Chapter 162: Chapter 162: The Piano, Ming Ruxue’s Parents

Early the next morning, Xia Lian came over with the materials list she’d drafted, and also brought some of her homemade sesame paste for everyone to try.

Gu Qinghuan happily accepted the paste and told her to go home and wait—at the latest, Lanting would deliver the grain to her by the afternoon.

After Xia Lian left, Gu Qinghuan went out and quickly gathered all the grain and materials listed—of course, she ordered them from the vending machine.

It was a bit heavy, two or three hundred jin, so she simply called for two rickshaws and had Lanting accompany the delivery.

As soon as Lanting left, Xiao Zhuo pulled up in front of the villa with a flourish.

“Brother Xiao, heading to work? Have you eaten? We made youtiao for breakfast,” Gu Qinghuan greeted him warmly, as they were now quite familiar with each other.

“No, I’m good. I actually came to tell you that I have news about the piano you asked me to look into last time.

It’s a coincidence—remember the director from the Revolutionary Committee who just got dismissed? He was caught taking bribes, and all his family assets have been confiscated and are being sold off.

Among them is a Yamaha piano imported from Japan, which he bought for his daughter just earlier this year. It’s practically brand new.

Since pianos aren’t in high demand, no one’s bought it yet, and the price is pretty low—about three thousand yuan. I heard he paid seven or eight thousand for it.

If you’re sure you want it, I can talk to someone and see if we can get it even cheaper for you.”

Gu Qinghuan was surprised. She’d only mentioned in passing that she wanted a reasonably priced piano at home to entertain Zhong Luoning, and asked if he had any leads—she hadn’t expected him to be so attentive.

“That’s great! I do want it, and if you can get the price down, even better. Thank you, Brother Xiao.”

“Alright, I’ll ask around and get back to you this afternoon,” Xiao Zhuo said, glancing up at the second-floor window of the villa before driving off.

Zhong Luoning was a piano teacher. She’d studied piano since childhood, and when she got married, her family gave her a Yamaha piano as part of her dowry. Later, the Xu family sold it off for next to nothing, accusing her of capitalist tendencies.

She hadn’t touched a piano in a long time.

—

Xiao Zhuo arrived at his office and made a call.

“Leizi, are you sure that piano is still there, not missing a thing?”

“Brother Zhuo, you know we have procedures here. If we sell it off too cheap and get caught, we’ll all be in trouble. Sorry!”

Xiao Zhuo paused for a few seconds, then said, “How about this: I’ll bring the buyer over this afternoon to pick it up. But I’ll pay half the price myself, privately, to you.

When she comes, don’t tell her the real price. Just say no one wants the piano and you’re letting it go for fifteen hundred. Don’t let it slip, okay?”

The other end immediately teased, “Bro, you’ve really fallen for this beauty, huh? What kind of girl is worth you going this far? Just giving away fifteen hundred like that!

But you’re not short on cash, so it’s fine, haha.”

Xiao Zhuo hung up, annoyed.

—

Back at Gu Qinghuan’s, just after Xiao Zhuo left, a military vehicle pulled up in front of the villa.

She thought it was Xu Huaian coming back and happily went to greet him—she hadn’t seen him in days and missed him.

But instead of Xu Huaian, a middle-aged couple stepped out.

Gu Qinghuan was baffled.

Suddenly, the elegant woman’s eyes lit up when she saw her, and she walked over, taking Gu Qinghuan’s hand. “Oh, you must be Qinghuan? My, how you’ve grown—so beautiful now!”

“Um, may I ask who you are…?” Gu Qinghuan couldn’t recall any relatives in the military, except her eldest uncle, who was still in the northwest.

“I’m Ruxue’s mother! Sorry to trouble you. We just exchanged letters with Ruxue a few days ago, and she said you’ve been looking after her. We’re really grateful.” The woman was none other than Ming Ruxue’s real mother, Nan Sheng.

The man took several large bags of gifts from the young soldier who’d been driving, then said, “Could you wait for us in the car?”

The young soldier saluted and went back to sit in the driver’s seat.

Judging by this, they’d be leaving again soon. Gu Qinghuan quickly invited them inside.

Ming Ruxue was in the yard feeding rabbits with the three little ones.

“Ruxue, look who’s here!”

Ming Ruxue turned around and saw her long-absent parents. Instantly, her eyes reddened and she turned away.

She was tough and independent, but since coming from America to China, she hadn’t seen her parents since getting off the plane.

A young girl, away from home for years in a strange country, is bound to feel lonely, scared, and lost.

In that moment, all the emotions she’d been holding back burst forth, and she couldn’t help feeling wronged.

“Sweetheart, come here, let Mommy hug you.” Nan Sheng rushed over and enveloped her daughter in a bear hug.

Ming Ruxue, though upset, awkwardly hugged her mother back—and then immediately burst into tears.

Big, heaving sobs.

Nan Sheng started crying too.

Many things in life are a dilemma. It’s not that they didn’t love their child, but the responsibilities on their shoulders were too heavy.

If they didn’t shoulder these responsibilities, there would be thousands of children like Ming Ruxue—homeless, hungry.

From the country’s perspective, they were noble and selfless, great scientists and key leaders of top-secret national projects, making enormous contributions to China—worthy of the highest respect.

But as parents, they were failures, never fulfilling their duties to their own child.

When Ruxue was little, she often had to eat at neighbors’ houses. Even after moving to America, she looked after herself, sometimes not seeing her parents for weeks. Now, back in China, it was the same.

If Gu Qinghuan hadn’t taken her in, she’d still be living in the Overseas Chinese Hotel.

In Ming Ruxue’s memory, she’d always been drifting, like a rootless duckweed.

Ming Cheng stepped forward to comfort his wife and daughter.

Gu Qinghuan took the three little ones away to give the family some privacy.

“Ruxue, you’ve put on weight!” Ming Cheng blurted out. In modern times, he’d definitely be accused of being a clueless dad.

Ming Ruxue, still emotional, was so annoyed by her father’s words that she forgot to cry.

“Dad, Sister Huanhuan says I’m still growing! Chubby is cute!”

“Alright, forget I said anything.” Ming Cheng spread his hands helplessly.

He didn’t actually think it was bad—he was just surprised. His daughter had always been a picky eater and skinny as a stick; how had she suddenly gained weight?

“Our Ruxue looks even cuter with some baby fat,” Nan Sheng pinched her chubby cheeks.

“It’s because Sister Huanhuan’s cooking is so good—I can’t help eating more. Now I go to school with Lanting, and I eat at Sister Huanhuan’s every day.

She lets me stay at her house for free, won’t take any money, and even bought me new clothes and shoes for the New Year. She’s been so good to me.” Ming Ruxue wanted her parents to know how much Gu Qinghuan had cared for her.

“We know. We came today especially to thank her.”

In fact, Ming Cheng and Nan Sheng had already heard all about it through their contacts. Today, they’d made time to come specifically to thank Gu Qinghuan and see Ming Ruxue before the New Year.

Though they were often absent, they still cared deeply about their daughter’s safety, and someone always kept them updated on her situation.

Especially since she’d moved in with someone else, they’d been worried—until they learned it was the Gu family’s girl, and then they were reassured.

Back when they lived in China, the two families were neighbors. When they were busy, their child was basically raised by the Gu family, eating and drinking there all the time. Many of the pretty dresses and little skirts Ming Ruxue wore as a child were hand-me-downs from Gu Qinghuan.

Zhong Zijun was a gentle woman who doted on Ruxue as if she were her own, braiding her hair, teaching her to use the toilet, and taking her to kindergarten.

You could say that Ming Ruxue didn’t suffer from her parents’ absence in childhood largely thanks to Zhong Zijun.

Now that Ming Ruxue was grown, she might not remember much from those days, but as adults, they couldn’t forget this kindness—they owed a debt.

They’d just returned to China and immediately plunged into intense research, not even having time to settle their daughter.

It was only recently that they learned what had happened to the Zhong family.

Nan Sheng had cursed Gu Yunchuan up and down while secretly trying to get information.

The answer she got was: wait.

The Zhong family had done nothing wrong. Their only “fault” was being a family of scholars, a household full of intellectuals.

That year, there was a campaign to “thoroughly expose the so-called academic authorities’ reactionary bourgeois stance against the Party and socialism, and thoroughly criticize the reactionary bourgeois ideas in academia, education, journalism, literature, and publishing.”

“To utterly defeat the so-called bourgeois experts, scholars, authorities, and patriarchs, and strip them of their prestige.”

Intellectuals became the primary targets of struggle. They’d done nothing wrong—just a few words, and they were scapegoated.

The persecution of intellectuals during that period reached horrifying extremes.

That year, among the 170-plus senior and deputy-senior intellectuals at the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Beijing, 131 were targeted for downfall or investigation. The Zhong family wasn’t originally among them, but Gu Yunchuan, for his own gain, falsely reported them and dragged them down too.

The situation was tragic—over a thousand households were raided, and more than 200 people were persecuted to death.

The humiliation of intellectuals reached its peak—knowledge was seen as a crime, intellectuals as criminals, cast to the bottom of society.

If the Ming family hadn’t moved away back then, their fate would have been the same as the Zhong family’s.

After so many years, people finally realized how crucial intellectuals were to the nation’s development. They even begged them to return from America to help. Clearly, the day when the clouds would part was not far off."