Song Xin didn't ask Xu Zifan for help. Instead, he bought pork ribs and made sweet and sour pork ribs for Xu Zifan to celebrate.
Although he didn't hate Xu Shengnan to the point of wanting her dead, he was genuinely relieved when he learned that she had committed such a serious crime and the court granted him the divorce.
He would no longer have to be tied to Xu Shengnan, and could do whatever he wanted. He only understood this kind of freedom after he had it. He didn't even want to get married anymore. Who knew what kind of woman he would marry!
Hearing him say this, Xu Zifan chuckled and said, "You don't need to be afraid of a rope for ten years after being bitten by a snake once. There are plenty of good girls out there. Generally, if you get to know each other well before getting married and are rational, you can still find a girl you like and who is suitable for you."
But there's no rush. You see, before marriage, men and women never even met. Now they can date. In the future, things might be even more open. You can wait until then to find someone. Better to be single than in a bad relationship.
"Grandpa Xu, your 'better to have nothing than something bad' saying is so true! I used to think my family had already chosen someone for me, and I'd just look around and see if they were okay before getting married. Now I know how much of a problem it is to marry the wrong person. It not only affects me, but my whole family. Grandpa Xu, from now on, I'll choose the best over the worst!" Song Xin was a little drunk, still pouring wine and clinking glasses with Xu Zifan.
Xu Zifan knew he was happy, so he didn't stop him. He drank quite a bit with him, and when he got drunk, he helped him into the guest room to sleep.
[Shaohua: Host, Xu Shengnan doesn't seem like your granddaughter, but Song Xin seems more like your grandson. Song Xin just divorced your granddaughter, yet he's here to celebrate with you—what a strange relationship.]
[Xu Zifan: Fate is a mysterious thing; blood ties don't represent everything.]
[Shaohua: But host, in the world of jade gambling, you told your parents and grandmother that blood ties are important.]
[Xu Zifan:...Wasn't that just fooling them? Blood ties don't matter. Relationships between people depend entirely on how you treat them. If you treat them well, everything is fine; if you don't, you might become enemies. Don't worry about that.]
After settling Song Xin in, Xu Zifan went to tidy the table. Just as he got there, he heard someone knocking on the door. "[Shaohua, who's outside?]"
[Shaohua: It's Xu Dajun and Liu Xia. They look very haggard. Liu Xia was crying the whole time, and Xu Dajun looks older than you.]
[Xu Zifan: My appearance reflects my heart; though I grow old, my heart remains young.]
As Xu Zifan spoke, he went over and opened the door. "What's up?"
Xu Dajun and Liu Xia knelt down with a thud, tears streaming down their faces. "Dad, Dad, please save Shengnan... Dad, she's our only child, we can't just watch her die like this. Dad, we didn't raise her well. We'd be willing to die in her place. Dad, you know some important people, please help Shengnan."
Xu Zifan shook his head with his hands behind his back and said coldly, "Have you visited the victim in the hospital?"
Xu Dajun and Liu Xia were taken aback, exchanged a glance, and stammered, "No...no..."
"Then how dare you beg? Your daughter is quite something, stealing things from others, and so much at that, without ever thinking about what would happen if someone lost something important. I don't know about others, but I know a victim who was hospitalized, and you two begged and pleaded, without even visiting the victim once. What are you begging for?"
Xu Zifan closed the door. "Think carefully about Xu Shengnan's mistakes. If she gets out, can you two keep an eye on her? Can you compensate those who were harmed by her, those whose lives were affected, and those who had accidents? If you can't do anything, pleading with anyone won't help, and I won't help you. Don't come back."
Xu Dajun was stunned by his father's words. He hadn't thought about any of this. His family was ruined, but had Xu Shengnan ruined someone else's family? Was the victim who was hospitalized so angry because she lost all her property that she suffered a mental breakdown? She must be very seriously ill after staying in the hospital for so many days, but they couldn't even afford to pay her medical bills. What right did they have to plead for mercy?
Xu Dajun staggered to his feet, and Liu Xia grabbed him, crying, "Dajun, you can't leave! Please beg Dad again, we can't let Shengnan be shot!"
Xu Dajun wiped away his tears, shook his head dejectedly, and thought, "What's the point of begging? If they save us this time, what about next time? Can their daughter change for the better?" He didn't even believe it himself.
He left dejectedly, and Liu Xia collapsed to the ground, sobbing uncontrollably.
Liu Xia ran to see Xu Shengnan one last time, but Xu Shengnan was completely desperate, knowing that no one could save her.
As Xu Shengnan was about to be executed, she closed her eyes and finally confessed to the police, "I really don't have any accomplices, but I can hide things on my person. I have special abilities, and that's how I steal. If the country is willing to give me a way out, I am willing to use my abilities to serve the country like a slave."
The police officer taking her statement thought she was crazy, but after Xu Shengnan produced money and tickets out of thin air and then made them disappear, the police officer had no choice but to believe her and hurriedly reported it to his superiors.
The police chief witnessed the space firsthand and hurriedly reported it to his superiors. The report eventually reached the core level of Yanjing!
Xu Shengnan was immediately sent to Yanjing for severe interrogation. If this ability was used to steal state secrets, where would they even begin to investigate? The state must thoroughly investigate where her ability came from, when it began, and whether she had any dealings with people from other countries.
Xu Shengnan was indeed suspected of being a spy. The watch she bought was brought back from abroad by someone else, and that person happened to have contact with foreigners. Xu Shengnan was immediately suspected of being a spy!
Because of her, both the Xu and Song families were placed under surveillance and investigated. However, both families were honest farmers with impeccable political backgrounds, and after three thorough investigations to confirm they were clean, the investigations were temporarily suspended.
Never mind. Only Xu Xiuzhen, because of her mistake in buying the job, was severely punished and sentenced to five years in prison!
Xu Shengnan was publicly known to have been executed, and Xu Xiuzhen was sentenced to five years in prison. The reputation of the Xu family plummeted. The second wife was originally looking for a husband for her daughter, but now, not only is no one paying attention to her, but even Xu Dawei and his wife have been fired. They went from being the most promising family in the Xu family to ordinary farmers.
Xu Dawei and his wife were furious and kept confronting the eldest son's family, yelling at them. The third son's children were still young and hadn't been affected yet, but people still kept their distance and avoided them. They were treated like outsiders in the village, and they couldn't describe how miserable they felt.
At this moment, they all remembered Xu Zifan's good qualities. With the matriarch around, managing and protecting them, they had never gotten into any trouble. Now the family had separated, and they were free, but what was the result? Their family was destroyed, and they were all treated like rats in the street. They even cursed Xu Shengnan in their dreams!
The Song family couldn't find anyone to match Song Xin with. In this sensitive period, others were afraid of getting involved with the Song family and causing problems. Although the higher authorities had investigated and said the Song family was fine, it was still better to wait and see for a year or two.
Just as Song Xin had hoped, he reassured his parents, and life returned to normal, completely unaffected.
Having witnessed the benefits of power and money, Song Xin's mind began to wander. Lately, he has been visiting Xu Zifan in the county from time to time, gaining a certain understanding of the county and broadening his horizons considerably. He has already started planning for the future, becoming enlightened several years earlier than in his previous life.
In order to learn skills from Xu Zifan, Song Xin spent his time when he wasn't working learning to cook. He knew Xu Zifan's tastes, and whenever he found out what Xu Zifan liked to eat, he would quickly learn it and go to teach Xu Zifan how to cook it.
Xu Zifan had the help of Shaohua Photography to document the area, and he also had a good memory and learned things quickly. In a short time, he had learned most of the local delicacies and found it quite interesting to cook for himself every day.
In return, he directly took Song Xin as his apprentice and taught him. However, he always remembered his own persona, and he didn't show any of the things the original owner shouldn't have known. Fortunately, he was careful from the beginning, and all his actions were explainable. Otherwise, when Xu Shengnan got into trouble, wouldn't the higher-ups have found him when they investigated the Xu family?
"Better safe than sorry" is a truth that holds true everywhere.
They were living comfortably here, but Xu Shengnan had entered a living hell. She thought the country would value her and give her some kind of mission to atone for her crimes; whatever it was, she was willing to do anything as long as she could survive.
But she never expected to be subjected to a brutal interrogation right from the start. She herself didn't know where her spatial ability came from, so how could she explain it? Yet, her interrogators were among the nation's most outstanding figures, who could immediately see that she was hiding something, that her account of her abilities was incomplete and dishonest. Naturally, they had to resort to even more horrific interrogation methods. No one would show mercy to an ability that posed a threat to the nation.
Then her interrogators discovered a miracle: the wounds inflicted on her healed very quickly. Sometimes it took a day, sometimes three days, and sometimes it might only take an hour.
The government immediately dispatched a medical research team to examine and analyze her condition. If this kind of cure is also a special ability, what kind of shock would its application in the medical field cause?
Xu Shengnan was like a guinea pig. Every day, besides being interrogated, she was subjected to blood draws, tests, and cell experiments. She was locked in a completely transparent glass room, surrounded by researchers in white coats and masks. She was in unbearable pain, but her spatial ability and spiritual spring could not help her. She had no hope of escaping.
The research team found nothing, only that her physical condition was excellent and her cells were extremely active. The interrogation methods were then intensified. Xu Shengnan was never one to back down easily. When her spiritual spring water was insufficient to heal her daily injuries, and she had to endure physical torment, she finally couldn't take it anymore and confessed everything.
She was on the verge of a mental breakdown. She knew nothing about the Xu family, the hatred, or Song Xin. All she wanted was to live, to live without being tortured. So she told everything she knew, afraid of missing even the smallest detail and being interrogated again.
The nation was once again shocked; someone in the world could actually be reborn and travel back to the past. Psychiatrists determined that Xu Shengnan had no mental problems, psychologists confirmed that everything she said this time was true, and skilled interrogators judged that Xu Shengnan had nothing more to hide.
This is even more unbelievable. Xu Shengnan was reborn from forty to eighteen years old, possessing her own spatial ability and spiritual spring water. Such a person is extremely valuable for research. Following the medical team, an astrophysical research team has also begun studying her, researching time travel based on her descriptions of the future.
Xu Shengnan was no longer interrogated, but she had been completely turned into a guinea pig. She had to contribute the spiritual spring water that the space condensed every day, and she didn't get any of it. The psychological and physical torment was no less.