Under Qian Hongming’s watchful gaze, Liu Jun somewhat reluctantly dialed Jiali’s number. “Jiali, Hongming came to me crying during the New Year. What do you think we should do?”

But no matter how Liu Jun tried to persuade her, as soon as the sound of women whispering came from Jiali’s end, all of Liu Jun’s persuasion became ineffective. Liu Jun understood—the problem lay with Qian Hongying. Qian Hongming watched Liu Jun make the call seriously, wishing he could speak up and guide Liu Jun a few words. But then he suddenly saw Cui Bingbing standing outside the car, looking at them in surprise. He quickly nudged Liu Jun, alerting him that his wife had arrived. Liu Jun felt inexplicably guilty and hurriedly ended the call, putting on a big smile as he opened the door for Cui Bingbing. Seeing this, Cui Bingbing looked puzzled and asked what mischief the two brothers were up to as soon as she sat down. Qian Hongming had no choice but to smile and take his leave, leaving the mess for Liu Jun to handle.

Once Qian Hongming left, Cui Bingbing pressed further: “What was he doing here so sneakily? Hmm, we need to hurry to my mother’s house—I’m swollen.”

“It’s over after just half an hour of sitting? Doesn’t look like it went well.”

“Of course not. It’s the City Investment Corporation, not like your private enterprises. They’re the ones we’re begging, and they look down on medium-scale banks like ours. But during the Spring Festival, we still have to show our faces in front of them, just in case they accidentally slip us a project loan someday. What did Qian Hongming come for?”

“He doesn’t want Jiali to work, but Jiali wants to work to help his sister, doing accounting for his family’s real estate agency. He asked me to step in and dissuade her.”

“Are you kidding? Jiali is doing accounting for that kind of agency? There’d be chaos within a day. She’s been living a pampered life at home for so many years, delicate and willful. What kind of job is accounting? You have to be the gatekeeper and be ready to take orders at any time. Can she handle it? After a few assignments, she’d explode.”

“Jiali isn’t willful, is she? She’s always had a good temper, very gentle and compliant.”

Cui Bingbing chuckled, “People who’ve been cooped up at home for too long all have a kind of social maladjustment syndrome—they don’t know how to bend and adapt. Add to that Qian Hongming’s guilty conscience, and he accommodates Jiali in everything at home. Who knows how spoiled she’s become inside? She just hasn’t shown it to you. I know—just trust my judgment.”

Liu Jun thought about it and realized it was indeed the case. If Jiali had the personality of a neighborhood committee auntie, she’d adapt well to society. Jiali was indeed very polite, but when faced with situations requiring queuing or competing for trivial matters, she would turn around and leave, preferring to give up. Daily work can’t use fairy princesses—it needs people with auntie personalities. Liu Jun made another call to Jiali, bluntly reminding her that she wasn’t suited for that job and would only cause trouble if she went. Sure enough, this time Jiali readily agreed to give up.

“Indeed, women understand women,” Liu Jun muttered to himself. “A’San, is there any way to stop Hongming from having an affair? This can’t go on forever.”

“After getting married, I understood one thing—when a man has an affair, his wife senses it. Unless someone has become completely numb to their marital relationship, normal couples who can’t sense subtle changes in their partner would be seeing ghosts. Do you think Jiali is so foolish and naive as to be kept in the dark by Qian Hongming? Family matters—who knows what goes on behind closed doors? Perhaps this is their way of getting along as a couple. Your interference as an outsider might make things worse.”

“Uh, could it be that my mom had become numb to my dad early on?” Liu Jun thought about how Aunt Fu said his mother only married his father to transfer back to the city, and it seemed his father had been having affairs for several years before his mother found out. “But if she was already numb, why would she commit suicide?”

“I never met your mother, so I can’t say.” Cui Bingbing thought about Qian Hongying’s face but didn’t feel it appropriate to speak directly. “Look at you, you-you’re upright and honest, open and frank with me, so you don’t have to sneak around at home like Qian Hongming. So the path a person takes is entirely their own decision—others really can’t interfere.”

Liu Jun smiled and backed off, no longer obsessing over it. After having dinner at the Cui family home, he took home a full bag of food, including salted duck eggs that Cui’s father had pickled with surgical precision, and many dishes made by Cui’s mother, so the two young people wouldn’t starve while the housekeeper was home for the Spring Festival. The next morning, the two drank porridge, and Cui Bingbing made scallion pancakes, stir-fried vegetables, cut up a salted duck egg, and sliced some wind-cured chicken leg. Cui Bingbing’s knife skills were excellent—she cut the salted duck egg perfectly in half, equal in size, but the distribution of yolk inside was hard to control. When Cui Bingbing came to the table, she actively chose the half with less yolk to eat.

Liu Jun served two bowls of porridge and, seeing this, said: “Why cut it? One egg each would be fine, fair, and reasonable.”

“I just want to share it with you.”

“Then scoop some yolk over. Don’t let all the essence of your dad’s pickled egg go into my stomach.”

“You, young master, won’t eat the egg white, so I’m giving you less egg white to save you from leaving half the white uneaten—don’t you know waste is a pity?”

Liu Jun couldn’t help but laugh: “Family matters—what goes on behind closed doors is hard for outsiders to guess. Who would have thought that you, A’San, such a fierce person, would be so obedient and submissive at home? So your ‘San’ in A’San stands for the three obediences and four virtues.”

“Are you developing fantasies about me being chaste and virtuous? No, I might be from all walks of life, or more likely, I’m your sovereign ruler.”

But the desktop speaker transmitted a faint cry from upstairs. The two immediately dropped their porridge bowls and rushed upstairs—one abandoning her sovereign airs, the other giving up his chauvinist fantasy of having a wife with three obediences and four virtues.

Seeing her plan disrupted by Liu Jun, Qian Hongying felt very angry. She didn’t feel she could be angry at Liu Jun, so she inevitably transferred all her anger to her brother and sister-in-law. After taking Liu Jun’s call, the sister-in-law shamefully said she might not be competent for the accounting job. Qian Hongying thought to herself: we have the same hands and feet, the same common background, and she even has a key university diploma—why couldn’t she handle an accounting position at her own family’s company? Qian Hongying angrily took her leave, and just as she came out, she encountered her brother returning home. She grabbed him by the chest and pulled him to a corner. “I just realized today—you’re out there living it up while I’m at home smoothing things over with your wife. Your whole family is quite a sight.”

“I have so much work every day, where do I have time to live it up? I don’t go to shady places either. Sister, you can see my workload.”

“Three days before the Spring Festival, at that newly opened business club, don’t tell me you didn’t call girls—you think I don’t know? Don’t come to me about your family matters anymore. I don’t have time, and I’m not superhuman either.”

“Sister, Jiali can’t drive, so you just…”

“Who’s born knowing how? If you can’t do it, learn. What’s there to be afraid of? Am I some superwoman who has to manage myself and still manage your whole family? Oh right, you want to learn Sanskrit, learn the difference between Australian and Chilean red wine, learn where coffee comes from and how it’s roasted—I guess I’m just a rough laborer, an old servant. Don’t call me for anything in the future.”

“Sister, it’s not like that.” Qian Hongming tried to hold back his furious sister, wanting to drag her into a nearby coffee shop that stayed open during the Spring Festival to talk slowly, but Qian Hongying jerked her hand away and glared at him. Qian Hongming didn’t dare to be presumptuous in front of his sister and could only watch as she drove away in the BMW 3 Series he had used. He was certain his sister was angry at him, but she never bore to scold him directly, so she could only take it out on Jiali. He couldn’t tell Jiali what his sister had said in anger, to avoid creating discord between them. But there were always some things at home that not only Jiali couldn’t solve, but his recently retired in-laws, being unfamiliar with the area, also found it inconvenient to act and needed help. Besides, he had just bought a duplex villa through his sister, and the decoration could have been supervised by his sister, but now what could he do? Should he just hand everything over to the decoration company? That would cost who knows how much more money, and the quality would still be problematic. But to go back and ask Liu Jun for help, he now found it impossible to speak up. Liu Jun now had his own family and was extremely busy. Helping once or twice was fine, but helping more… Liu Jun had just said that it wasn’t right to always be around a brother’s wife. But he didn’t know how to tell Jiali about this.

As luck would have it, just a few days after Qian Hongming went to Shanghai for the Spring Festival, when he was busy, the central air conditioning at home stopped heating. Jiali, not knowing what was wrong, called Qian Hongying’s mobile phone. But this time, Qian Hongying’s phone was answered by her office secretary. Jiali had to leave her number and ask her sister-in-law to call back. But her sister-in-law never called. When Jiali called again, the secretary still answered. She discussed with her parents, and everyone felt they should contact the property management. When the property management heard about it, they suggested finding professionals from the brand’s repair station. Jiali remembered that Liu Jun had handled the air conditioning installation initially. The family searched through boxes and cabinets but couldn’t find the air conditioning repair certificate. Although her husband had told her that Liu Jun was now incredibly busy and to try not to disturb him, with the house as cold as an ice cave, Jiali had no choice but to call Liu Jun.

But Liu Jun had just been invited by Mr. An to give testimony to the investigation team. He didn’t remember whether the air conditioning manual had been given to the Qian family, so he asked Cui Bingbing, who was at home, to help look for it. Cui Bingbing didn’t have time for this, so she simply called Jiali and told her to bring Xiao Suihua to stay at her house for a few days until Liu Jun came home to solve the problem. Jiali was too embarrassed to do that, and finally, with no other option, she had to call Qian Hongming and ask him to think of a solution. Qian Hongming certainly understood why his sister wasn’t answering calls—phones now had caller ID, and as soon as she saw it was Jiali calling, she would hand it to her secretary to screen the call. He could only call employees at the foreign trade company to solve this small problem for the boss’s family. The problem was simple: find the outdoor unit to see what brand of air conditioning it was, check the company website online, then follow the trail to find local repair services. Even without installation manuals and warranty cards, these days, money could make ghosts work—Qian Hongming’s employee wouldn’t save money for the boss, and spending a bit more could solve any problem. It was just a matter of method.

During his busy schedule, Qian Hongming kept calling to ask how things were going. Learning that his subordinate was very dedicated and that Jiali got along well with him, he simply told Jiali to contact that employee directly for future problems, instead of bothering those very busy people.

Liu Jun didn’t know that the matter involved so many causes and consequences. Under Mr. An’s arrangement, he was assisting with the investigation, already feeling like walking on thin ice, with no time to consider whether Jiali’s problem had been resolved. Besides, he trusted Cui Bingbing’s capabilities—someone who could manage a bank certainly could handle such a small matter.