Feng Jiamo, you actually wrote this to your brother-in-law? (Asking for monthly votes)

"Old Cheng, so many letters from readers? Let me take a look, let me see if any of them are from the girls in my class!"

Cheng Xueming had indeed brought back this large bundle of reader letters that Zhang Denning had given him. He had just parked his bicycle when his sister-in-law, unable to contain her excitement, wanted to open them and start searching, her face flushed with eager anticipation. She was clearly hoping to find a letter from one of her classmates, so she could show it off and tease them at school.

But Cheng Xueming would not indulge her. Letters from readers were inherently private matters, and letting his sister-in-law spread them around—especially in someone else's class—would be an affront to the girls' dignity.

He immediately slapped her hand away and said, "You can't touch these yet. We'll wait till we get home, and let your sister look through them first. Otherwise, if one of the letters from your classmates goes missing, your sister will think I hid it on purpose!"

If he hadn’t been worried about Bei Jia and Jian Ying finding out, Feng Jiayou herself would have wanted to go through them right then and there. But she had restrained herself and had told Cheng Xueming not to let Feng Jia Mo rummage through the letters before she got a chance to.

"Why can’t I look? I just want to see if there’s a letter from my classmate, I’m not going to read the other letters!"

"Come on, Old Cheng, just let me check, won’t you? Please?"

She clung to his arm, rubbing against him just like her sister always did. She was definitely growing up fast—perhaps even more so than her sister.

Ahem... His blood was running a bit too hot these days—he shouldn't let his thoughts run wild.

Cheng Xueming quickly pulled his hand away, not yielding an inch. "Listen, the warning bell’s ringing. Hurry and get back to class! We’ll talk about this at home!"

Unable to withstand his sister-in-law’s whining, Cheng Xueming quickly locked up his bicycle and picked up the bundle of letters.

"Old Cheng..."

Seeing her act of coquettishness fail, Feng Jia Mo stamped her foot in frustration, deeply aggrieved.

After class, Cheng Xueming let his sister-in-law sulk and walk home on her own, while he rode his bicycle to Yenching University to pick up her sister.

"Old Cheng, you’ve made so much money from your writing—can’t you buy me a new bike?"

Hmph!

Cheng Xueming wasn't her father. If she wanted a new bike, she should ask her dad. What did his writing income have to do with her, anyway?

"Mom! Mom! Mom! Yenching Literary Review wants to hold a symposium for Xueming! They might even invite you!"

As soon as Cheng Xueming and Feng Jiayou got home, she eagerly announced this good news to her beloved mother.

She hadn't even entered the courtyard yet and was already shouting with excitement.

"Li Qingquan wants to hold a symposium for Xueming?!" Feng’s mother, busy cooking dinner in the kitchen, was surprised as well. She wiped her hands on her apron and came out to ask.

"Yes!" Feng Jiayou nodded enthusiastically. "Apparently Ding Ling spoke up for Xueming’s ‘The Wrangler.’ Yenching Literary Review wants to seize the moment, invite industry luminaries, and hold a symposium for him!"

"Zhang Denning said today the event might be quite high-profile!"

Feng’s mother was taken aback once more. Ding Ling’s first public statement in the Wen Hui Daily was nothing short of a sensation in the literary world—how could she not be aware of it?

She had read that very issue of the Wen Hui Daily that morning; it was full of praise for her son-in-law.

And this was Ding Ling!

She hadn’t expected that, after years of silence and returning to Beijing, Ding Ling’s first statement would be in support of her daughter’s husband. As a mother-in-law, she felt an overwhelming sense of pride.

However, as she thought of Yenching Literary Review, she couldn’t hide her disdain. "How grand can Li Qingquan possibly make this symposium?"

"Wait till your father comes home—there's something I want to announce at dinner."

Feng’s mother deliberately kept her two debt collectors in suspense. She had even bigger news to share and was saving it for when her husband came home.

"Huh? Mom, what is it? Tell me now!" Feng Jiayou asked, eyes wide with curiosity. "Is it about that short story? Has ‘October’ finally agreed to publish it?"

She was holding on to two manuscripts for her mother. When Zhang Denning asked about their progress today, she and her husband hadn’t felt confident in their answer.

Now that the Yenching Literary Review was preparing to host a high-profile symposium for her son-in-law, she couldn’t afford to break faith with the novella, either.

"Wait till dinner!" Feng’s mother shot her a look and turned back into the kitchen, even humming a little tune—clearly in excellent spirits.

"Who cares, anyway?" Feng Jiayou pouted, muttering toward the kitchen.

Then, unable to contain her own excitement, she hurried back to her own room. If she hadn’t had something to distract her, she would have been right there in the kitchen, pestering her mother for answers.

"Xueming, hurry up! Quickly, see if there’s a love letter from Beijia!"

Once inside, Feng Jiayou locked the door and urged Cheng Xueming to open the bundle of letters.

"Look how eager you are! You even locked the door. What will Mom think if she comes by?" Cheng Xueming shook his head with a wry smile and dumped all the envelopes onto the end of the bed, sifting through them openly.

"Huh? This one’s from Wang Xiaoping in my class? And this one’s from Chen Jiangong? This is from Liu Zhenyun?"

"They all wrote to you?"

As she flipped through the stack, she found many familiar names—almost all from the Chinese Department at Yenching University.

"Zhaxi Duo? That’s Jian Ying’s pen name, right? She wrote to you too?!"

"Here’s Beijia’s letter!"

Feng Jiayou quickly found the letters from Huang Beijia and her friends among the readers’ correspondence.

"Zhang Denning must have sorted them beforehand. See, most of these have Yenching’s address on them," Cheng Xueming said with a smile.

"Must’ve been categorized," Feng Jiayou agreed, already impatiently tearing open the letters from Huang Beijia and Jian Ying—the first one, of course, being from Huang Beijia.

"Maybe you should read it first, Xueming. If you think I can see it, then pass it to me?"

She was so anxious to know, yet still pretended to let Cheng Xueming read it first. Oh, this woman could really put on a show.

"Enough with the act! In front of your own husband, there's no need for pretense," Cheng Xueming teased. Though curious about what Huang Beijia had written, he dared not show the slightest eagerness in front of Feng Jiayou, lest he end up kneeling on a washboard tonight.

"What? There’s actually a movie ticket in here!"

Without hesitation, Feng Jiayou opened Huang Beijia’s envelope and found, to her astonishment, a movie ticket inside.

It was a Yenching University internal pass for a film titled "Manhunt," a Japanese film dubbed in Chinese.

Only one ticket.

Obviously, the adjacent seat’s ticket was with Huang Beijia herself—an unmistakable invitation for a secret movie rendezvous.

"How bold of Beijia! A direct invitation to the movies?"

Feng Jiayou was incredulous. She’d suspected that Huang Beijia might try to arrange a movie outing in her letter, but she hadn’t expected her to be bold enough to send the ticket outright.

My goodness!

Shaking her head, Feng Jiayou read on to see what Huang Beijia had written to her husband.

Thankfully, the letter contained nothing too explicit—just admiration and a request to learn from her literary senior, the famous author who wrote "The Wrangler."

Mostly admiration, really. Because she admired him, she wanted to invite him to a movie and get to know him.

Finishing Huang Beijia’s "love letter," Feng Jiayou felt a bit disappointed. There was nothing juicy in it, so she opened Jian Ying’s, hoping this reserved girl would provide more excitement.

But to her surprise, when she opened Jian Ying’s envelope, there was also a single movie ticket and nothing else.

Were they both in on this? Both secretly inviting her husband to the movies?

What left Feng Jiayou and Cheng Xueming even more dumbfounded was that many of the girls’ letters included a movie ticket.

Nearly all were for the blockbuster "Manhunt," showing at the Yenching University auditorium, and nearly all set for Saturday at seven in the evening.

Oh, heavens!

Staring at the more than thirty movie tickets spread across the bed, Feng Jiayou was stunned. Had they rented out the entire hall? Did they all agree to meet at the same time, completely unafraid of running into each other?

But the truth was, these innocent university girls hadn’t thought it through. All independently chose Saturday evening, leading to a thirty-car pile-up, so to speak.

Well, there was no way Cheng Xueming would dare show up for that movie!

"No way!"

"On Saturday, Xueming, I’m going with you. We can’t let all these tickets go to waste!"

The internal tickets for movies in the Yenching University auditorium were uniformly five cents each. If they resold all thirty tickets, it would add up to just over a dollar.

Not much, really, so Feng Jiayou gave up the idea of selling them.

"Wait—what’s this? From that ungrateful Jia Mo?"

Rummaging through the pile again, Feng Jiayou found an envelope with a name even more surprising than Jian Ying or Huang Beijia.

It was from her own sister—her own flesh and blood.

Her little sister had secretly written a love letter to her brother-in-law?

"Big sister, Old Cheng, what are you doing with the door locked? Let me in, let me in!"

What a coincidence!

Just then, Feng Jia Mo returned home and immediately ran to her sister’s room, only to find the door locked.

"I had no idea, honestly! You saw it yourself—I didn’t even touch these!" Cheng Xueming was stupefied to see a letter from his sister-in-law and quickly tried to distance himself from the situation.

Never mind what his sister-in-law might have written—there was simply no way, as her brother-in-law, he could open it in front of his wife.

"Go open the door and let her in!"

Feng Jiayou stared at the letter in her hand, completely at a loss. She couldn't understand how her own little sister could have written to her husband among the readers’ letters.

Why? If Feng Jia Mo had anything to say to her brother-in-law, couldn’t she just say it at home? Why write a secret letter? What could she possibly have to hide?

She didn’t dare open it.

That’s right, Feng Jiayou held the letter from her sister to her husband but didn’t have the nerve to open it. She ordered Cheng Xueming to unlock the door and let her sister in for a face-to-face interrogation.

"Honey, maybe you should hold off—talk to her first, sister to sister?"

Cheng Xueming would have preferred that Feng Jiayou not take out the letter for a direct confrontation but rather have a sisterly heart-to-heart. They were family, after all—what was there to fight over?

"Go on! I told you to open the door and let her in!"

A heart-to-heart? As if!

Was this what sisters did? Secretly writing to her brother-in-law behind her back?

"..."

All Cheng Xueming could do was get up and open the door. What a headache, day in and day out.

...

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