"I never hid the fact that I was married. Why are you so shocked now?" Jie Jingchen raised an eyebrow. Given Jie Jingjue's reaction, you'd think he was some kind of scoundrel.
"That's not... I..." Jie Jingjue scratched his head in a fluster. 'This is bad,' he thought. His fourth brother had suddenly brought his wife home without any prior notice, and their parents had arranged a blind date for him at the house.
'His wife and the blind date... meeting. Just the thought of it was excruciatingly awkward.'
Qin Mei glanced at Jie Jingjue, then tilted her head up to gaze at Jie Jingchen. "And he is?"
"Jie Jingjue, my fifth brother. You can just call him Xiao Wu," Jie Jingchen introduced simply.
"Hello," Qin Mei offered. 'She had to admire the fertility of Jie Jingchen's parents,' she thought. 'Then again, birth rates in this era were incredibly high. As long as a family didn't have reproductive issues, every household had lots of children.'
'The mortality rate was also high. Some families had several, even more than ten, but only a few would actually survive to adulthood.'
"Sister-in-law," Jie Jingjue said, forcing an awkward smile.
Qin Mei was puzzled. 'Why is he so awkward around me?'
"Fourth Brother, Sister-in-law, the car's parked outside." Jie Jingjue picked up their bags and led the way.
Qin Mei's head felt groggy. Leaning on Jie Jingchen for support, she followed along, 'wondering how they were all going to get on the vehicle. A single bicycle... could it possibly fit the three of them?'
It wasn't until she followed Jie Jingjue to a sedan that Qin Mei's jaw dropped. 'Just what are the Jie Family's circumstances?' she wondered.
'In this day and age, even owning a bicycle was a luxury, let alone a private car.'
"Jie Jingchen." Qin Mei stared at him, her expression complex. 'In these sensitive times, being too well-off wasn't necessarily a good thing.'
"It's the car from my dad's factory." Jie Jingchen could easily read the look in her eyes, and he was surprised by her astuteness and awareness.
Qin Mei breathed a sigh of relief, but asked again just to be sure, "You're positive it's not a privately-owned car?"
"What are you thinking about?" Jie Jingchen flicked her lightly on the forehead with his finger.
He opened the car door and waited for Qin Mei to get in. Once she was sure it wasn't a private car, Qin Mei finally felt at ease and helped Jie Jingchen into the vehicle.
"Dad only lent me the factory car to pick you up because you were injured," Jie Jingjue complained. "Normally, he treasures this car like it's his own wife; he won't let anyone even touch it."
Qin Mei smiled but said nothing. 'A man's car and his wife are two things you never lend out. Can't argue with that logic.'
"What factory does your dad work at?" Qin Mei asked casually.
"The State-Owned Machinery Factory," Jie Jingjue replied.
Qin Mei's expression faltered for a second. 'The State-Owned Machinery Factory...' She recalled Jie Jingling saying that after Jie Jingchen left the service, he was supposed to be assigned a job there. She shot him a meaningful, teasing glance. "With father and son united, you're bound to make the factory bigger and better than ever."
Jie Jingchen remained silent.
"HAHAHA." Jie Jingjue burst out laughing. As he drove, he said, "Sister-in-law, if Dad heard you say that, he'd be laughing in his sleep."
"Is it really that big a deal?" Qin Mei asked, skeptical. When she saw Jie Jingjue nodding his head like a bobblehead, she asked, "What's your dad's position?"
"Factory Director," Jie Jingjue replied.
Qin Mei was speechless.
'A rich kid. He's a bona fide rich kid.'
"If your family is so well-off, why did your sister marry a man in the countryside? And so far from home, too," Qin Mei asked curiously. 'Even though Mr. Sun is the village head, she truly felt the Sun Family was marrying up and that Sun Debao was not good enough for Jie Jingling.'
"My sister was a sent-down youth," Jie Jingjue said, as if it were nothing.
Qin Mei fell silent.
'Right. She'd completely forgotten about the status of sent-down youth in this era. For the young women sent to the countryside, their fates were usually one of three things: marry a local, giving up all hope of returning to the city; seize a rare opportunity to go back; or hold on until the policy changed and they were allowed to return home.'
'Unfortunately, how could the sent-down youth of today know that a policy allowing them to return would eventually come if they just held on? They could only rack their brains and fight, both openly and in secret, for the pitifully few available spots, some even resorting to desperate measures.'
「Shijiu City, Liushu Alley, Courtyard No. 3.」
Qin Mei was shocked, then stunned. Jie Jingchen's home was a proper courtyard house, not one of the crowded multi-family compounds.
'Courtyard houses weren't worth much in this era, but in the twenty-first century, they were worth a fortune.'
"Jie Jingchen, are you sure this is your home?" Qin Mei asked, finding it hard to believe.
"Let's go." With one hand on his lower back and the other holding Qin Mei's, Jie Jingchen led her inside.
Jie Jingjue slung Jie Jingchen's bag over his shoulder, carried Qin Mei's luggage in his hand, and hurried past the couple, shouting, "Mom, Dad! I'm back with Fourth Brother and his wife!"
He deliberately stressed the words "his wife," as a reminder to the people inside.
Before the words were even out of Jie Jingjue's mouth, a figure shot out of the house like a bolt of lightning. Qin Mei barely had time to react before she was shoved aside forcefully. She stumbled, and when she looked back, she saw Jie Jingchen locked in a tight embrace with the person.
The woman wore a simple but elegant qipao. She was stylishly dressed, with stunning features and a graceful air—a classic, refined beauty.
Qin Mei stood to the side, studying the woman carefully. She looked to be around thirty, and her facial features were very similar to Jie Jingchen's. 'She must be another one of his sisters,' Qin Mei guessed.
'Probably from living in the city, she's taken excellent care of herself. She looks much younger than Jie Jingling, who lives in the countryside.'
Qin Mei lamented internally, 'Rural life is like a butcher's knife, with every cut hastening old age.'
"My son, where are you hurt? Is it serious? Let me see!" The woman let go of Jie Jingchen, her eyes red and brimming with worry. "And your father... honestly. You'd only been at the factory for a few days and he sent you on a business trip to Shanghai! I'm so angry. Thank heavens your injury isn't severe. If you had been badly hurt, I would never have forgiven him."
Jie Jingchen had only told Jie Jingling about his injury. It was only just before he was discharged from the hospital that he finally told his father, which was why his dad had let Jie Jingjue use the car to pick him up.
"Mom, don't worry. It's just a minor injury," Jie Jingchen said with a smile.
'Mom?' Qin Mei was dumbfounded. She felt as if she'd been struck by lightning.
'Did I mishear, or did he misspeak? No matter how you looked at her, this woman seemed like Jie Jingchen's sister, not his mother.'
'If she's Jie Jingchen's mother, then she must be Jie Jingling's mother, too. Is that even possible? She looks younger than Jie Jingling.'
'She wouldn't believe for a second that this was his birth mother. Stepmother, on the other hand, seemed much more plausible.'
"A minor injury is still an injury. Where is it? Let me take a look." Mrs. Xie was a doctor, and her professional instincts were taking over. She wouldn't be able to rest easy without examining him herself.
"It's not necessary, I'm really fine." Jie Jingchen didn't dare tell her the truth. 'If he told her he'd hurt his back, he was certain she would drag him straight to the hospital.'
"I'm a doctor," Mrs. Xie reminded him, already moving to lift his shirt.
"Mom, Mom, Mom!" Jie Jingchen hurriedly stopped her, grabbing both of her hands. "Mom, I was on a train for a whole day and night and barely ate a thing. I'm exhausted and starving right now."
"Are you sure you're okay?" Mrs. Xie still wasn't convinced; hunger and exhaustion were far less important than her son's health.