On that note, Qin Zhonghui made the final decision. "The brigade needs me to go back and handle some paperwork anyway," he said. "I’ll go with you."

With her second brother there, Qin Na instantly felt relieved.

After the brother and sister left, Su Yun sighed and said to Qin Jiao, "Your grandma and grandpa... they’re definitely not going to approve of your aunt getting together with Xiao Sun."

Qin Jiao was peeling tomatoes. She had grown them in her space, making them out-of-season vegetables, but she had told her mother she’d bought them at the market.

At that time, advanced greenhouses weren’t common, so out-of-season vegetables were rare. Qin Jiao had initially planted them just because she was craving tomato gravy noodles. They grew surprisingly well, and she had just taken the surplus to Jinlan Flower Restaurant.

After peeling the tomatoes and placing them in a bowl, she spoke. "Family matters are a tangled mess you can never quite sort out. I really think Auntie wants to be with Uncle Sun, and she wants Grandma and Grandpa’s blessing too, so she has to go back. But there’s no telling how they’ll react."

Qin Jiao agreed with her mother; it was very likely their grandparents would disapprove.

She wasn’t wrong. Half a day later, Qin Zhonghui returned with his sister, Qin Na. Qin Na looked terrible. She mumbled a greeting to Su Yun and headed upstairs.

Su Yun couldn’t help but ask Qin Zhonghui, "Zhong Hui, what happened? Xiao Na looks terribly upset. Did Mom and Dad forbid her from being with Xiao Sun?"

"I don’t know what Eldest Brother told Mom and Dad," Qin Zhonghui replied, his voice tight with anger. "Not only did they forbid Xiao Na from being with Xiao Sun, but they also found another match for her! It’s that widower from the village, Blacksmith Li!"

Su Yun was stunned. "You mean that Blacksmith Li, the one with the awful temper who’s always drinking? Another one of his wives died?"

Now, this Blacksmith Li was quite a character. He was a skilled craftsman, which made his family relatively well-off in the village. But the thing was, he seemed perfectly normal until he started drinking. Then, he’d beat his wife—even more viciously than Qin Na’s ex-husband.

And just like that, both men were without their wives. Li’s first wife died during a difficult childbirth; his mother had insisted on saving the baby, so they missed the window for treatment. By the time she got to the hospital, she had bled to death. His second wife was tougher, a real spitfire. When he got into one of his moods, she would fight right back. Eventually, she ran off with someone else.

He was left with four hungry children. The oldest was about the same age as Xiao Shi, and the youngest was just a year old. They spent their days rolling around in the dirt.

Qin Zhonghui slapped his thigh. "What are Mom and Dad thinking? How could they even consider marrying Xiao Na to a man like that!"

Compared to him, Sun Jianhua was a hundred times better.

"Blacksmith Li is Qin Jiqun’s drinking buddy," Su Yun said, "and his mother is Feng Lan’s mahjong partner. If Mom and Dad agreed to marry Qin Na to him, then the third brother and his wife are definitely behind this!"

Qin Jiao understood. ’No wonder Auntie was so distraught,’ she thought. ’She must be utterly disappointed in her own parents.’

’When she’d first tried to escape that hellish marriage, they hadn’t approved or supported her.’

’And now that she’d finally, painstakingly built a new life for herself, they were trying to shove her right back into another pit of fire!’

Hearing that the brother and sister had been gone for the better part of the day without so much as a sip of water, let alone a hot meal, Su Yun immediately said, "I’ll go make some noodles for you both. Xiao Jiao, why don’t you go upstairs and check on your aunt?"

Qin Jiao nodded, turned, and went upstairs.

When she entered her aunt’s room, she found Qin Na lying face down on the bed. She was crying silently, her shoulders shaking with incessant sobs, looking for all the world like an abandoned child.