Good Man Operation Guide

Once she had blurted this out, she found that her mother, who had her head down, wiping the table, had actually looked up at herself in surprise. She then hurriedly explained falteringly, “Isn’t he, as a person, very good? Mom, you and Dad had also praised him before, saying that he always came to our stall to buy fish for his mother to eat, which was filial piety. Didn’t you also say that he would help carry the basin back every time he runs into you when he’s returning to the village?”

“That’s true.”

Mother Ke also didn’t think too much. After listening to her daughter’s words, she went back to wiping the table. “Didn’t his mother also set up a stall? It’s just next to ours, specializing in selling books. There aren’t many people in our county that read books, they might not necessarily be able to sell even one book a day. When Lin Shiheng came over, he wasn’t worried at all, instead, he only said he was working slowly to get quality results. I exchanged a few words with his mother, she said he was planning to go work in Shanghai, and persuaded her to rent out the family’s land for others to farm and just collect rent, then come to the county to set up a stall. His mother probably didn’t consider that Lin Shiheng was just afraid she would tire herself out with taking care of the land while he was away and therefore, persuaded her to sell books instead.”

“Usually, filial children are not too bad in character. I reckon that he really didn’t steal the money. If someone had really lost that much money, wouldn’t they have already called the public security bureau already? How could the matter have waited until he was reported instead?”

After Ke Jialing heard her mother’s high evaluation of her boyfriend, her heart was filled with worry, one that was one-part sweet and one-part sour.

“Then, is he at home now?”

“Should be at home, I heard from your aunt next door that a public security officer left with his grandmother, and two remaining public security officers separated, one went to Lin Shiheng’s house and the other to Widow Zhang’s. I reckon they’re currently at home waiting for the results.”

The pretty girl pursed her lips and unconsciously clutched the bookbag strap. “Mom, I just remembered that I borrowed a book from Fangfang and haven’t returned it. I’ll go return it to her first.”

“Fangfang?”

Mother Ke casually asked, “Didn’t she stop attending after junior high? She can still lend you books?”

Ke Jialing was already so old, yet there were very few times that she had lied. Just one lie would make her fair face blush red. Once she heard her mother’s question she couldn’t even get any words out, coughing to clear her throat for a bit before reluctantly responding, “It was borrowed from before, I wanted to review some of the contents.”

“Okay, go on then, come back early. It’s even worse to travel once it gets dark, it rained a while ago and a lot of people had slipped and fallen.”

“Eh, I know.”

Ke Jialing was barely able to maintain her normal walking speed while she was at home, then as soon as she left the courtyard, she rushed quickly towards the direction of the Lin family. Unsure if it was because of the fast movement or that she had lied to her mother, her heart pounded fiercely as she ran.

All the way until she was in front of Lin Shiheng’s house, her heart, which was already beating fast, became even faster as if it wanted to jump out.

She tried to calm down before walking to the front door, knocking on it cautiously.

There was no movement inside.

They probably didn’t hear it.

Ke Jialing knocked a little harder this time, three times in a row, waiting nervously with bated breath for someone inside to open the door.

***

Inside the house, Lin Shiheng sat at the table with the officer, exchanging thoughts about the future development of the country and how dangerous the profession was. Seeing that they were discussing happily and that the officer didn’t look like he was treating her son like a criminal, Mother Lin relaxed a bit more than before, sat to the side and quietly listened.

The sound from the knocking outside wasn’t loud, so she didn’t hear it. It was Lin Shiheng who raised his head and asked his mother, “Is there someone knocking outside?”

Mother Lin listened carefully and found there really was someone, she slightly frowned and responded. “It could be your Grandmother’s family. Don’t worry about them.”

She was good-tempered and soft-hearted, but everyone had a bottom line, and Mother Lin’s chest had been filled with anger ever since she had returned and heard her acquaintances tell her what had happened during the day.

The others told her that Old Lady Lin framed Shiheng to get her son executed.

That was execution by shooting!

Previously, although she had hated Old Lady Lin for kicking herself and her son out of the house when her husband died, leaving them to fend for themselves, she had also always felt that it was because her mother-in-law despised her and that she was the one who had gotten her son into trouble. That, coupled with the fact that she reminisces the good memories regarding her husband, made it harder for her to face this mother-in-law.

But after all her compromises, all she got in return was a mother-in-law who wanted to force Shiheng to die.

Mother Lin couldn’t take it any longer.

A rare occasion of her standing firm, “Let them continue knocking, it’s not very loud anyway. Your grandmother has gone too far this time!”

***

The public security officer, who had been chatting with Lin Shiheng, gradually thought that he was not a bad person and was quite insightful, so he didn’t say anything.

It was difficult for a clean official to judge family matters, not to mention he wasn’t even an ‘official’ at all.

It’s just that deep down, he also felt that Old Lady Lin, this biological grandmother, had gone too far. As they chatted before, he was now generally clear on how Lin Shiheng with his mother had been forced, with nothing to their name, to cleanly separate from the old Lin family, and how hard life had been over the years.

To be honest, if his relatives did this, he would rather die of old age before speaking to them again. However, according to what the villagers had said, Lin Shiheng still hunted pheasants from the mountain to give to Old Lady Lin.

Such a good grandson, yet she could still bear to maliciously report him.

Moreover, the report was still a made-up lie.

A sudden notion came to him from his heart.

Lin Shiheng’s father… It wouldn’t be, it wouldn’t be that he wasn’t Old Lady Lin’s real son, right?

And that Widow Zhang was even more outrageous. From what the handsome young man had said with a helpless tone, “Before, heaven knows where Aunt had seen the money in my hand… She’s lived her whole life in the village and had never seen that much money, so she was determined that I stole it, robbed it, or it was not from legal channels. Then she came to my house and asked me to share it with her. Of course, I didn’t want to. I earned it myself! That might have annoyed her, so she just went to report me.”

“I estimate that when she reported, she didn’t know that framing people was also a crime. Otherwise, she definitely wouldn’t have reported it.”

While watching Lin Shiheng, who looked helplessly mentioned that day Widow Zhang laid on his doorstep and refused to leave, the public security officer patted him sympathetically on the shoulder.

“Don’t worry, if you really didn’t do it, we will certainly be able to return your innocence.”

Although the evidence has not yet been produced, in his heart, he already believed Lin Shiheng.

After all, after their conversation, the things Lin Shiheng has mentioned and his outlook, neither seemed like that of an ordinary villager.

For a character like him, it wouldn’t be such a fantastical thing for him to make all that money.

At the moment, Lin Shiheng put down the ceramic cup in front of him, turned his head to Mother Lin, who was frowning and firmly refusing to open the door, and urged, “Mom, you’d better take a look. Haven’t their family come over and left already? It’s unlikely for them to come for a second time. Perhaps it’s a neighbor who needed something and came to look for us?”

Looking at the young man’s soft tone as he spoke softly to his mother, the public security officer silently added another item to Lin Shiheng’s merits.

Good temper.

He sighed with exclaim.

It’s probably because of this good temperament that those two people would turn their noses up and try to bully him.

If they had run into someone who directly arrested people without checking the evidence, then there really wouldn’t be anywhere for him to file grievances.

Mother Lin didn’t know what was on the public security officer’s mind, but in the end, she still loved her son, so after being persuaded by him with a few words, she obediently stood up and walked to the courtyard to open the door.

***

Her original face of anger turned into surprise when she saw the pretty girl standing outside the door.

“Jialing, it’s already so late, why are you here? It’s so cold outside! Come, come, come. Quickly come inside! You child, already so late, and yet you’re not afraid ah.”

Ke Jialing saw Mother Lin and was warmly pulled in before she could even open her mouth. She blushed slightly and greeted out shyly, “Hello, Aunt.”

“I… I heard about what happened during the day. I came over to see if you needed any help.”

What did she mean by ‘need help?’

Mother Lin froze for a bit, then suddenly understood when she saw Ke Jialing hanging her head in embarrassment, her hands twisting together.

What “coming to see if they needed help?” Obviously it was to see her family’s Shiheng.

At the thought that the clever and sensible child in front of her was her Shiheng’s girlfriend, Mother Lin’s heart felt so wonderful that she even swept away her anger toward Old Lady Lin and Widow Zhang. Instead, she warmly welcomed the person into the house with a big smile.

“Aunt is okay. It’s cold outside. Come inside and sit for a while.”

It was already so late. Normally, she shouldn’t enter the house, but Ke Jialing couldn’t wait to see her boyfriend safe and sound when she heard about what happened during the day from her mother when she came back home.

She blushed and whispered, “Then I will have to thank you, Aunt.”

“Ah, we’re family, why be so polite?”

The smile on Mother Lin’s face became even more pleasant and pulled Ke Jialing, whose whole face was completely flushed after hearing this sentence, into the house.

The door curtain had just lifted, and before anyone had even stepped inside, Mother Lin spoke with great humor and teasingly said, “Shiheng, look who came to see you.”

The two men in the room looked up, and the next second Ke Jialing, whose white face was blushed, came in somewhat shyly.

Lin Shiheng’s eyes revealed surprise and even the whole person’s aura softened, “Jialing, you’re on break?”

“Yeah.”

Ke Jialing cautiously glanced at the unfamiliar face of the Public Security officer in the house, and replied with some restraint, “The break started this afternoon, I came back by came with my classmates. I still have to go back to school the day after tomorrow.”

“Why are you still carrying your school bag? You haven’t been back home before coming to find me?”

Lin Shiheng, with heartache, stood up to help Ke Jialing take off the heavy school bag and along the way felt her hand, “Your hands are cold too, you didn’t take the bus to the county and then walked back, did you?”

Ke Jialing was shy by nature, shy enough when they were alone, let alone in the presence of Mother Lin and a stranger, so she rushed to pull back as soon as her sweetheart took her hand.

“Don’t. Auntie and someone else is here.”

Her evasion had little effect. The man, who always had some mischievousness between his eyebrows, now had eyes full of tenderness that seemed to melt people.

“I will warm your hands. Don’t you see how cold your hands are? If it continues, they will freeze.”

**cough cough cough**

The young public security officer looked at the two people who were not afraid to hold hands in front of him and stood up awkwardly while coughing.