Chapter 12

“I don’t know how many men my sister dated while she was a tour guide, but I know at least one,” Bai Qin said on the other end of the phone. “As for the men who pursued her, there were countless. After all, my sister is really beautiful, and her figure is better than most women. So some men kept signing up for my sister’s tours in order to pursue her, and naturally, they would often fawn over her. Sometimes my sister would get annoyed and deliberately switch shifts with other tour guides. At first, there was no problem, but later, after receiving complaints from tourists, my sister stopped doing so. The tourists said that my sister was clearly leading the tour, so why was she switched again? Wasn’t this just cheating people? Actually, switching shifts is a very normal thing, so even if tourists complained, the travel agency didn’t take it seriously, they just told my sister not to switch shifts anymore.”

“You’re pursuing your sister but then you report her? Isn’t that stupid?”

“Given that my sister is avoiding me, the only way to meet her is by joining a tour group, so reporting her is just a foolish way of thinking they’re being clever.”

“If I had known your sister back then, I would definitely have told her to quit her job.”

Is it necessary to make assumptions about things that are impossible?

“I know,” Han An said after flicking the ash into his teacup. “Tell me about her and her first boyfriend.”

“I’m not sure if that man was her first boyfriend, because she may have had relationships before becoming a tour guide.”

“Tell me.”

“Okay,” Bai Qin said, “If I remember correctly, that man’s name was Li Fulong, and he was the head of the reception department at that travel agency. The reception department is where the tour guides work, and the head of the department is responsible for managing them. You could say that whether the tour guides can make money is directly related to the head of the department’s work arrangements, since not every tour route is profitable. For example, between the Jade Dragon Snow Mountain and Shangri-La tour routes, Shangri-La obviously offers more opportunities for lucrative deals. So ever since Li Fulong became my sister’s boyfriend, my sister has basically been leading tours to those more lucrative tourist attractions.”

“Is the so-called ‘profit’ coming from taking tourists shopping?”

“Brother-in-law, you’re getting smarter and smarter.”

“I’ve talked to your sister, and she said she really hates things like that, so she’s basically never done it.”

“Then you should ask her if she was mainly leading tours to Lugu Lake, Shangri-La and Dali at that time.”

“Even if she did, does that prove she’s ever ripped off tourists?” Han An said. “When I was in Lijiang, I looked at the tourist attractions listed by various travel agencies. Besides the three you mentioned, there were only Jade Dragon Snow Mountain and Lashi Lake left. Does that mean she can only lead tours to Jade Dragon Snow Mountain and Lashi Lake, and can’t take them to other attractions?”

“Let me tell you something else,” Bai Qin said. “My mother was injured and hospitalized, and it cost more than 500,000 yuan in total, all of which was paid by my sister. At that time, she had worked at that travel agency for four years. Her basic salary was a little over 2,000 yuan, and she could only save a little over 10,000 yuan a year at most. In four years, it was impossible for her to save more than 100,000 yuan, right? But during the three months my mother was hospitalized, she did indeed take out more than 500,000 yuan. I was in high school at the time, and I asked my sister where that money came from. She said it was money she earned as a tour guide. At that time, I didn’t think much of it, but because you asked me, I thought about it carefully, and I felt that it wasn’t clean money. Either she earned it by swindling tourists, or it was given to her by Li Fulong. You probably hope it’s the former, right? Because if it’s the latter, then my sister doesn’t know how many times Li Fulong has slept with her.”

Upon hearing Bai Qin’s words, Han An fell silent.

His wife said she had never cheated tourists, so what was the source of this money?

Could it really be that man named Li Fulong who produced it?

Han An had never heard his wife or anyone else mention that his mother-in-law had been injured and hospitalized once.

To confirm whether it was true or not, he obviously needed to ask his mother-in-law.

But before that, Han An still wanted to know just how deep his wife’s relationship with Li Fulong had gone.

Perhaps because he saw blood during their first intimate encounter, he firmly believed that his wife had never had relations with other men before.

After thinking it over, Han An, feeling a little better, asked, “What’s the situation between your sister and Li Fulong?”

“My sister brought Li Fulong home once and introduced him to my mom and me as her boyfriend,” Bai Qin said. “But because Li Fulong was almost ten years older than my sister and had been divorced, my mom didn’t like him. My mom isn’t greedy, so even though she knew that Li Fulong was my sister’s boss at the time and that he drove a Mercedes to our house, she still talked to my sister after dinner and told her not to be with Li Fulong. I don’t know how my sister responded. Anyway, about a month later, they broke up.”

“So Li Fulong spent the night at your house that night?”

“No, they left shortly after dinner.”

“Where did you go?”

“They said they were going back to the travel agency.”

Where does your sister live?

“She shared a room with several other tour guides.”

“When they were at your home, did they act very affectionately?”

“My sister isn’t stupid,” Bai Qin said on the other end of the phone. “Even if they had already made some real progress, she wouldn’t have shown it at home. Do you think she’s the kind of woman who loves to show off her relationship? Likes to be all lovey-dovey with her man in front of others? Even after she married you, brother-in-law, my sister wouldn’t actively show affection to you in front of other people, right? Even if I were there, my sister wouldn’t do that. I remember during the Lantern Festival, she was cooking in the kitchen, and you suddenly hugged her from behind. She even said not to do that, saying it wouldn’t be good if I saw it. I was in the living room taking care of Binbin, so I heard my sister say that. I was puzzled at the time. What’s wrong with being hugged by her husband in front of her sister? It’s not like they were doing *that* in front of me. So I was thinking, is this what they call modesty, or what they call hypocrisy?”

“So you don’t know exactly how far they’ve progressed?”

“Since my sister brought Li Fulong home and said he was her boyfriend, it means that my sister considered Li Fulong as her marriage partner at the time.”

“So what?”

“Given that my sister believes Li Fulong is someone she can entrust her life to, would she mind being intimate with Li Fulong?”

“That’s what you think.”

“That’s just my opinion,” Bai Qin said. “Brother-in-law, you can think of my sister as an innocent young girl back then, but Li Fulong wasn’t an innocent boy; he was divorced. Since he was divorced, it means that before the divorce, Li Fulong must have had a lot of experience in that area. Do you think he would be so innocent as to not touch my sister, who was like a rose? Besides, the tour guide industry has very serious unspoken rules, and Li Fulong was my sister’s boss. Her salary was basically controlled by him, so do you think those hundreds of thousands of yuan might be…”