"Dong Hongmei said to Zhou Qiang, 'Qiang, I always wanted Lanxiang to have a good life with you.'"
"She said, 'As your mother-in-law, the more I see of you, the more I like you as a son-in-law. Steady, capable, exceptionally intelligent, low-key, and good at keeping your talents hidden.'"
Wang Xiaoliang had already been shocked so many times that one more hardly seemed to matter.
"Dong Hongmei said, 'If my father were alive, you'd be exactly the sort of talent he liked best. Qiang, have you ever heard of a Qianmen Tijiang?'"
"Zhou Qiang shook his head."
"Dong Hongmei said, 'It doesn't matter. That sort of thing isn't fit for respectable company.'"
Wang Xiaoliang interjected, "What's a Qianmen Tijiang?"
"Zhou Qiang said he looked it up afterward. It was a shady trade from the old days, specializing in swindling and deception. The Tijiang planned the schemes and generally didn't carry them out personally."
"Dong Hongmei continued, 'Time and again, openly and indirectly, I warned Lanxiang to make a good life with you. She wouldn't listen. She thought she was more capable than me.'"
"'Think about it. If you hadn't found those lousy notebooks, would you be putting on this act? Wouldn't you have kept living a steady, honest life? Making money isn't hard for you. Those friends of yours are no ordinary people either, and you're close. However rich you became in the future, neither of us would have had to worry about it. We could have just stayed home and enjoyed the good life.'"
Experience really did count.
This woman saw things far too clearly. Zhou Qiang's abilities, the capabilities of the people around him-she had seen it all and factored it all in. From the start, she had never wanted to kill the goose that laid the golden