Chapter One

  Tang Xueqiang painstakingly lectured her with many words of wisdom, finally saying: "Our procuratorate is in charge of dealing with the likes of Liu Dayong who have infiltrated the public security and law enforcement teams. As long as you can truthfully testify, I dare to arrest him! Before we do, we'll dispatch police to protect you and your mother."

  Wei Xueli then cried out and told the truth about Liu Dayong's crime of raping her, occupying her house and beating Yi Wenkui to death. Tang Xueqiang slammed his fist on the table and immediately approved the arrest of Liu Dayong.

  The front foot caught Liu Dayong, and the back foot came to plead, only then did he know that Liu Dayong was the only son of Liu Weiyuan, director of the District Administration for Industry and Commerce.

  Tang Xueqiang severely scolded those who tried to intercede, including some district leaders: "I don't care whose son he is, if he breaks the law, he must accept severe punishment!"

  Three months later, the heinous Liu Dayong was sentenced to death...

  ……

  From then on, Wang Dongshan's elopement with Tang Xueqiang's beautiful wife changed from an open rumor to a underground spread.

  As a result of this incident, Wang Dongshan rose to the position of Municipal Party Secretary, while Tang Xueqiang was removed from his posts as Deputy Secretary of the Municipal Party Committee and Secretary of the Political and Legal Committee, and after several twists and turns, he became the Procurator-General of the Municipal People's Procuratorate.

  Liu Qianqian stayed at Lanhe Hospital in the provincial capital after graduating from Lanhe Medical University as a doctor. One day, Tang Xueqiang met Liu Qianqian because of an appraisal for a big case. In Liu Qianqian's mind, Tang Xueqiang, who was thirteen years older than her, was cool!

  This person is strange, when she was in college, Liu Qianqian was the school flower, and there were no less than a dozen boys in her class who pursued her. She was able to stay at Lanhe Hospital in the provincial city because the principal's son fell in love with her. The principal's son was tall and handsome, elegant and refined, and one of the most eligible bachelors in medical school. If they were to get together, it would be a perfect match between talent and beauty. But Liu Qianqian was lukewarm about this, neither expressing opposition nor refusal.

  When she first saw Tang Xueqiang, she couldn't help but tremble, and a frantic thing suddenly appeared in her body, followed by an explosion. She was unable to control herself, as if she were about to float away... ...The rationality of university students and their own psychological quality quickly overcame this strange thing that had never appeared on her before. She finally sat calmly in the doctor's special chair, accepting Tang Xueqiang's "consultation". When Tang Xueqiang finished asking questions and was about to get up, Liu Qianqian asked him to sit down again with a elegant gesture.

  "Tang Jian, can I... " Liu Qianqian suddenly became a bit incoherent: "You see, I..." Soon, she regained her composure: "I also have two questions to ask."

  "Please go ahead." Tang Xueqiang said with a lack of humility: "As long as it's related to law, I'll satisfy you."

  "This has nothing to do with the law." Liu Qianqian struggled to find the right words: "It's about your own problem."

  "Mine?" Tang Xueqiang looked disbelieving: "Concerning my problem?"

  "Yes." said Liu Qianqian calmly.

  "Then go ahead." Tang Xueqiang leaned back in his chair, ready to counterattack.

  "From the moment you walked in until now, you haven't smiled once, why?"

  "Haha?" Tang Xueqiang shook his head: "This word has nothing to do with me!"

  "Can it be said that you have never laughed?"

  "Yes."

  "Why?"

  Tang Xueqiang retorted: "Why must you laugh?"

  "If I'm not mistaken, you're already 37 or 38, right? Your wife must be very beautiful?"

  "Thirty-five years old, single."

  "Why?"

  "The children of the poor have to grow up early, my parents are farmers, in order to make a living, I suffered a lot, so I look old. As for being single, I haven't met the right person."

  ……

  In the following three months, they went through the whole process of falling in love and getting married.

  A year later, their beautiful daughter was born.

  After the birth of her daughter, the relationship between mother-in-law and daughter-in-law deteriorated to an extreme. There was only one reason: she gave birth to a girl. A girl can't irrigate or pound rice, a girl can't shout or beat drums... there are too many things a girl can't do. The old lady's complaints and nagging for over a year boiled down to one sentence: Girls can't carry on the family line!

  Tang Xueqiang said, "Oh my, that's in the countryside. In the city, men and women are equal!" Tang Xueqiang failed to convince his mother, so he agreed to let his wife take their child to Hainan to develop. Because, Liu Qianqian proposed: She really had no way to get along with her mother-in-law! She didn't trust leaving her daughter with a mother-in-law who held serious male chauvinist views!

  After Liu Qianqian went to Hainan, the family was at peace again, and the relationship between the little nanny and the old lady was also very good. The old problem was solved, but Tang Xueqiang's new heart disease was added, such a beautiful wife who is 13 years younger than him, would there be other problems!

  As soon as he was afraid of ghosts, something really happened on his wife's side.

  Not long after the Spring Festival, Tang Xueqiang, under the pen name "Xue Qian", wrote an article titled "Six Thousand Miles in One Day" and won first prize in the "Spring Festival Story" essay contest of the magazine "Happy Family".

  On the afternoon of New Year's Eve, I got my ticket for the flight from Lanhe to Haikou in the afternoon. In a few hours, I will see my beautiful wife and lovely daughter, and I am thrilled beyond words. As one of the main leaders of the Municipal Procuratorate, due to work reasons, I can only return home on the afternoon of New Year's Eve. Thinking that my colleagues and the procurator-general will be sticking to their posts on New Year's Eve and New Year's Day, I feel contented, and I hummed "Today is Really Exciting".

  Two hours before the flight took off, I received a call from the prosecutor on my way to Lanzhou Airport. The prosecutor said that he had an urgent matter and had to fly to Beijing immediately, asking me to return to take his shift. As a military man, the prosecutor brought some of the army's style into the unit, and under his influence, executing orders became the sacred duty of the procuratorate staff. I knew my prosecutor too well; if it wasn't something big, he wouldn't ask me to come back on duty at the last minute when I was about to reunite with my wife and daughter. Apart from this sacred duty, the prosecutor was very considerate of us subordinates whose families were in other places. Every year, my round-trip air tickets to Haikou were specially approved by the prosecutor. As a deputy prosecutor, I had no reason not to return to my post. To be honest, returning home a few days late was unimportant to me. But I had an unspoken concern! My wife, Liu Qianqian, was too beautiful; at 26 years old, she wasn't the kind of woman who still had some charm left, but rather the kind of beauty that made her husband feel uneasy. On December 20th, I received an anonymous call from Haikou. The man on the other end reminded me that my wife was having an affair, and the third party was someone named XXX from their research institute. I asked him who he was, but he hung up the phone. For ten days, I had been worried about this phone call. Historical experience tells us that when couples are separated by distance, the probability of infidelity is over 90%. For my beautiful wife in Haikou, this possibility was absolutely higher than that standard. On my way back to the procuratorate from the airport, I dialed my wife's cell phone number.

  She didn't have the joy of a couple about to reunite, but instead asked with great displeasure, "What's going on?"

  Hearing such an attitude and being asked an unacceptable question was like having a basin of cold water poured over my head, a chill ran from the top of my head to the soles of my feet. It's all over, it's all over, she must be out of her mind.

  I told her that I couldn't return to Haikou, and unexpectedly her mood suddenly improved: "It's just as well, it's good to come back a few days later. These few days I'm on duty too, who made you a leading cadre?"

  When I heard this, I was so disappointed that I almost cursed. This guy must have a problem! Otherwise, on the first day of the Lunar New Year, her husband didn't come home and she had no reason to be happy.

  For the next two days, I felt like crying, wanted to curse, and was anxious. On New Year's Eve at midnight, I had an idea that wouldn't go away: she has a three-bedroom, two-hall house, and her daughter who is in kindergarten lives separately from her. She must be with that third person she mentioned on the anonymous phone call, maybe... No way! Absolutely can't let them get away with their evil deeds, I'll make a phone call to stir things up. I took my colleague Little Liu's cell phone and dialed the following number: 1790XXXXXXX.

  It was her soft voice: "Who is it?"

  I was shocked in my heart, and as expected, her voice carried a kind of exhaustion after the great war...

  The next morning, I didn't sleep well the night before and dialed the following number with my mobile phone: 17909 ×××××××××. The result was an empty number. Ah! ? I was shocked. I also dialed her cell phone number, which was also an empty number. It's over! She must have eloped with someone! Calling her unit's phone number was also an empty number. Completely finished! She must have disappeared in Haikou!……

  In the early morning of my third day, I rushed to the airport at the fastest speed and arrived in Haikou three and a half hours later. Fifty minutes later, I arrived at her research institute. Her colleague told me that my wife had just gone home to rest. I told her colleague not to tell her, I wanted to surprise her. After her colleague nodded, I rushed to the door of our home again at the fastest speed. When I knocked on the door, I also touched the handcuffs in my pocket, determined to take this despicable third person to the police station and make him remember that stealing someone else's wife would never end well!

  She was at home. She asked "Who?" three times before opening the door a crack.

  After I squeezed in the door, she quickly locked it. I didn't hug her who was wearing a nightgown as usual, but went to every room including the balcony and had a look around. There wasn't any third person I wanted to find except her.

  "The child has been taken out by the nanny." She said carefully, her face already filled with tears.

  "What's wrong with you?"

  She rushed into my arms and said: "I didn't expect you to bring me such a big surprise!"

  I pushed her: "Why did the phone stop?"

  She picked up the phone and said, "No."

  I dialed the phone number with my mobile phone and it went through. Then I dialed her mobile phone number again and it also went through.

  What's weird is that I dialed the morning phone call and it turned out to be a wrong number. When making long-distance calls on mobile phones, you should dial 17911 or 17951 instead of 17909.

  Good heavens! I didn't say a word, threw away my phone and carried my wife onto the bed...

  That night, I flew to Lanhe again. I had flown 6,000 miles that day and spent nearly 4,000 yuan on transportation costs. This was the tuition fee I paid for my reckless speculation about my wife without getting to the bottom of things. Was this tuition fee worth paying? On the way home, I kept asking myself if I should tell her this unmentionable secret or not...

  Ai, Qianqian ah Qianqian...