Even without Grandmother Yu’s rules, Xia Xiaolan’s rented room couldn’t accommodate so many people.

Liu Fen stayed home while Xia Xiaolan went to the guesthouse with the others.

Xia Xiaolan finally understood why Liu Yong and Zhou Cheng appeared together. Though Zhou Cheng downplayed it, she broke into a cold sweat despite the weather.

If Zhou Cheng and Kang Wei hadn’t happened to pass by and save him, would her uncle have died from blood loss?

When Zhou Cheng and Kang Wei drove away the thugs for her, she was grateful, but not like this.

A woman’s chastity was important, but even if the thugs had succeeded, Xia Xiaolan wouldn’t have died from it. But her uncle’s life – once that’s gone, there’s no hope left. No wonder Zhou Cheng had said he’d go to Yangcheng but suddenly canceled – he must have been watching over her uncle in the Shanghai hospital.

Xia Xiaolan was truly grateful.

She said “thank you” three times, her voice soft but emotional.

“Xiaolan, it was the right thing to do.”

Even if it had been a stranger, Zhou Cheng would certainly have helped in that situation. But if it hadn’t been for Liu Yong, Zhou Cheng would have just taken them to the hospital, at most covering the medical expenses. Since it was Liu Yong who was injured, Zhou Cheng had to stay and personally care for him until he was sure Liu Yong was out of danger.

He wasn’t obligated to do this – he wanted to.

Because of Xia Xiaolan, he now had a connection with Liu Yong, someone he would never have crossed paths with otherwise. Zhou Cheng did it all willingly.

Call him despicable or selfish, but when Zhou Cheng saved the seriously injured Liu Yong, he thought it must be fate. Finding Xiaolan’s injured uncle by chance on the road – who could say Xiaolan wasn’t his destined wife?

Zhou Cheng gazed at his future wife, joy radiating from every pore.

He was too obvious about it. Li Fengmei, initially distracted, gradually took notice.

Had he taken a liking to Xiaolan?

It wasn’t surprising – she’d never seen any young man who disliked Xiaolan.

The young man was handsome and had saved Liu Yong’s life – Li Fengmei’s first impression of Zhou Cheng was excellent. Though Chen Qing seemed outstanding on his own, he somehow paled in comparison to Zhou Cheng. People were naturally drawn to appearances – what family choosing a daughter-in-law or son-in-law didn’t prefer good looks? Even in the 1980s, a handsome young man wouldn’t struggle to find a wife, even if his family was poor.

Liu Yong had spent several days with them, so he must know something about their background. Li Fengmei planned to question him thoroughly that night.

Rather than going back and forth, Xia Xiaolan simply got a room at the guesthouse too.

She was supposed to go to Yangcheng tomorrow and had already bought the ticket, but Liu Yong’s sudden injury had disrupted her plans. Xia Xiaolan was torn about whether to cancel her ticket. She needed to have a serious talk with Liu Yong – she still didn’t know he was involved in smuggling, but a trip that nearly cost him his life meant her uncle’s way of making money was too dangerous.

Though people would later joke that getting rich in the 80s-90s was easy since all the money-making methods were written in the criminal code, jokes aside, it did indicate that many early wealthy individuals had used grey-area methods… But there were degrees of “grey,” and her uncle had chosen a life-threatening path.

Losing money wasn’t scary – losing life was.

Once life was gone, everything was truly gone.

Should she have her uncle invest in and run a clothing store with her – she sells women’s clothes, and he sells men’s?

But her uncle wasn’t someone who could be confined to one place, and she wouldn’t keep reselling clothes forever either.

She thought about many things, tossing and turning for a long while before sleeping.

On the other side of the wall was Zhou Cheng and Kang Wei’s room. Zhou Cheng couldn’t sleep either.

“Kang Wei, I’m going to stop after this run. What do you want to do about this business? Let’s discuss it.”

Kang Wei sat up immediately. “Brother, I’ll do whatever you say.”

“Don’t get excited. I’m not breaking up our partnership or trying to force someone into our business. It’s just that what happened to Uncle Liu affected me. Running the business ourselves means more profit, but you’ve seen how dangerous the roads are. We won’t always be so lucky.”

Robbers targeting smugglers, smugglers double-crossing each other – Liu Yong was gambling with his life for money.

Bandits would rob their truck too – cargo worth long-distance transport couldn’t be worthless. How much was a truck full of cigarettes worth?

Such goods would be easy to sell even if stolen!

Zhou Cheng was quite arrogant, but he wouldn’t always run trucks with Kang Wei.

Kang Wei wasn’t as careful as him, and his physical condition was far worse.

Kang Wei was his family’s precious treasure – seeing how heartbroken and worried Xiaolan’s family was today if anything happened to Kang Wei, his grandmother definitely wouldn’t survive it.

Zhou Cheng wanted to help Kang Wei up, not lead him off a cliff.

Kang Wei fell silent at Zhou Cheng’s words.

This business was incredibly profitable – all legitimate cigarettes, not smuggled goods. They just moved each region’s fixed quota around, taking Shanghai’s hard-to-sell brands to Yunan Province, Yunan’s to Beijing, back and forth…

Though the profits were huge, so were the risks. Kang Wei shuddered, his mind finally cooling from the intoxication of enormous profits:

“Brother Cheng, let’s stop.”

Kang Wei’s timidity was sometimes a flaw, sometimes an advantage – it gave him a sense of caution, preventing him from becoming reckless despite his family’s doting. Seeing that he had taken the message to heart, Zhou Cheng stopped trying to frighten him: “We don’t need to stop entirely. We can continue differently – let me think about it.”

Kang Wei nodded vigorously – they needed to think it through carefully. His mind couldn’t match Zhou Cheng’s; he was used to following Zhou Cheng’s lead.

His grandmother had said it didn’t matter if he wasn’t clever himself, as long as he followed clever people.

The guesthouse conditions were decent. All five occupants had their concerns, and everyone had trouble sleeping. The next morning, Li Fengmei was undoubtedly the happiest – Liu Yong had promised her last night that he would withdraw his remaining capital and never touch that life-threatening business again.

Though Li Fengmei worried about the wounds on his back, she was happy with Liu Yong’s decision.

The temperature in Shangdu was quite low in the morning and evening of November. Li Fengmei took the thermos to get water for washing faces. Though this was her first time staying at a guesthouse and it wasn’t as familiar as Qijing Village, it had an inexplicable convenience. Hot water was always available, clean toilets, and she heard that Shangdu would have central heating starting mid-November… No wonder Taotao didn’t want to leave the provincial capital after visiting – it was different from the countryside.

People naturally seek better conditions, like water flowing downhill. Previously, they had no such aspirations, but once the idea took root, it wasn’t easily dismissed.

“How much capital can you withdraw? What if we do some business in Shangdu like Xiaolan? We could bring Taotao here for school – how about that?”