That night, Su Ze was released.
When a hungry and cold Su Ze returned home, the messy house had already been cleaned and tidied up.
Qiao Jiuru and Zhou Wanwan were sitting on the broken bed board in the room, mending clothes and quilts; after an afternoon and up to now, the mother-in-law and daughter-in-law had calmed down a lot.
“Mom, Xiao Wan.”
Upon arriving home, Su Ze saw the situation of the house, especially after seeing his mother and wife unharmed, he finally let out a heavy sigh of relief.
Although he knew his parents had secretly made many preparations, it was better to be safe than sorry, and what he worried about most was the safety of his family.
“Su Ze, you’re finally back?! It’s good that you’re alright!”
Zhou Wanwan was both surprised and delighted to suddenly see her husband; tears immediately streamed down her face, and she quickly dropped what was in her hands, throwing herself into her husband’s arms and hugging him tightly, her voice choked with emotion.
“Xiao Wan, I’m fine, are you and Mom alright?!”
Su Ze also hugged his wife tightly, one hand gently patting her back to comfort her.
“They just searched the house, took what they wanted, and left; they didn’t lay a hand on us.”
Qiao Jiuru also put down the quilt cover in her hands, nodded to her son, signaling him to rest assured.
Su Ze truly felt relieved now; as long as everyone was safe, that was all that mattered. His parents had a backup plan, and he himself had secretly kept a little something aside; at least, they were guaranteed not to starve for half a year or a year.
“They haven’t released your dad yet?!”
Qiao Jiuru was not at all surprised that her husband hadn’t returned home; this was no different from the situation in her previous life, except for her two young grandsons who were not at home.
“Yes, I think they probably want to extract all our possessions before releasing Dad.”
When Su Ze was released home, he didn’t see his father; he was directly pushed out of the Revolutionary Committee’s main gate.
Therefore, he guessed that these people were holding his father to dig out all the gold, silver, and treasures of the Su and Qiao families from his father’s mouth; otherwise, they wouldn’t easily release his father.
Qiao Jiuru nodded; that was indeed the case, everyone knew what they wanted.
In her previous life, Su Huaiyuan was even beaten because, besides his anger at their actions, he also didn’t want the Qiao family’s possessions to fall into their hands.
In this life, she and Su Huaiyuan had made so many preparations in advance and discussed things beforehand. Their strategy was to stall for a while, not easily revealing their trump cards, otherwise these people would surely press their advantage, thinking they still had good things they hadn’t handed over, and continue to torment them relentlessly.
“Xiao Ze, are you hungry?! I’ll get you something to eat.”
Qiao Jiuru told her eldest son to find a place to sit and rest, then turned to the kitchen and took out the two-grain flour steamed buns and sweet potatoes that Lu Dajie had given them that afternoon, handing them to her eldest son.
“Mom, this is…”
“Eat, Lu Dajie secretly gave them to us.”
She had plenty of food and provisions in her space; anything available in this era was in her space. Not to mention, she and Su Huaiyuan went into the space every day to cook rice and porridge, steam buns, boil and fry eggs, stir-fry meat, and so on, but these couldn’t be taken out now.
How could one two-grain flour steamed bun and three sweet potatoes be enough to fill one’s stomach?! That evening, Qiao Jiuru and Zhou Wanwan also each ate one and a half buns and one sweet potato, leaving only this much.
Su Ze silently took them and ate in silence, his mood somewhat low because only Lu Dajie in the entire family compound was willing to lend a hand when the Su family was in trouble.
Qiao Jiuru sat down and continued mending the quilt; the previously good quilt had been cut by those people, and the cotton inside had spilled out and was intentionally trampled dirty. Just now, she and her daughter-in-law had washed the dirty cotton and hung it to dry, and now she was mending the cut quilt cover.
Seeing her mother-in-law’s actions, Zhou Wanwan no longer cared about sadness, grief, worry, or fear, as her own maternal family had experienced similar misfortunes and she knew the importance of clothes and quilts, so she quickly followed suit and began mending clothes.
No one in the family felt sleepy; Qiao Jiuru and Zhou Wanwan kept mending, and eventually, Su Ze, with nothing to do and unable to sleep, simply followed his wife’s lead and learned to mend.
Thump.
Before dawn broke that day, a faint movement came from the courtyard, clearly audible as something hitting the ground.
Qiao Jiuru and Su Ze immediately exchanged glances; at this time, there would be no one else delivering things…
Indeed, Qiao Jiuru quietly went out to the courtyard and found a distinct bundle there.
As soon as she picked it up, she knew it was full of food; needless to say, Zhang Hong had sent them food.
The bundle was indeed full of food: one catty of biscuits, fifteen steamed buns, even ten boiled eggs, and a bottle of external trauma medicine.
“Eat quickly, only when you’re full will you have energy and strength. We should be sent down if we hold out for a few more days.”
Qiao Jiuru divided all the eggs, giving three each to herself and Zhou Wanwan, and four to Su Ze, then divided the steamed buns. As for the biscuits, they weren’t divided; biscuits could be kept and eaten when there was nothing else to eat.
Zhou Wanwan and Su Ze were very obedient, doing exactly as they were told. However, after eating, everyone started to feel sleepy and lay down in their respective rooms.
Revolutionary Committee.
“Eat. I suggest you confess honestly, otherwise, not only will you suffer, but your family will suffer with you.”
Tan Shuwei arrived at work punctually as usual that morning, then pulled out two sweet potatoes from his bicycle basket and entered the room where Su Huaiyuan was held, in front of all the Revolutionary Committee members. He then threw the sweet potatoes onto him while smiling faintly and saying.
He didn’t care about Su Huaiyuan’s expression or reaction; after throwing the sweet potatoes and saying those words, he returned to his office.
Lin Kesheng hadn’t arrived at work yet; he had led people to search the Su and Qiao families’ belongings last night, so he probably hadn’t woken up yet. Tan Shuwei guessed that he wouldn’t appear until after noon, so Su Huaiyuan was still very safe for now.
Indeed, after the lunch hour, Lin Kesheng slowly arrived at work.
His mood was clearly quite good; last night he had found many gold, silver, and treasures from the Su and Qiao families, as well as over a dozen property deeds, which was truly a great haul.
When he heard that Tan Shuwei had thrown two sweet potatoes to Su Huaiyuan that morning, he said nothing; he knew that the other party was afraid of starving him to death.
Tan Shuwei handled things very well; after all, he hadn’t completely emptied the Su family’s good things yet, so he couldn’t let anything happen to this person.
Until the afternoon, when Tan Shuwei arrived at work, Lin Kesheng still hadn’t interrogated Su Huaiyuan again.
“Old Tan, everyone will work overtime tonight. I’ll distribute some things to everyone.”
When Lin Kesheng saw Tan Shuwei arrive, he personally went into his room and said this sentence.
It was the usual practice.
This meant that Lin Kesheng was going to distribute some of the money obtained from the Su family to the Revolutionary Committee members that night; he would take half, Tan Shuwei would take one-third, and the rest would be distributed among the subordinates.
Tan Shuwei nodded knowingly, then watched Lin Kesheng leave the Revolutionary Committee.
As for where Lin Kesheng went, he knew, but he would pretend not to know.
At 3 AM, a person silently emerged from the pitch-black Su family home, moving quietly and swiftly, quickly leaving the family compound and disappearing into the night.