She smiled silently, got up, and went to open the door.
"Are you awake?" Liu Daqiang asked from the doorway.
"Reiko is still sleeping."
"You can't sleep anymore, or you won't be able to sleep tonight," Liu Daqiang reminded him.
"Okay, I'll go call her. Are you hungry? Are you going to eat at a restaurant or go out for a walk?" Liu Zi asked.
Liu Daqiang rubbed his stomach. He had eaten lunch on the plane, which looked good but was useless. He was starving by now.
"Let's eat at a restaurant! Going out will give us away; I need to keep this a secret."
Liu Daqiang already knows how much it costs to stay at this hotel. After paying such a high price, it would be a waste to let the information slip through because of a meal.
"Okay, the chef at this hotel makes pretty good Anshi cuisine. Let's go downstairs and order a few dishes, then we can do some sightseeing. I heard there's a sauna downstairs, we can try it out." Liu Zi vaguely remembered the hotel manager's introduction when she first arrived.
"That's really great! Your mom and the others have never been to a sauna before. Let's try it together." Liu Daqiang was pleasantly surprised.
"Okay, I'll wake everyone up. Let's eat first, then go to the sauna." Liu Zi smiled and knocked on the door next door.
Aunt Zhang and Qiqi were already awake. Hearing the knock on the door, Qiqi happily ran out.
"Mom, where's my sister?"
"My sister is still sleeping."
"Why did you leave me alone at Grandma's? I'll be sad if I don't see my sister and you." Qiqi pouted.
"I'm sorry, Mom will remember. Next time I'll definitely bring you and your sister together." Liu Zi picked up her daughter.
"Okay, I forgive you. Put me down now, I'm going to find my sister." Qiqi twisted her body, trying to get down.
"Okay, go wake up your sister, we need to go eat."
"good!"
The little girl, having received her mission, rushed into Liu Zi's room, jumped onto the bed, and pinned Ling Zi down.
Before long, the room was filled with the laughter and chatter of the two sisters.
After everyone had settled in, Liu Zi led them downstairs.
The hotel's restaurant is nicely decorated and quite well-known locally.
Liu Zi booked a private room, so the family could have a quiet meal together.
Liu Daqiang ordered the dishes, recommending several classic Northwest dishes he had tried before. Everyone enjoyed the meal.
However, Liu Zi encountered an unexpected situation: she ran into an officer who had appeared with Wang Haiwen before. He was dressed in civilian clothes, and Liu Zi didn't recognize him at first.
It was the other party who took the initiative to greet her. Afraid of being exposed, Liu Zi quickly said that she had an important client to entertain and immediately returned to the private room.
However, Liu Zi forgot whose territory this was. The officer was a local, and his family was quite well-known in the area. He made two phone calls and found out who Liu Zi was inviting.
One man, two women, and two children were staying together in the hotel upstairs.
Knowing that this was someone his superior cared about, the officer, fearing something unexpected might happen, hung up the phone directly at Wang Haiwen's home.
Wang Haiwen thanked her, hung up the phone, and leaned back on the sofa thoughtfully, not even noticing when his wife came over to pat him.
"What are you thinking about? Who called?" Aunt Wang asked, putting down the fruit plate.
"Xiao Shang told me something."
"Is there something important that needs to be done so late at night?"
Aunt Wang had lived in the military region for most of her life and knew that soldiers sometimes had to leave in the middle of the night for an emergency mission. It was only after Wang Haiwen was transferred to the military region's logistics department that such situations became much less frequent.
"He said he saw Zizi having dinner at the Lanshan Hotel. She looked a little nervous, as if she was afraid of being seen by him." Wang Haiwen had no doubt about Xiao Shang's observation. This kid used to be in the front-line troops, but he was injured, and his family used their connections to transfer him to the propaganda department.
"Zizi?"
"Has something happened? Why don't you call Daqiang and ask?" Aunt Wang was also a little anxious. She used to be very close to Xu Mei and knew that the Liu family only had this one daughter, and they cherished her dearly!
"Wait a little longer. I feel like there's something strange about this. That girl called me a couple of days ago and asked me to contact some of my comrades so we could get together tomorrow night!" Wang Haiwen felt like there were some things he hadn't figured out.
"Could it be Daqiang and Xu Mei who have come?" Aunt Wang suddenly grabbed Wang Haiwen's arm tightly.
Wang Haiwen was also stirred, but he immediately shook his head and denied it.
"Impossible! That kid called me last night, how could he be in Anshi today? Impossible!"
"That's true. It takes at least two days and one night by train from Beijing to Anshi, so it's really unlikely. Do you think they might have come by plane?"
"What plane? Old Liu is practically retired now, how could he still have that kind of power?" Wang Haiwen shook his head.
"I heard that private individuals can now buy and sell plane tickets. What if they buy their own tickets?" Aunt Wang still felt that the Liu family had come to Anshi.
"With Daqiang's stinginess, he'd rather split a dollar into several pieces than spend it on a plane ticket. It would be better to kill him than make him spend money on a plane ticket." Wang Haiwen still knew his old comrade-in-arms well.
However, they forgot about Liu Zi, who was a problem. Liu Daqiang had no choice but to fly to Anshi because he couldn't do anything about his daughter and didn't want to waste money.
"Daqiang has been working in Beijing for many years, unlike you. Maybe he's made it big now!" Aunt Wang patted Wang Haiwen on the shoulder; this man was too direct.
"Hehe, haven't you heard the saying 'It's easier to change mountains and rivers than to change one's nature'? If Anshi were closer, like Tianjin to Beijing, Daqiang might have dared to walk there back then to save money." Wang Haiwen had a deep understanding of this.
"Don't say that, Daqiang is quite generous to Xu Mei!" Aunt Wang added a couple of words to Liu Daqiang's defense.
"If he's not generous to his wife, who would want to be with him? He'll be a bachelor for life!" Wang Haiwen complained.
The Wang couple basically told Wang Haiwen about Liu Daqiang's family's whereabouts, but Wang Haiwen himself didn't believe it. The phone call was made by Liu Daqiang to confuse the "enemy," but it turned out to be surprisingly effective.
Wang Haiwen knows Liu Daqiang well, and Liu Daqiang is equally fond of Wang Haiwen.
"That old man definitely has suspicions, but he's too arrogant. Before I came, I told Xiao Wang that if he called me, he should say I went to buy materials for my daughter's house and just left."
"I'm sure I can fool him, hehehehe~" Liu Daqiang couldn't contain his joy at the thought of beating his old comrade-in-arms.
"What a mess! You've turned a perfectly good reunion of old comrades into something like a secret rendezvous between underground party members," Xu Mei complained. She was so frustrated that she couldn't contact her sisters-in-law anymore.
"They gave me a fright when they came to Beijing last time. I thought it was just Haiwen, but six of them showed up in the end, and they swindled me out of a lot of my pocket money." Liu Daqiang wiped the tears from his head.
"This time I'm paying the bill, so I can't cheat your comrades!" Liu Zi said, both amused and exasperated. Had her father forgotten about this?
Liu Daqiang was taken aback, then waved his hand and said, "That's not important!"
Liu Zi was speechless. Anyway, her dad was really into this and was trying to fool nine people with one person.
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