Following Chen Hede's advice, Xu Zhuohua decided to raise his own group of people and take over the entire arms business, thus completely separating the Dongxing South Line from the arms trade.
However, finding someone is secondary; the main thing is who will lead this team. It must be someone who has no connection with the Xu family or Cheng Muyun.
Chen Hede recommended apricot blossoms.
Xu Zhuohua hesitated because Xinghua was a woman, and she was worried that Xinghua would not be able to win people's hearts.
She admitted that she was suspected of being biased, but this concern was definitely not because Xu Zhuohua favored boys over girls.
But in this era, she had to make this choice.
It was Chen Hede who persuaded Xu Zhuohua.
“Xinghua has always been in charge of the munitions transportation on the east-south route in my place. She has experience and ability. We can’t deny her this opportunity just because she is a woman.”
Xu Zhuohua suddenly straightened her back, like a cat whose tail had been stepped on, and stared at Chen Hede opposite her with wide almond eyes: "I would never be sexist!"
Her fingertips unconsciously traced the rim of the teacup, and her cunning eyes looked over. "You put Xinghua next to me, you wouldn't be trying to use her to spy on me, would you?"
Chen Hede's Adam's apple bobbed, and he coughed lightly twice, his fingertips unconsciously brushing against the slightly hot tip of his nose.
He said, "Didn't you and Xinghua grow up together? You should know her temperament better than anyone else. In her heart, you are second to none."
Xu Zhuohua eventually agreed.
Chen Hede left that evening after loading the goods, as if he had only come to see Xu Zhuohua briefly.
They left in a hurry, as if they had never been there at all.
Xinghua returned after seeing Chen Hede's group off, and Xu Zhuohua waited for her until late at night.
Xu Zhuohua didn't sleep, so Zhang Qi naturally stayed up with her.
Xu Zhuohua tried to persuade Zhang Qi to go to sleep, but Zhang Qi didn't say a word and silently stayed by her side.
Xu Zhuohua felt that having Zhang Qi follow him was a waste of his abilities, after all, he was an adjutant in the army, in charge of a hundred or so people, but now he was being his bodyguard.
Unfortunately, Zhang Qi hardly spoke, and Xu Zhuohua had nowhere to express her deep guilt.
The midnight moonlight, shrouded in a thin mist, drifted over the dark tiles. Xinghua quietly pushed open the half-closed corner door, the hinges making a soft "creak" sound. As she walked through the corridor, the lanterns under the corridor swayed in the wind, casting her shadow long and short.
The dim candlelight shone through the windows of the main hall, like a piece of dried tangerine peel soaking in strong tea.
As Xinghua tiptoed across the threshold, she suddenly caught sight of Xu Zhuohua slumped beside the octagonal table.
The candlelight cast her profile on the screen, and she nodded sleepily like a chick pecking at rice, while the corners of the account book on the table were pressed down.
Zhang Qi reached out and pushed Xu Zhuohua's shoulder, but the force made her fall forward.
Just as she was about to hit the corner of the table, Zhang Qi quickly bent his arm and placed it across the edge of the table, his palm barely brushing against Xu Zhuohua's temple.
Xinghua rushed over in three steps, her icy fingers gripping Xu Zhuohua's wrist tightly. Zhang Qi pulled his arm back as if he had been electrocuted, his knuckles turning white from the grip.
"Apricot blossoms?" Xu Zhuohua's eyelashes trembled slightly, and her hazy gaze swept over the girl's red eyes. Suddenly, she laughed out loud.
"When did your skills become so amazing?"
Xinghua smiled awkwardly, "Miss, I just often do morning exercises with Deputy Director Chen's men, and I also spend a lot of time with the experts in the transportation team. That's how it is."
The flickering candlelight shattered into starlight in Xu Zhuohua's eyes. She slowly leaned closer, carefully examining the person in front of her in the dim light.
The girl had shed her former naivety, and small shadows were cast on the hollows of her cheeks. Her body, wrapped in a high-necked dress, was much thinner than she remembered, but when she raised her hand to smooth her hair, the faint muscle lines of her forearms were revealed, like a soft sword drawn from its sheath, concealing its sharpness.
Those smooth curves, wrapped in dark blue wool, rose and fell with her breath, creating a more breathtaking effect than the graceful movements she used to make when embroidering.
In a daze, Xu Zhuohua belatedly realized that the little girl who always thought about food had quietly transformed over the years.
Xinghua's upright posture, the short and crisp tone of her voice, and even the taut lines of her neck when she lowered her head, were completely different from the timid maid she remembered.
“Xinghua, you’re completely different now than before.” Xu Zhuohua suddenly chuckled. “You’re like a female warrior ready to go to the battlefield at any time.”
Startled, Xinghua instinctively took a half step back, and then loosened her grip on Xu Zhuohua's hand as if she had been electrocuted.
As she lowered her eyes, the newly permed curls behind her ears brushed against her reddened ear tips. "Miss is joking."
Xu Zhuohua suddenly grabbed the other's slightly cool wrist, and the candlelight ignited in her eyes: "Xinghua, I have a question for you."
She paused for a moment and then said, "If I asked you to come back and be my servant now...would you be willing?"
Xinghua's eyelashes trembled violently, and it felt as if a piece of scalding hot coal was stuck in her throat. Several times she opened her mouth, but could only utter broken breaths.
Her nails dug deeply into her palms; she didn't want to do it.
Zhuohua's fingertips, warm with heat, gently loosened her clenched, pale fist.
The candlelight cast their overlapping shadows onto the mottled wallpaper. "Look," she said, her thumb tracing the calluses on Xinghua's hand, marks left from holding a gun.
"The little girl who was afraid of even a cockroach back then can now dismantle a gun with her bare hands."
"See, doesn't this show that you've changed? You used to never want to leave me, but now you've seen the outside world and have more choices. My choices aren't worth stopping for, are they?"
Xinghua was stunned, tears welling up in her eyes. She now understood what Xu Zhuohua had said back then.
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