That afternoon, while Ouyang was eating crab roe noodles, he told Qin Huai about the conversation he had in the morning with Xu Tuqiang.
He recounted everything without adding any embellishments.
At that time, neither of them paid much attention; they knew the elderly folks loved to curry favor with Qin Huai. Because of this, they had a competition pact before, prohibiting malicious competition, such as secretly giving Qin Huai and his family expensive gifts.
Initially, the pact only prohibited giving gifts directly to Qin Huai. Later, the elders found another path, giving things to Qin Luo, Qin Congwen, and Zhao Rong. At first, it was fine, usually just fruit, snacks, and such, mainly to Qin Luo, pretending they happened to buy some snacks and then encountered Qin Luo to give them to her.
