Shishan, Hong Langman Entertainment City.

The private room was dim, lit only by faint decorative LEDs tucked into the corners. Soft music drifted through the space, outlining the tangled silhouettes of men and women swaying together in the half-light. A window air conditioner hummed steadily, almost lazily.

Then the door was shoved open from outside.

*Bang.*

The main lights snapped on.

A voice rang out sharply.

“Freeze! Police inspection!”

In an instant, the room exploded into chaos. Couples who had been pressed together in the thick, suggestive atmosphere jolted apart as if a bomb had gone off between them. Hands shot away from clothes and bodies, panic flooding in as people scrambled to pull themselves back together and bolt for the door.

But there was no police.

Only a young man standing at the entrance with a sly grin, his hand still hovering near the light switch.

“Damn it! You trying to scare us to death?”

“You scared me so bad I nearly went soft—Brother Yuan, you gonna pay for my medicine?”

“Brother Yuan, what took you so long? We were about to wrap up!”

Zhou Bin waved the newcomer over with one hand while pouring himself a drink with the other, casually wiping his fingers on the hem of the girl beside him’s skirt as he leaned in to murmur, “Here, your stuff.”

The woman—beautiful, bright-eyed, with a sharp, almost playful gaze—immediately widened her almond-shaped eyes. She bit her lip, then pinched Zhou Bin’s waist hard enough to sting, though not quite enough to hurt.

“Meeting someone for only two days and you already don’t respect me?” she huffed into his ear in a sweet, reproachful voice. “Do that again and I’m really going to get mad. I’ll ignore you forever.”

Compared to Zhang Feili—the woman who always lectured him with moral sermons and endless nagging—this girl was just as attractive, maybe even more so. Every word, every glance scratched exactly where it itched, pulling Zhou Bin deeper into a haze of pleasure he didn’t want to escape.

Zhou Bin turned and poured a drink for Yuan Tong.

“This is Chen Rongrong, kindergarten teacher at the county government preschool,” he introduced. Then he added with a grin, “Rongrong, say hi. This is Brother Yuan—Secretary-General of the county magistrate’s office. Big shot, incredibly busy. I can barely get him to have dinner with me. It’s almost midnight and he’s just showing up—that’s already giving me face.”

Yuan Tong laughed and immediately took the bottle and glass away.

“What are you talking about? I’ve got less airs than you do,” he said lightly. “I’m just a servant by the leader’s side. If I don’t serve well, how am I supposed to get away?”

“Alright, alright, you’re mocking me now,” Zhou Bin said, clinking glasses with him.

Zhou Bin had made himself quite a name in Shishan County over the past two years, but he knew Yuan Tong’s father was the municipal government’s Secretary-General and director of the municipal office—a man whose influence easily rivaled that of a county Party secretary or magistrate. He didn’t dare treat Yuan Tong’s casual tone as ordinary friendliness.

As they drank, Zhou Bin’s expression darkened slightly.

“That little bastard surnamed Xiao,” he muttered, “he’s like a damn rock in a sewer—stubborn and filthy. I went back to Yunshe this afternoon and ran into him. He really pissed me off. Sooner or later I’m going to find a way to deal with that prick properly.”

Yuan Tong chuckled as he sipped his drink.

“What’s the big deal? What can he even do?” he said dismissively. “People like that—you get the chance, you step on them once, and they never get back up. Why waste energy on him? Don’t let him ruin our mood tonight.”

He wasn’t deliberately egging Zhou Bin on. Even though he’d nearly blown up with rage two days earlier outside Tian Wenli’s building, he still genuinely looked down on the Xiao brothers.

Xiao Changhua had been dismissed two years ago and was still being watched by higher-ups in the city. There was no way he would ever rise again. As for his sons—they didn’t even belong on Yuan Tong’s level.

Was it worth getting personally involved with people like that?

If a dog bit you, would you bite it back?

Earlier that morning, Yuan Tong had happened to meet Zhou Bin at the county government compound. When he heard that Yunshe Town had assigned Xiao Liang to a stationed village post in Nanting and even placed him in charge of the juice factory, Yuan Tong had casually remarked that the Xiao family was an ignorant bunch of ingrates.

He hadn’t told Zhou Bin to act immediately—just that they should “keep an eye on things.”

Zhou Bin’s father was deputy Party secretary of Yunshe. A little pressure from him would be enough to keep the Xiao boy permanently down in the mud.

For now, that was all Yuan Tong intended.

With the investigation into Xiao Guangjun’s case still sensitive, Yuan Tong was also wary of stirring up Xiao Changhua’s old connections in the city. That could backfire and make the local authorities hesitant to act against Xiao Liang.

“Got it,” Zhou Bin said after downing a full mug of beer in one go. “Let’s not talk about that bastard anymore. Ruins the drinking mood.”

……

……

Back at home, Xiao Liang spent two hours drafting a detailed ten-page proposal on restoring production and operations at the juice factory. He then handed it to his brother, who—experienced in writing administrative reform documents—stayed up late refining it.

The next morning, Xiao Liang had breakfast and walked to the teacher’s college as usual before boarding Bus No. 9 to Yunshe.

At the stop in Shucheng Town, Lin Xi—still wearing her Yunshe primary school uniform—peeked in through the window to confirm he was inside before stepping onto the bus.

She sat down quietly beside him without a word.

“I might not be around for a while,” Xiao Liang said after a moment. “I may need to travel out of town.”

Lin Xi nodded faintly. No questions, no reaction beyond acknowledgment.

After a pause, Xiao Liang continued.

“Your dad did what he did so no one would ever bully you.”

He looked at her young face—still carrying a hint of baby fat, framed by long, delicate eyelashes that trembled slightly.

“There’ll be kids at school who don’t understand things. They might laugh at you or tease you because of your parents. But you don’t need to be afraid. You’ve got a father who would risk his life to protect you. And your mother… even if she made mistakes, she still tried to protect you in her own way, even if she was used and threatened.”

He paused slightly.

“If anything happens, and I’m not there like last time, go find your teachers. Or the school. They’ll protect you.”

The bus rolled into Yunshe town center.

Lin Xi got off first, her small figure disappearing into the morning crowd, her expression unreadable.

Xiao Liang watched her leave and let out a quiet sigh.

He didn’t know whether she would take his words as comfort—or as a distant kind of rejection.

The bus continued toward its final stop: Nanting Village.

As it neared the village committee, Xiao Liang saw a group of eight or nine people pulling a cart loaded with cement slabs, moving slowly along a gravel road from east to west.

Among them was Xiao Hong’s mother.

Her gait was uneven, one leg slightly lame. A leather strap bit into her shoulder as she dragged the heavy cart forward. It was only seven or eight in the morning, yet sweat had already soaked through her clothes.

Before reinforced concrete became standard, most rural buildings in the 1980s and 90s relied on prefabricated slabs produced in factories. Hauling them to construction sites by hand carts was one of the few ways ordinary laborers could earn “high wages” in that era.

But each slab was over four meters long and weighed five to six hundred jin. Men often hauled two at a time; women usually managed one. The strain was unimaginable to outsiders.

And Xiao Hong’s mother was already nearing fifty, with a physical disability on top of it.

It was hard to imagine how long she could endure this before her body finally gave out.

Yesterday, Lin Xi had mentioned that she was trying to earn money to repay the stolen funds—but Xiao Liang hadn’t expected her to be doing work like this.

The bus passed the group.

Xiao Liang turned his head, watching them until they faded from view.

Beyond Xiao Hong’s mother, the other laborers were also drenched in sweat under the morning sun, their bodies glistening as they strained forward.

In that moment, the reality of this era settled deeper into him.

For ordinary people, poverty wasn’t just about low income.

It was a life carved out of sheer hardship.