Su Yun continued, "But when we mentioned Feng Dayong and Feng Lan getting arrested just now, your uncle froze and his face went pale. Your dad took him to the police station, but they weren’t allowed to see them. He came back and has been crying ever since. Do you think he knew what Feng Lan and the others were planning last night?"

Qin Jiao, halfway through a sweet triangular pastry, replied, "Either way, he didn’t come here with that brother-and-sister pair, so I suppose he still has some standards."

If he had teamed up with an outsider to steal from his own brother, then her uncle, Qin Jiqun, would be a completely lost cause.

Of course, if he knew what was happening and didn’t say anything, that would be pretty scummy too. But at least he still had that last shred of decency.

That was why Su Yun and her family hadn’t kicked Qin Jiqun out.

A short while later, Xiao Shi also woke up. Su Yun was nearly finished with lunch. She stewed the old hen Qin Jiqun had brought with some dried mushrooms. She also made a braised fish—one Qin Jiao had taken from her space and told her mom she’d bought at the market—a tomato and egg soup, spareribs stewed with potatoes and green beans, and a plate of hot and sour napa cabbage.

Qin Jiqun’s mouth was watering. "What a magnificent spread today!" he said.

"Of course it is," Su Yun said. "We survived a great ordeal, and we didn’t lose anything yesterday. That’s something to be very thankful for."

At the mention of the previous night, Qin Jiqun went quiet again. He lowered his head and wolfed down his food, finishing three bowls of rice.

They sent a portion over to the Du family next door, of course. After lunch, Qin Jiqun got ready to leave. Qin Zhonghui thought he was going back to the police station, but instead, his brother asked to borrow ten yuan and headed back to Three Families Village!

Su Yun was taken aback. She asked curiously, "Doesn’t everyone say he and his wife are inseparable? That whenever Ji Qun gets something good to eat, he always saves half for her?"

"There’s one thing even more important to him than delicious food," Qin Jiao said.

His precious son, Xiao Tao.

Qin Jiqun was just like Mr. Qin—extremely patriarchal. A big reason he treated Feng Lan so well was that she had given him a son. This allowed him to hold his head high among his brothers and freeload off his parents without a second thought.

Now that Feng Lan was about to go to prison, if she got a sentence of a few years, Qin Jiqun definitely wouldn’t wait for her.

He was probably rushing back to discuss with Mr. Qin and the others what to do about the situation.

Feng Lan had brought this on herself. As for whether Qin Jiqun would divorce her, that was his own choice to make.

Qin Jiao was curious about something else.

Sure enough, Su Yun asked her husband, Qin Zhonghui, "By the way, do you know why our third brother came today? Did Dad really send him to congratulate our Xiao Jiao?"

It was no wonder Su Yun was still reluctant to believe it. After all, she knew that old man all too well. His patriarchal views had been ingrained in him for decades; they weren’t going to change in a day or two.

And besides crying at first and then eating his fill, Qin Jiqun hadn’t done much else.

Qin Zhonghui was putting away some knives he regularly used. "Before I walked him out just now, I asked," he said. "He told me Dad really did send him. Dad also said that when Xiao Jiao is successful in the future, she shouldn’t forget to help out Xiao Tao. After all, Xiao Tao is her only brother, and in the future, if anything happens, she’ll need a brother to stand up for her."

The first part of that message was reasonable enough.

But the second part... no matter how you heard it, it just felt wrong, didn’t it?