Chapter 187: Sheng Wanyan’s Refusal
Carrying half a pound of delicate pastries wrapped in paper, Sheng Wanyan set out. She was heading to Sheng Wanze’s flat for dinner that evening, and she absolutely refused to show up empty-handed.
As she entered the stairwell of the tube building, she bumped into Mother Pan returning from her shift at the hospital. Noting the parcel in Wanyan’s hand, Mother Pan immediately deduced she was heading to her daughter’s apartment. She warmly took Wanyan’s arm and began chatting.
“Wanyan, how have you been holding up lately? I heard Captain Gu is deployed on a major mission.” Mother Pan looked at her with genuine concern. “You should come visit your auntie’s flat more often when you’re free. Don’t just sit in that big courtyard all alone.”
Mother Pan had quickly realized that her daughter’s sister-in-law wasn’t a naturally social butterfly. Wanyan kept strictly to herself every day, yet she never seemed to find the isolation boring. Aside from the occasional outing with Political Commissar Xie’s wife, Wanyan rarely interacted with the other compound wives.
“I’m doing perfectly fine, Auntie. Thank you,” Wanyan smiled.
“That’s wonderful to hear. You must come over to my place for dinner soon!” Mother Pan insisted. “You treated your uncle and me to such an incredibly lavish feast last time. It’s only right that your aunt treats you to a proper meal in return.”
Just thinking about the massive, savory spread of meat she had enjoyed at Wanyan’s house made Mother Pan’s mouth water all over again.
“I definitely will, Auntie—the moment Tingxiao returns,” Wanyan promised gracefully.
“Alright, alright. Are you heading up to see your grandparents?”
Wanyan nodded. Mother Pan patted her arm affectionately and released her, allowing her to head upstairs.
“Is Captain Gu’s wife heading to her sister-in-law’s flat for dinner again?”
As Wanyan reached the fourth floor, the wives living along Pan Yue’s corridor spotted her and offered nosy greetings.
Wanyan maintained her polite, poised smile and nodded. “Yes, I am.”
“Oh, my~ It certainly pays to have your brother and sister-in-law living so close by,” one of the wives drawled with a hint of sarcasm. “You get to save an entire meal’s worth of rations.”
Hearing the blatant shade, Wanyan’s smile didn’t waver. Her voice remained impeccably gentle as she replied, “I can’t help it. My brother and sister-in-law are stationed right here at the base. By the way, Sister-in-law, isn’t your own brother also enlisted in the army?”
“Well… yes,” the woman answered hesitantly.
Wanyan’s smile widened, growing almost blindingly bright. The gossiping wife suddenly felt a nervous prickle at the back of her neck.
“Then why don’t you ever go to your brother’s house to save a meal?”
The slow, sweet delivery of that single sentence instantly silenced the busybody.
“Ah… hehe… my brother lives in the enlisted barracks,” the woman stammered awkwardly. Her brother was merely a deputy squad leader; he didn’t possess the rank required to apply for family housing.
“Is that so? What a terrible pity,” Wanyan sighed softly.
“You… you don’t say…” The wife hastily lowered her head, aggressively stirring the food in her wok in a sudden panic. It turned out Captain Gu’s wife was absolutely not someone to be trifled with. She spoke with a velvety softness, but her words were precision-guided daggers.
Before Wanyan even had to knock, Pan Yue heard her voice and pushed the door open.
“Little sister! Come in quickly,” Pan Yue beamed. But her eyes immediately dropped to Wanyan’s hands. “Oh, Wanyan! Why are you bringing food again? We only just finished that massive carp you brought us last week!”
Pan Yue scolded affectionately as she pulled Wanyan inside.
Out in the corridor, the eavesdropping wives—who had been eagerly waiting to witness some domestic friction between the pampered sister-in-law and the pregnant wife—felt their jaws drop.
“I only brought half a pound of pastries, Sister-in-law,” Wanyan laughed. “Just a little sweet treat for you and Grandma.”
“Alright, fine. But you are forbidden from bringing anything next time. I mean it—I already have everything I need here,” Pan Yue insisted warmly.
“Understood.”
The two women held hands as they stepped inside, shutting the heavy door firmly and leaving the gossiping corridor out in the cold.
It took the eavesdropping wives a long moment to recover from the exchange. When they finally did, a collective wave of shock washed over them.
Good heavens… Captain Gu’s wife is actually subsidizing her brother’s household!
A massive carp… that’s practically a pound of pure meat!
And half a pound of delicate pastries?! I haven’t even tasted a pastry in over six months!
Same here. I think the last time I had one was two months ago…
The greedy wives couldn’t help but swallow their saliva enviously. Why hadn’t any of them been blessed with such a generous, wealthy sister-in-law?
They had originally thought Sheng Wanyan was the lucky one, marrying a high-ranking officer, but it turned out Pan Yue was the true winner in life. Pan Yue came from a prestigious military family, had married into a completely harmonious household with reasonable, doting grandparents, possessed a husband who adored her, and was blessed with a wealthy sister-in-law who actively provided for her instead of causing drama.
It was the exact life countless women dreamed of. Yet, no matter how deeply they envied her, it wouldn’t change their own reality. With heavy sighs, the wives picked up their spatulas and returned to cooking their meager rations.
Inside the flat, Grandma Sheng was in remarkably high spirits. Before Wanyan even had the chance to ask, the elderly woman burst out with the good news.
“Wanyan, your brother’s housing application was officially approved today! He secured the freestanding courtyard right across the lane from yours!”
Wanyan had anticipated the rapid approval given Father Pan’s influence, but having it officially confirmed allowed everyone to breathe a deep sigh of relief.
“Grandma, that’s wonderful! Now you won’t have to constantly run back and forth,” Wanyan smiled.
“Exactly!” Grandma Sheng nodded enthusiastically.
“My in-laws have arranged for a few soldiers to help us move our belongings over tomorrow,” Pan Yue added. “Though with Wanze still deployed, I have no idea when he’ll actually get to see the new place.”
A shadow of worry crossed Grandma Sheng’s face at the mention of Sheng Wanze. Back in Chengdu, she hadn’t constantly worried about his safety because he had been stationed far away. But living right here on the base, surrounded by the daily realities of military life, amplified her maternal anxiety tenfold.
“Grandma, I’ll come over first thing tomorrow morning to help you scrub and sweep the new courtyard,” Wanyan interjected smoothly, deliberately shifting the conversation. It wasn’t healthy for the old woman to dwell on the dangers of her grandson’s deployment.
“Alright, that sounds perfect,” Grandma Sheng agreed, her attention instantly diverted back to the logistics of the move.
After dinner, Wanyan sat in the small living room sipping tea with Grandpa Sheng. The elderly man had grown incredibly bored since arriving at the base. His days consisted entirely of sitting in the cramped flat or tending to the small patch of assigned vegetable garden downstairs. While there were other elderly dependents living in the compound, the vast majority were older women; Grandpa Sheng simply couldn’t find a single male peer to play chess or socialize with. And it certainly wasn’t appropriate for an old man to go inserting himself into the women’s gossip circles.
Listening to his complaints, Wanyan fell into thought. It was true—there really were no recreational outlets for him here.
“Grandpa, once you move into the courtyard tomorrow, you can expand your vegetable plot and maybe even raise a couple of chickens,” Wanyan suggested. “Or, better yet, when my brother returns from his mission, you could ask him to apply to adopt a retired military dog from the canine unit. I have a puppy at my house, and it really helps keep the place secure while Tingxiao is away.”
“That’s not a bad idea…” Grandpa Sheng murmured, stroking his chin.
“Exactly. With Pan Yue expecting, she’ll need a strict month of postpartum confinement after the baby is born. Whenever my brother is deployed, having a trained dog to guard the house will give everyone peace of mind.”
Grandpa Sheng nodded thoughtfully. Raising a dog would certainly give him a daily responsibility and something to occupy his time. “I’ll discuss it thoroughly with your brother when he gets back. Right now, your sister-in-law’s health is the absolute priority.”
Grandpa Sheng knew that keeping a dog required a unanimous family decision. In this era, simply putting enough grain on the table to feed human mouths was a daily struggle; keeping a large animal meant securing additional, expensive food rations.
Wanyan nodded in agreement. The final decision ultimately belonged to her brother and sister-in-law; she was merely offering a practical suggestion and had no intention of interfering further.
After chatting for a while longer, Wanyan prepared to leave. Before she stepped out the door, Grandpa Sheng enthusiastically demanded she report to the new courtyard tomorrow for a rematch on the chessboard.
Another week vanished in the blink of an eye. Half a month had now passed since Gu Tingxiao’s departure, and there was still no sign of his unit returning.
Wanyan made another trip to the post office to dispatch her completed translation manuscripts. She knew the defense department was eagerly awaiting the technical data. This time, she hadn’t held back a single volume to translate at a leisurely pace; she had burned through the entire stack and mailed them all at once. Having submitted three dense, highly classified technical manuals, she anticipated a massive royalty payout the following month.
After dropping off the parcel, Wanyan continued her routine of discreetly retrieving bulk supplies from her pocket dimension and hauling them back to the compound.
Because she perfectly timed her return to coincide with the evening dinner rush, the dirt lanes were mostly populated by exhausted soldiers returning from drills, meaning she avoided the prying eyes of the compound gossips entirely.
Wanyan safely transported her haul into the courtyard and began the grueling task of transferring the heavy provisions down into the root cellar. The only significant drawback of the traditional northern cellar was the necessity of crawling awkwardly up and down the steep, narrow earth steps.
