1970s: My childhood sweetheart ran away, and I turned around and married the wildest chief.

Qiao Wanqing said to her grandmother very seriously, "Grandma, I don't regret it. Really, although I married into the Lu family in a hurry and didn't have time to get to know the people in the Lu family's hometown, God was good to me. In such a hurry, I still met a very good set of parents-in-law. They are reasonable and value my husband, and by extension, they value me and my child."

"They both have good salaries and can support their families. They even always try to help me out. That's enough for me. Lu Mingzhou is really ambitious, and I admire that kind of man."

"I could make decisions in the Lu family, but when will I be able to do so after marrying into a high-ranking family?"

She's the kind of person who works hard on her own; she can't live off men. She'd rather be poor and work harder than not be in control of her own life.

Grandma Qiao looked at her granddaughter, whose lips were red and teeth were white, whose face was rosy and whose eyes were clear and bright. There was not a trace of sorrow in her eyes. She was really doing very well!

Grandma Qiao's eyes were red, and she nodded with relief. "That's good. As long as you're doing well, that's all that matters. You have to give up something to gain something. You can't have everything in this life. As long as you know what you want, that's enough. Grandma is relieved!"

Qiao Wanqing smiled, gentle and confident, "Grandma, I am very content. It is rare for a girl to find such a family to marry into. Even if life is a little hard and we may not be as wealthy, I am still content."

"I can earn my own money. I own two big houses now. Besides, my grandfather has invested in China, so I'm sure I'll have a comfortable life."

Grandma Qiao smiled when she heard that.

Yes! That old man from the Xu family is really good at business, better than everyone in the Qiao family!

Qiao Wanqing cleaned up the kitchen. Since Grandma was going to take a nap, she and Lu Mingzhou took the child home. She would visit Grandma more often in the future.

Back home, the house was quiet. It was lunchtime, and Auntie San and the two nannies were taking a nap. Qiya was on the second floor watching the sleeping triplets.

The couple carried their sleeping children home. Seeing that the triplets were sleeping soundly, Qiao Wanqing said to Qi Ya, "Are you sleepy? If you are, go and take a nap too."

Qi Ya shook her head. "I'm not sleepy. I'll just keep an eye on them."

Since she came here, she has been well-fed and well-cared for, and Qi Ya feels more and more energetic, no longer needing to take a nap at noon.

Qiao Wanqing nodded, picked up the child, and went back to the room with Lu Mingzhou.

She wasn't very sleepy, but Lu Mingzhou wanted to sleep for a while, so she simply stayed with him.

When Lu Mingzhou woke up, he heard the noisy chatter of children outside. He got up and stood by the window to look out. He saw the twins playing in the water under the big tree in the yard, and the triplets who couldn't walk yet were crawling all over the straw mat, having a great time!

He smiled slightly, his brows furrowed with tenderness. After getting up and tidying himself up, he went out of his room and saw Qiao Wanqing engrossed in writing in the living room.

He went over to take a look and asked, "What's written here?"

Qiao Wanqing didn't even look up. "A novel!"

Lu Mingzhou raised an eyebrow, intrigued, and said, "You can write novels? Let me see."

He picked up the manuscript she had written and looked at it. The handwriting was neat and tidy, with not a single stroke illegible. It looked like it had been printed. Lu Mingzhou admired his wife immensely.

His handwriting is so beautiful, I really admire it. Just looking at the manuscript without even reading the content made him feel better.

He read part of it and asked, "A martial arts novel? Is this something you're preparing to submit?"

Qiao Wanqing nodded, "Of course, but I've already submitted it, and it's been serialized in the newspaper, okay? I've already earned tens of thousands in royalties!"

The 1980s were the golden age of novels, and the 1990s were the post-golden age of novels.

In the 1980s, when you submitted your novels to newspapers or magazines, you could usually get ten to twenty yuan per thousand words, and some even got thirty yuan per thousand words.

This is just the royalties for serialized novels; it's different from publishing them.

It's only 1981 now. In a few years, as the environment improves, more and more magazines and publications appear, people's consumption levels rise, and royalties will increase accordingly.

Lu Mingzhou thought he had misheard. "You said you made how much?"

Qiao Wanqing looked up, meeting his shocked gaze, and laughed, "Tens of thousands! Otherwise, where do you think the money for my two houses came from? We were investigated in Beichuan before, and they probably won't investigate again now, but what if they do? So if I need money, I need to have a source, right? As soon as I received my royalties, I went to buy houses."

Qiao Wanqing pointed to the direction of the bedroom, "There are two children's books in the drawer under the desk, called 'Adventures in the Forest'. I wrote both of them and drew the illustrations. I started submitting them last year. My dad knows people in this field, so I asked him to help me submit the manuscripts. This one is not serialized; it will be published as a whole, and I will receive royalties."

"It's because they're acquaintances! It makes things easier. They gave my dad face and published it for me. Luckily, it sold very well. They published a second book later, and I've already sent over the third one. I guess it'll be published soon."

"This time I'm writing a novel. I can't keep relying on my dad forever. Besides, the novel has too much content. I'm thinking of serializing it in the newspaper first, and then talking about publishing it once it has a certain influence."

Lu Mingzhou immediately went to the bedroom to get her published children's books to read, and when he came back, he asked her, "Where's your serialized novel? Is there a newspaper?"

"That's a whole stack of them in that cabinet."

Lu Mingzhou hurried back. There were indeed newspapers in the cabinet next to his desk. He picked them up and saw that the dates were indeed from before, and there were serialized martial arts novels in them.

The newspaper was distributed nationwide and was published weekly. Lu Mingzhou glanced at it and saw that the novel was being serialized weekly, with 30,000 words published each week, and it had already been serialized for several weeks.

"Is this serialized story the same one you wrote? The characters don't match up at all!"

Qiao Wanqing explained, "It's not one. This is a new one I wrote. I finished writing the original one in Beichuan."

Lu Mingzhou: "..."

"Did you write this before?"

"Yeah! I used to write things down and save them there when I was bored at home taking care of the kids. I stayed in Beichuan for several years, so I accumulated quite a few."

She originally had manuscripts for ten books, and she was writing the eleventh one.

She wrote this while taking care of her child. She writes quickly because there is a time difference between her space and the outside world. If she didn't have a child, or if she didn't live in a compound with other people around, making it inconvenient to use her space, she could write much more.

Handwriting is much slower, and it would be much more convenient if we had computers, but unfortunately we don't have them in this era.

She just wrote ordinary novels; she didn't aspire to be a great writer or a representative author. She just wanted to make a living by taking advantage of the current golden age of novels.