Chapter 48 The First Snow

  In the early morning, Zhang Qingyun was startled awake by a sudden alarm clock. He groggily and reluctantly sat up, subconsciously reaching for his cigarettes on the bedside table, only to find nothing there. It wasn't until then that he suddenly came to his senses, realizing he had slept in a guest room last night.

  Yesterday, because Aunt came home to chat, they talked too late, Geng Shuang didn't go back home, and took over her own room.

  With a creak, Zhang Qingyun hastily put on her clothes, got up and pushed open the window. The cold wind outside rushed in, and Zhang Qingyun's whole body shivered, instantly dispelling all drowsiness.

  He raised his eyes and looked out the window, outside was a silver lining, snow white all over, good guy, it actually snowed last night. At this time, the sky was still early, and Yongping, this small county town, was still quiet.

  Looking out the window at the snowy scene, Zhang Qingyun felt a sense of expansiveness and joy. Suddenly, he thought of a song that was popular in his past life, "The First Snow of 2002". He wondered where he would be in 2002, now that he had just entered the 21st century.

  "Qingyun, Qingyun, are you up? It's time to go to work." Yoon Soo-young was knocking on the door.

  "Alright, I'm up already." Zhang Qingyun replied. He let out a deep breath and immediately gathered his thoughts. He took one last look at the window before heading to the bathroom. He knew that he didn't have much time to indulge in sentimental thoughts now. What was most important was making the most of every day.

  After washing up, Zhang Qingyun walked past the living room and pushed open her own door. The room was filled with a sweet fragrance, Geng Shuang was sleeping very soundly, curled up into a ball, only a bunch of green silk could be seen on the pillow.

  Zhang Qingyun quietly opened the closet, took out a windbreaker from inside and put it on, just about to go out. After hesitating for a moment, he still couldn't help but walk to the bedside.

  Geng Shuang's breathing was even, a head of soft and smooth long hair covered half of her face, but Zhang Qingyun could still vaguely see Geng Shuang's sweet smile in her dream. Zhang Qingyun's heart skipped a beat, and she couldn't help but want to go forward and kiss her. The action was done halfway, but it didn't seem quite right. However, a mouthful of hot air finally reached Geng Shuang's cheek.

  The beauty on the bed was suddenly enveloped by a surge of heat, her eyebrows furrowed slightly, and she lazily licked her lips before turning over. Zhang Qingyun smiled awkwardly and withdrew his previous action, but unexpectedly, Geng Shuang's body turned halfway, and her eyes suddenly opened to see Zhang Qingyun standing in front of her bed. She involuntarily let out a "ah!" before hastily covering her mouth, her cheeks flushing bright red.

  "You... you're up? Got to go to work?" Geng Shuang said hesitantly, and was about to get up.

  "Quickly, don't get up, sleep a bit more! It's cold outside and snowing."

  "Huh?" Geng Shuang raised an eyebrow, saying with interest: "It's great that it's snowing! Yongping hasn't seen snow in a long time. Too bad you have to go to work, otherwise we could go to Tiger Mountain to see the snow, how wonderful would that be!"

  Zhang Qingyun burst out laughing and saw Geng Shuang's delighted expression, her playful heart arose, saying: "I can accompany you to watch the snow, but you have to let me... hmm... hehe."

  "You lazy guy, you..." Geng Shuang's face turned red, but the expression on his face didn't show a hint of anger.

  Zhang Qingyun hastily took advantage of the situation and quickly kissed Geng Shuang's cheek, then immediately jumped back, but was still caught by Geng Shuang, who said: "You rascal, you only know how to bully people, watch me teach you a lesson." After that, she lifted up the quilt and prepared to punch him.

  Zhang Qingyun smiled slyly and grabbed her hands, trying to make a move. But just then, his mother's voice suddenly came from outside the door:

  "Qingyun, are you all set? The meal is ready, otherwise we'll be late again today."

  Zhang Qingyun suddenly stopped, looking like she still had something to say, and glanced at Geng Shuang. She saw that Geng Shuang was sticking out her tongue, like a child who had done something wrong, quietly lifting the quilt and getting dressed stealthily without making any noise.

  "Hey, Ah Frost, why don't you sleep a bit more? It's cold today." Yin Su'e said as soon as she saw Geng Frost follow Zhang Qingyun into the kitchen. Then she looked up at Zhang Qingyun and scolded, "Why didn't you let Ah Frost sleep a bit longer? She doesn't have to go to work."

  "Aunt, it's all right, I still have things to do this afternoon. Besides, it's not early now," Geng Shuang said cleverly. After finishing speaking, she helped Yin Su'e start preparing the dishes, and soon, mother and daughter had set up a sumptuous breakfast table.

  "I've grown up to be this big, but today's breakfast is the most sumptuous." Zhang Qingyun said with a smile while eating quickly.

  Geng Shuang smiled silently, while Yin Su'e looked rather pleased. This Geng girl had indeed made her very satisfied, knowledgeable and understanding, considerate and hardworking, and she didn't know what good deeds her son had done in his past life to find such a good daughter-in-law.

  "Qingyun, do you want me to send you to work?" Geng Shuang asked with a smile.

  Zhang Qingyun shook his head. He should keep a low profile recently, letting a beautiful woman drive him to work in a luxury car would have a bad influence if it got out.

  "Alright, mom... Xue Er, I'm going to work now. I'll come find you after work." Zhang Qingyun put down his chopsticks and let out a satisfied burp. He had originally wanted to call her "Gē Jiě", but thinking that their relationship was already established, he thought it wasn't quite suitable, so on the spur of the moment, he called out "Xue Er" instead.

  Geng Shuang smiled slightly and nodded his head, apparently he was quite satisfied with Zhang Qingyun's title.

  "Be careful on the road!" Yīn Sù'é shouted loudly as she saw off Zhāng Qīngyún, who was slowly disappearing into the distance wearing her windbreaker.

  *

  Out of the door, Zhang Qingyun only knew that today's snow was not small at all. The ground had accumulated a thick layer of snow. There were sanitation workers shoveling snow everywhere on the road, and the cars on the road did not have their usual speed, slowing down and crawling slowly on the road.

  Zhang Qingyun first went to the government office building and took a look. The staff in the office told him that Li Gang had indeed gone to Wude, so Zhang Qingyun went to the county committee office to sit on duty. After Li Gang left, Zhang Qingyun didn't have much to do either. As an ordinary civil servant in the office, everyone was busy with their own work and didn't have time to chat with him.

  In the past, Zhang Qingyun liked to look for Lei Meng, but today he didn't come for some reason. For a moment, Zhang Qingyun felt a bit bored and had nothing to do, so he logged in to QQ and chatted with people from all over the world. Suddenly, he thought that it had been a long time since he visited the county government's website, why not go take a look?

  But when he opened the website and took a look, there were no updates at all. He called the government office to ask, only to find out that this website is updated only once every six months.

  He shook his head with a wry smile, thinking that this was indeed a case of "face-saving" killing people. A website had been specially built, but no one managed it, and it would have been better not to build it at all. He casually clicked on the notification column, and these were still notices and announcements from last year's work anniversary.

  He scanned down the page, and suddenly a link caught his eye: "Yongping County Notice on Establishing a Task Force to Crack Down on Illegal Small Coal Mines". His expression changed, and he immediately thought of the petition report he had read yesterday.

  He opened the link, and his smile froze. The team leader was Wu De, and the deputy team leader was Chen Yunshan from the Public Security Bureau. The team members included representatives from various key departments such as the Land Resources Bureau and the Safety Supervision Bureau. The notification date was April 2nd, 1999.

  After a long time, he shook his head with a bitter smile, knowing that it was very important and crucial at this moment, but he was powerless. That letter of complaint, I'm afraid Liu Qing didn't report it either!

  A heads up that another chapter will be updated at midnight, this book is going to be on the top three lists this week, I hope friends can give it more support, collecting and recommending are crucial, Nan Hua thanks you all here!