Zhou Cheng escorted Xia Xiaolan to the door and told her about the situation with Xia Ziyu.

It wouldn’t be convenient for Xiaolan to investigate on her own. If she remained completely unaware of the situation, who knows when she might fall into Xia Ziyu’s schemes again!

“Wang Jianhua’s father has returned to the city and resumed his position, now working in the Higher Education Division of the Ministry of Education? Xia Ziyu brought her parents to Beijing, and she started a tutoring school with her classmates from Beijing Normal University?”

Xia Xiaolan mulled over the information Zhou Cheng had given her. In just a few short sentences, there was so much to process!

The Higher Education Division – didn’t they oversee all higher education institutions? She wondered if Huaqing University fell under their jurisdiction.

Xiaolan’s thoughts aligned with Zhou Cheng’s – Wang Jianhua’s father wouldn’t trouble a mere university student like her unless Xia Ziyu had somehow bewitched the Wang family, turning even Wang Jianhua’s father into her puppet, doing whatever she said. But that seemed impossible.

As for the tutoring schools – were there already large-scale tutoring centers in 1984? Xia Xiaolan had thought this industry only emerged in the 1990s and took off after the millennium. During her previous life’s college entrance examination period, she had never heard of such large-scale tutoring centers.

But this industry was certainly profitable – why else would tutoring institutions spring up all across the country? What particularly surprised Xiaolan was that, according to Zhou Cheng, Xia Ziyu had established her tutoring center before Wang Guangping’s return to the city. Wang Guangping couldn’t have known he would work in the Higher Education Division – so was this entirely Xia Ziyu’s initiative?

Xia Xiaolan found Xia Ziyu quite perplexing. She was intelligent enough to get into university, help her family run a restaurant, and even think of starting a tutoring business to make money. Yet her mind seemed to oscillate between brilliance and foolishness, jumping from one extreme to another – Xiaolan couldn’t make sense of it!

If Xia Ziyu had just focused on her development without interference, she could have been successful – she was already ahead of many others. So why had she needed to steal Wang Jianhua from ‘Xia Xiaolan’ back in the village?

Was it truly love at first sight, so deep that no cousin could compare to Wang Jianhua’s importance? Or had Xia Ziyu known about Wang Jianhua’s family background and gambled on their eventual return to prominence from the moment she took him? The odds seemed too slim!

“Was it possible to know a year in advance that Wang Guangping would return to the city?” Xiaolan asked Zhou Cheng uncertainly.

Zhou Cheng responded with absolute certainty that it was impossible.

“Even Wang Guangping himself couldn’t have predicted his return to the city. Nobody could have predicted it. These things were constantly changing – until the official documents came down, nothing was certain.”

Many others never returned to the city. The Wang family had been sent to different locations, and Wang Jianhua, as a sent-down youth, wouldn’t have been able to help if not for the fact that he’d gotten into a Beijing university, which gave him freedom of movement. The response Wang Jianhua would receive seeking help as a university student versus as a sent-down youth would be entirely different!

One could only say that Xia Ziyu might have had this ambitious hope, and her luck had paid off.

Hearing Xiaolan mention good luck, Zhou Cheng’s lips curved into a meaningful smile:

“Whether it’s good luck or not, that’s debatable.”

He didn’t want to openly criticize the Wang family in front of Xiaolan, though he admittedly held a bias against them. Still, he needed to maintain some discretion.

The Wang family’s ways were complicated – why else would others who were sent down with the Wang family have already returned to the city while Wang Guangping seemed forgotten? Those who follow the right path gain supporters, while those who don’t lose them – Zhou Cheng found this saying particularly apt!

If anyone wanted to take advantage of the Wang family, they’d have to see if Xia Ziyu had what it took to become their daughter-in-law.

At the Wang residence.

Their newly assigned house had been cleaned thoroughly.

Wang Guangping had spent exactly eight years at the farm. Upon returning to the city, not only was he reassigned to work in the Higher Education Division, but according to regulations, he was also to receive eight years’ worth of back pay. This wasn’t a small sum – they had returned to the city penniless and suddenly had over 30,000 yuan at their disposal.

Ran Shuyu had never worried about money before – the Wang family hadn’t lacked it in the past.

But after eight years on the farm, Ran Shuyu knew that being without money was unacceptable. She had used some of this money to buy new clothes for the family, but how to use the remainder needed careful consideration. Wang Guangping’s reinstatement was entirely thanks to Wang Jianhua’s networking efforts, going around making connections and finding old acquaintances who could speak up for his father.

The expenses involved weren’t small – besides the money Xia Ziyu had contributed to the Wang family, Wang Jianhua had also borrowed money from a senior female student at his school.

Liu Shan, whose father was a professor at Beijing Normal University.

Ran Shuyu could guess with her toes that this girl must have feelings for her son Jianhua.

A female student couldn’t have had savings of several thousand yuan – to lend such an amount to Wang Jianhua, she must have gotten her family’s approval. Liu Shan had also helped Wang Jianhua find tutoring work, leading Ran Shuyu to say to Wang Guangping:

“From your back pay, we need to set aside some to repay debts, first and foremost to Jianhua’s senior classmate. Her father is a professor at Beijing Normal University, and she lent Jianhua several thousand yuan – no small amount. Now that your work situation is settled, if we don’t repay this quickly, it would be embarrassing if word got out.”

Wang Guangping strongly agreed.

One shouldn’t underestimate a professor – professors know other professors and a Beijing Normal University professor’s network might extend to Huaqing or Beijing University. Wang Guangping had just started working in the Higher Education Division, and being new to this field, he felt somewhat lost. He thought having a meal with Professor Liu would be good – they had a proper reason for it now.

When they called Wang Jianhua home to discuss this, he agreed they should repay Liu Shan quickly, but his conscience prompted him to mention Xia Ziyu:

“You see, Ziyu also lent money to our family, and her parents have come to Beijing now. Since we’re planning to have dinner with Professor Liu, shouldn’t we also meet Ziyu’s parents?”

Wang Jianhua hadn’t mentioned this before because the family’s housing situation hadn’t been settled when they first returned.

Ran Shuyu asked in surprise, “Wasn’t their family running a shop back in their hometown? Why have her parents suddenly come to Beijing?”

She wondered if they had rushed to Beijing after seeing Wang Guangping’s reinstatement – what were they trying to do, force the Wang family to make some kind of commitment?

Ran Shuyu was displeased.

Dating didn’t necessarily mean marriage, and given the Wang family’s current circumstances, their son Jianhua had many options to choose from. To become in-laws with peasant-born private business owners – Ran Shuyu feared people would laugh themselves silly. They might say the Wang family had spent too long on the farm and couldn’t wash away the mud stains, that even after returning to the city, they still clung to farm life by choosing a daughter-in-law from a rural family!

Wang Jianhua wasn’t clear on why Xia Ziyu’s parents had come to Beijing either.

He only knew that Xia Changzheng had met with an accident and injured his hand, and Xia Ziyu, worried they wouldn’t have anyone to care for them back home, simply brought them to Beijing. Wang Jianhua felt somewhat embarrassed – since Wang Guangping’s reinstatement had restored his status as a cadre’s son, old friends who had lost touch were now seeking him out again, and he’d been so busy with social obligations that he hadn’t found time to visit Xia Changzheng and Zhang Cui.

Given his lack of attention to the matter, it was no wonder his family’s attitude had also become somewhat problematic.