Sincerity is a Weapon

"Wang Yan, how did our Jianjun ever offend you? We've lived in the same courtyard for so many years, and you two grew up together, after all. You already beat him—what grudge could be so impossible to let go of that you had to report him and get our Jianjun arrested? He got sentenced to four years! Now his wife has divorced him too, and the child is still so little. What are they supposed to do in the future? You've torn our whole family apart. How could you be so cruel? Whatever Jianjun did to wrong you, I'll apologize to you as his mother. Don't hold it against him. Can you please help him?"

After dinner, Wang Yan carried the Soviet Union family's dirty-water bucket out to dump it when he ran into Cheng Jianjun's mother, who stood before him wide-eyed and furious and spoke those words.

It was now early November, a month and a half after Cheng Jianjun had been arrested. Three major things had happened during that time.

First, Wang Bin had successfully gone from being a tiny preschooler to a first-grade kid. Second, Ma Du's wedding had gone off without a hitch. The courtyard kids he had known, the friends he had made in cultural circles over the past few years, and the people he had met while out and about all came. It had been lively and suitably grand. More importantly, Wang Yan had attended as well, and had even generously accompanied Ma Du to toast a few people, making Ma Du look all the more impressive.

As for the third matter, after all the procedures had run their course, it was exactly as Cheng Jianjun's mother had said: four years.

Cheng Jianjun's wife had endured things for so many years and had only