Chapter 24: Utterly Stunned

Wei An realized she understood. The speech she was drafting was for Factory Director Wei to use at the machinery plant's National Day commendation assembly. In simpler terms, it needed to be a summary that also included instructions for subordinates, as well as praise and encouragement.

With this clarity, her pen flew across the paper; this time, it took her only half an hour to revise the draft.

Li Kunshan, having read it again, said, "..."

She was like wood that could not be carved! He had told her repeatedly to be pragmatic, yet she still insisted on filling it with all this fluff and hollow rhetoric.

"Go and revise it again!"

Wei An felt a headache coming on. Seeing Li Kunshan’s speechless expression, she knew she had misinterpreted his intentions once more.

"Pragmatic. It has to be pragmatic," she muttered to herself, rereading the draft she had produced twice more. "Where exactly is the problem?"

"How about I take a look for you?"

The others in the office, seeing Wei An scratching her head in frustration, were all consumed by curiosity. Sister Liu, who sat across from Wei An and considered herself quite close to her, leaned over, intending to see what Wei An had written.

Wei An glanced at her. "It’s no use if you look at it."

Although Sister Liu was a veteran of the Propaganda Department, her educational level was the lowest among them. Her usual tasks consisted of fetching hot water, delivering documents around the plant, or going on field assignments with Old Qin and the others.

Sister Liu choked on her words. *Looking down on people, are we?*

"Officer Li, why don't you take a look for Officer Su?" She reached out, snatched the manuscript from Wei An's hand, and immediately passed it to Officer Li, who sat behind her.

Seeing that Wei An didn't protest, Officer Li buried his head in the document, and Officer Wu, who sat opposite him, leaned in as well.

Wei An chuckled to herself and leaned back in her chair, lost in thought. She did not notice the look of growing shock on the faces of the two officers, nor the increasing curiosity on Sister Liu's face.

...

"Su Wei An."

Hey!

On her way home from work, still fretting over the speech, Wei An looked at Xie Hongfei, who was walking toward her with a scruffy, haggard appearance. A flash of surprise crossed her eyes. Could it be that Ye Aihua really was the "white moonlight" of his true love?

"Su Wei An, have you been to see Aihua?"

Wei An: "..."

This blockhead—did he not know why Ye Aihua had been arrested?

"Xie Hongfei, have you been to see her yourself?" Since he could be reduced to such a haggard state for her sake, he must have visited Ye Aihua, whom everyone else was terrified of being associated with, right?

Xie Hongfei opened his mouth, his face flushing—whether from shame or anger, it was hard to tell. "My mother won't let me go."

He rubbed his hands together. "Su Wei An, you and Aihua are close. Can you please go and see her for me? She must have been framed. She is a good girl."

Wei An couldn't describe her current mood. "Why won't Auntie Yang let you go?"

"My mother doesn't believe what I say," Xie Hongfei said, looking troubled.

"And do you think the Committee would arrest someone without evidence?" Wei An asked. "What makes you think our relationship is good enough for me to risk my own reputation to visit her on your behalf?" She emphasized the words "on your behalf."

"Xie Hongfei, I haven't even asked you yet—she told me that you liked me, and that you would go to the countryside with me. Is any of that true?"

"What?" Xie Hongfei was stunned. When had he ever liked Su Wei An? And, more importantly, would Ye Aihua really say such things to her? He looked at Wei An with a suspicious gaze.

Wei An sighed. Look, it was so obvious. Why had "she" believed Ye Aihua's one-sided story?

"I'm telling you, Ye Aihua told me before that you liked me. She urged me to confess to you, to break off my engagement and transfer my job to someone else, and even encouraged me to sign up to go to the countryside, claiming you would definitely accompany me."

Xie Hongfei's eyes widened in disbelief.

"Impossible. Clearly..."

"Clearly you two were already dating, right? Clearly you had already established a relationship, right? Yet that is exactly what she told me."

Wei An sneered, cutting him off. "Because your mother didn't approve of you two dating, even though you had already committed to each other privately, you never dared to defy your mother's wishes and go public. You even had to convince Ye Aihua not to tell anyone."

"To meet the criteria your mother had for a daughter-in-law, Ye Aihua egged me on to break my engagement and go to the countryside. Because only if I left could she, as my 'best friend,' get my job."

"With a job, she would have a chance to stand before your mother and persuade her to let you two marry."

"Of course, you don't know—and couldn't possibly know—that Ye Aihua has always been jealous of me. She encouraged me to break my engagement and confess to you, first to humiliate me in front of you, and second to make me lose a perfectly matched marriage."

"She lied and said you would go to the countryside with me, intending for me to suffer hardship there. We were both the youngest daughters in our families, but I was always more doted upon, and she hated me for it."

"What you don't even know is how much Ye Aihua loves you. To stay by your side and avoid the countryside, she didn't even hesitate to use her own body as leverage to bribe people into putting my name on the list."

"Xie Hongfei, how could you have the nerve to ask me to visit Ye Aihua for you? Shouldn't you be the one to go? You should know that she ended up in this state entirely because of you!"

Xie Hongfei was completely dumbstruck. He stared at Wei An in disbelief, taking a long time to react before shaking his head. "That’s not true. It’s not. What you’re saying isn't real."

To him, Ye Aihua had always been gentle and considerate. She had never shown a shred of jealousy toward Su Wei An. He desperately wanted to tell himself that none of this was true.

Suddenly, he recalled how his mother had indeed been dissatisfied with Ye Aihua, and how, even after she eventually agreed to let them date, she had repeatedly warned him not to make their relationship public.

He remembered his mother telling him that he was too young to marry and that he wouldn't be at a high enough rank in the military to marry for a long time. He remembered his mother suggesting more than once that Ye Aihua should go to the countryside first and return to marry him once they were old enough.

He suddenly understood. He understood that his mother had never truly approved of their relationship.

Since his mother had never approved, Ye Aihua must have known it too. In that light, her pushing Su Wei An to go to the countryside to seize her job didn't seem so surprising after all.

He ignored Wei An's final two sentences. "I told her that she should go to the countryside first, and that once we were old enough, I would definitely marry her."

"You should save those words for when you go to see her yourself," Wei An replied coldly. "I'm sure she’ll be happy that you visited, and she’s certainly looking forward to it. She’ll be even happier to know that, even now, you still haven't given up on her."