong, "Mom, what were you doing just now?"

"nothing."

"Nothing? My uncle was so scared he peed his pants just now, something really bad must have happened."

Zhou Aodong was stunned: "You...you peed?"

"Yeah, he looks like he's caught doing something wrong. There's even a puddle of urine at the entrance of the building downstairs. Tomorrow, when that old man from northern Jiangsu downstairs gets up, he'll definitely start yelling at us." Qin Xiangxiang completely ignored her "divine intervention" earlier and was convinced that her uncle was indeed acting out of guilt.

"He really peed?" Qin Wutong was surprised. His brother-in-law was a teacher at a school and usually put on airs. He never expected this.

"Mom, did Uncle bring something shady to our house?"

"Don't talk nonsense."

"Can those things harm people? In the past few years, how many people were sent to farms? The family that used to live next door to us, her husband was a doctor who had studied abroad, and it has been four years since he returned to the hospital. He is now just skin and bones, and his family can't hold their heads up every day."

"The initial claim was that he was a Western-worshipper..."

Qin Xiangxiang lay down on the ground as if she were a bound spirit. She rolled over and said stubbornly, "If you don't explain things clearly, I'm not leaving this room."

This concerned the fate of their entire family, so Qin Xiangxiang insisted on finding the letter in the room and destroying it.

"You—" Zhou Aodong was furious with her. This beautiful young woman was rolling around on the ground and acting like a spoiled brat.

Qin Xiangxiang was startled by her mother's expression. Afraid of being beaten, she rolled on the floor like a spring roll until she reached under the bed, where she peeked out while holding onto the bedpost.

"If you don't tell me, I'll stay under the bed all night." Qin Xiangxiang was exhausted with her eyes closed. She yawned, thinking that she could just take a nap first and then give the house a thorough cleaning after everyone left tomorrow.

She was half asleep, thinking about it. Unfortunately, it was a bit cold under the bed. Qin Xiangxiang raised her hand to touch it, but found that the texture was wrong. Usually, there were old newspapers stuck under the bed board, but when she touched it, it felt like a raised area shaped like an envelope.

Qin Xiangxiang opened her eyes and took a closer look. Several stacks of envelopes were stuck under the bed board. She got them without any effort.

Wow! A mouse fell into the rice jar!

She immediately started tearing open the tape like a little mouse, clutching all the envelopes to her chest. Without going outside, she violently ripped them open under the bed, making a creaking sound, and turned on her flashlight to read the contents.

"Qin Xiangxiang, come out here right now!"

Afraid of being heard downstairs, Zhou Aodong and his wife dared not speak loudly or make any noise, urging Qin Xiangxiang to come out from under the bed, but she simply wouldn't listen.

Qin Xiangxiang tore open all the envelopes and read them with great interest.

Zhou Aodong had a dark expression, while Qin Wutong, wearing a Zhongshan suit and with a lamp lit, was reading a newspaper in the dark.

Suddenly a gust of wind blew in through the window, and a dark figure rolled out from under the bed. He hurriedly opened the door and ran away.

Zhou Aodong chased after him, and with a "bang," the wooden door in front of him slammed shut without mercy and locked with a click-clack sound.

Zhou Aodong: "..." Whose kid is this?

When she returned to her room, she found the area under the bed covered with envelopes, resembling rice sacks that had been gnawed by mice.

Qin Xiangxiang stuffed all the envelopes into her clothes and took them back to her room. She locked the door and waited for Zhou Aodong to leave. She quietly picked up the thermos on the desk. The water in the thermos was still warm; she had originally saved it to wash her face tomorrow.

That's perfect.

A washcloth hung on the washbasin stand, and a round enamel basin with a koi fish design was stuck in a groove. Qin Xiangxiang threw all the letters into the basin and poured water from the thermos over them.

The best way to destroy letters is, of course, to burn them, but unfortunately, that's not an option. Burning them at night would produce smoke, which might be smelled by others. But if you pour hot water on them, the writing will dissolve by the next morning, and all the papers will stick together, making it impossible for even a god to know what's inside.

After tearing it into small pieces, you can throw it away anywhere, or burn it in a charcoal brazier.

When the water cooled down, Qin Xiangxiang crumpled all the paper into pieces. She then rolled the paper scraps into a large pancake, like dough, and placed it on the windowsill to dry.

Because she was dirty, Qin Xiang didn't want to go to bed. Instead, she took a winter coat from the closet and wrapped it around herself on the floor, where she slept soundly all night.

The next day, when she woke up, her parents were not there. The flatbread that had been drying on the windowsill had hardened into a lump. Qin Xiangxiang broke it into pieces into crumbs, and now it was completely ruined. She put it in an oil paper bag, cracked in two eggs, kneaded it into a ball, and rode her bicycle to a stinky ditch or garbage pit to throw it away.

Putting aside the possibility of it being found, even if it is, the smell of rotten eggs will disgust me to death.

These letters disappeared without a trace.

Having worked most of the night, Qin Xiang ate a hasty breakfast, slept until 2 a.m., got up and cooked herself some egg noodles, then rushed to the factory workshop. She didn't go back that night, but the Qin family home was bustling with activity.

Her parents were investigated, and their home was thoroughly searched. The committee found nothing else, but they did find Zhou Aodong's former model worker medal and the honors she had earned at the factory over the years.

The investigators asked the neighbors, "Have you smelled any strange burning smell these past few days?"

"No."

“We burn gas here, nobody burns paper.”

...

A few hours later, the captain, having finished his search and investigation, shook hands with Zhou Aodong and his wife to say goodbye.

"Comrade Zhou, you are a good comrade!"

Zhou Aodong smiled as she saw the person off. After the captain left, her expression turned serious. Her younger brother had secretly delivered a letter to her the night before, saying that he had been reported for having connections with overseas entities and that she should keep the letter hidden to avoid trouble.

Zhou Aodong immediately said to destroy the letters, but his younger brother Zhou Wenbin stopped him, saying that they were his parents' thoughts of their aunt and should be kept.

These searchers were very "shrewd," thoroughly searching every nook and cranny, from newspapers pasted on the walls to bed boards, as if they were looking for something. Fortunately, they found nothing.

Did your daughter take all the letters?

After finishing her night shift, Qin Xiangxiang didn't get home until eight or nine in the morning. Zhou Aodong was waiting for her at home, pulled her into the house, and asked her, "Where are your things?"

“I crushed them all and threw them away. The only things I found were crumbs. I even added egg liquid to them.”

Zhou Aodong was both annoyed and amused: "You're quite the shrewd one."

"Mom, did someone come to investigate yesterday?"

Zhou Aodong nodded.

“My uncle wants to harm our family.”

Zhou Aodong shook his head: "Don't talk nonsense."

“We just delivered the goods and someone came to search us… It must have been my uncle who tipped us off and pinned everything on you, ruining our whole family.”

When their misdeeds are exposed, they'll definitely need to find a scapegoat. They'll pin it on the eldest sister's family. At most, they'll just get "educated and sent to a farm for a few years." The eldest sister and her husband only have one "daughter," so they don't have any burdens. What a perfect scapegoat!

But her mother fell ill and died on the farm!

"Mom, I don't care what their intentions are. You are my own mother, and I can't bear to see you suffer even a little bit. Please never accept these harmful things again in the future."

Hearing her daughter's words, Zhou Aodong's heart softened. "Think about it, I've been sorry for you all these years. Your father supports the family, and I always try to favor the family, making you the only one who suffers."

After thinking it over, Zhou Aodong understood. She felt heartbroken. How much had she sacrificed for the Zhou family over the years? She had strived to become a model worker and changed her status to that of a factory worker. Her brother's teaching position was also something she had managed to get through connections.

Over the years, she felt that although she was a woman and the eldest in her family, she also supported the Zhou family like a strong and upright man.

But to the Zhou family, she was already a married daughter, someone they could discard at any time.

But she is not only the eldest sister in the family, she is also the mother of her only daughter, and she can naturally distinguish between close and distant relatives.

"Think about it, I won't get involved in your uncle's affairs anymore. I've seen all your hard work these past few days. Mom will definitely become the factory manager's assistant, and in the future, I'll strive to become the factory manager."

Qin Xiangxiang laughed: "Mom, that's right!"

“Your mom is very pleased that you are ambitious. Master Li said that if you keep working hard, you can be rated as excellent and advanced at the end of the year. She wants to give you the title of outstanding female worker. She said you are working very hard to show your abilities.”

“When she praised you, I suddenly felt that you had grown up.”

"You have your own ideas and the drive to strive to be an advanced individual."

Qin Xiangxiang: "??????"

No, no, no, no... That's absolutely not what I meant.

She was a lazy, good-for-nothing slacker with no dreams; there was not a trace of ambition or drive in her.

All the effort is for "delicious food" and "laziness".

"Mom, don't you know what kind of person your daughter is? You promised to transfer me to a different job and give me a long-day shift."

"Working in the workshop, especially the night shift, is so hard. I can't take it anymore."

"If you work hard to become the factory manager's assistant and eventually become the factory manager, everything our daughter has will depend on you."

Qin Xiangxiang resorted to any means necessary to get her mother to be affectionate.

“I can definitely transfer you to a different position, but—” Zhou Aodong told her softly, “If I become the assistant factory manager this year and can’t transfer you to a different position immediately, it will have a bad influence. Wait another year or two, and I promise you, I will transfer you within three years.”

Qin Xiangxiang's smile froze.

She couldn't smile.

"Think about it, two or three years will pass in the blink of an eye. If you are selected as an outstanding female worker at the end of the year, there will be an easier position waiting for you in the future." Zhou Aodong tempted Qin Xiangxiang, still unwilling to give up her ambition to make her daughter a cadre.

Only by working hard and enduring hardship in the workshop can one have the opportunity to be elected as a cadre. Once one has cadre status, it becomes easier to transfer within the factory, and others cannot gossip about it; on the contrary, it becomes a good story.

For Zhou Aodong, his son-in-law was a military officer and a cadre. No matter how high his rank was, it was not a pity that his daughter divorced him. The most important thing was that his daughter wanted to become a cadre.

“Listen to your mother. I’ve been through this before. Three years will pass quickly. Just hang in there, it’ll be over soon.”

Three years?

Qin Xiang, the salted fish, almost fainted.