Qin Yuanzheng personally wrapped the young girl who had fainted at the entrance to Command Headquarters in his military overcoat, then carried her into the Command Headquarters Building.
He found two guards and had them drive over to take the young girl to the Military District Hospital.
He did not go with them, instead heading straight back to his unit.
Qiao Lanshu was somewhat disappointed. Fortunately, the hospital was warm, and there was hot water to drink.
Most importantly, she had avoided the miserable fate of her past life. She would not be frozen unconscious by the roadside, picked up by some hooligan, and locked away in a cave dwelling in the mountains.
Qiao Lanshu had caught a cold from the freezing weather, so she simply stayed in the hospital for a day. On the second day, she could not help asking a nurse, “Comrade, I’d like to ask which kind-hearted comrade rescued me last night. I want to thank him in person.”
The nurse smiled and said, “The people who brought you here last night were from the 21st Regiment of the Production and Construction Corps. I heard that you were rescued by their regimental commander. If you want to thank him, you can go find Regimental Commander Qin.”
So her Brother Zheng was now in the 21st Regiment of the Production and Construction Corps—and he was even the regimental commander.
Her Brother Zheng really was amazing.
Qiao Lanshu nodded, thinking to herself: Should she put on something thin and go find Brother Zheng to thank him while pretending to be pitiful?
Or should she buy some clothes first, find a guesthouse, settle the matter of her marriage with Sun Mingyong, and then come back to find Brother Zheng?
She was unfamiliar with the place and everyone here. Surely she had to get herself settled first, right?
……
At the same time, in the office of a construction site in a certain mining district, Qin Yuanzheng was accompanying Commander Li out of the mining district. Before getting into the car, Commander Li suddenly asked, “Yuanzheng, how old are you this year?”
Qin Yuanzheng said, “Twenty-nine.”
Commander Li looked at him. “Why haven’t you taken care of the important matter of your life yet? The social gathering the unit arranged with the female workers from the textile factory before—why didn’t you go?”
Qin Yuanzheng lowered his head. “Don’t pretend you don’t know. I’m busy here.”
Commander Li gave a cold snort. “Whenever this comes up, you act like this. I heard you rescued a young woman from the south a couple of days ago. Haven’t you gone to see her these past two days?”
Qin Yuanzheng said nothing.
Commander Li said meaningfully, “You saved her life… Since you brought her back, you should go see her more often. At the very least, you ought to make arrangements for her, shouldn’t you?”
Qin Yuanzheng nodded helplessly. “Understood. I’ll go this afternoon.”
Before getting into the car, Commander Li continued, “If you can settle the important matter of marriage as soon as possible, things will go more smoothly for you in the future. Understand?”
What else could Qin Yuanzheng say? He could only nod. “Understood.”
After finally seeing Commander Li off, Qin Yuanzheng stood by the roadside with his hands on his hips. He glanced at the gray, overcast sky and sighed.
He was tall, broad-shouldered, and muscular, with sharp, striking features. Over the years, quite a few women had taken a liking to him.
He had once thought about starting a family, too. After all, what man did not dream of having a wife and children and a warm bed at home?
But two years earlier, after returning from a mission, he had undergone a routine medical examination. The report showed that he had oligospermia.
The doctor told him that this counted as infertility and that he would never have children of his own in this lifetime.
Because of that, the girls he had previously gone on blind dates with had all turned around and sought out other comrades instead.
He himself had also lost interest and decided to devote his entire life to serving the country, never marrying.
However, his older cousin, who was the director of a Food Factory, was very concerned about his marriage.
So he had simply asked his older cousin to introduce him to divorced women who already had children.
Thinking of this, he realized that he happened to need to go to his older cousin’s home today for a blind date with a divorced woman.
With that in mind, Qin Yuanzheng left the mining district, drove back to the Command Headquarters Building, parked his car, and went to the Supply and Marketing Cooperative nearby. He bought two cans of peach halves and half a pound of biscuits, then carried them to the Military District Hospital.
Qiao Lanshu was resting in the hospital. The weather had been extremely cold these past two days, and she had caught a cold as well. Her nose kept running, and she was constantly sneezing.
It seemed she really had fallen ill from the cold.
On top of that, the climate here was dry, utterly unlike the humid south. Her throat and nasal passages were terribly uncomfortable, and the dryness even woke her from sleep.
Her skin had become so dry that she was having an allergic reaction. Quite a few small red bumps had appeared, both dry and painful, and her lips were cracked and hurting badly.
Qiao Lanshu had grown up in comfortable circumstances. Although her stepmother had never liked her much and had been secretly waiting to drive her out once she graduated, as a teacher, she had not dared mistreat Qiao Lanshu when it came to food, clothing, housing, and transportation.
Setting aside what had happened in her past life, Qiao Lanshu truly had never suffered like this before.
Now, she decided to rest properly for a few days and recover from her illness before thinking about anything else.
Just then, a knock sounded at the door. Hugging her cup of water, she sat up and looked toward the entrance.
She thought it was the nurse coming in, but the person who entered was a man wearing a military overcoat.
The man was very tall, with broad shoulders and wheat-colored skin. He wore a crew cut, and his sharp brows and eyes were lowered as he looked at her for a couple of seconds.
The instant their eyes met, Qiao Lanshu’s heart began pounding.
At that moment, Qiao Lanshu was wearing a white dacron shirt and black trousers. Her waist-length hair hung loose down her back, while her straight bangs covered her forehead, revealing a small face that still held a hint of baby fat.
With her fair skin, almond-shaped eyes, cherry-red lips, and oval face, she looked exactly like a well-behaved young lady.
The moment the well-behaved young lady saw him, her little face flushed bright red. Her small hands rubbed at the hem of her clothes, as though she were nervous.
Yet the look she gave him was intensely focused. It held the delight of a long-awaited reunion—or of recovering something she had thought lost forever—which left Qin Yuanzheng completely puzzled.
As a result, even Qin Yuanzheng lowered his voice when he spoke, afraid of frightening her. “I heard you caught a cold. Are you feeling better?”
Qiao Lanshu nodded, her dark, shining eyes fixed on him. Her voice was soft and nasal. “Much better. It’s just too cold here, and I didn’t bring enough clothes.”
Listening to her speak and seeing how pitiful she looked, Qin Yuanzheng asked quietly, “You’re not from around here? Where did you come from?”
Qiao Lanshu said, “Yangcheng.”
Qin Yuanzheng was somewhat surprised. “Then you crossed more than half the country to get here. That’s a long way. What did you come here for? To go down to the countryside?”
But people going down to the countryside were assigned special trains and received by designated personnel.
The Production and Construction Corps had people specifically responsible for accommodating educated youths sent down to the countryside. Over the years, they had already received tens of thousands of educated youths.
What Qin Yuanzheng never could have expected was that the young woman before him would say, “I came to the army to find my husband.”
Qin Yuanzheng fell silent.
A look of astonishment appeared on Qin Yuanzheng’s face as he stared at Qiao Lanshu.
The young woman was delicate and soft, and her voice was gentle as well. She looked so small that he had assumed she was still a child.
After a long moment, he finally asked, “Find your husband… How old are you?”
Qiao Lanshu blushed and said, “I’ll be eighteen in a few days. This is my household registration booklet, and this is my letter of introduction.”
As she spoke, she took out an entire stack of documents.
Qin Yuanzheng fell silent again.
Looking at this foolish young woman who had absolutely no wariness around him, Qin Yuanzheng suddenly felt a sense of responsibility.
She was, after all, the girl he had rescued. She had no family or friends here and was completely unfamiliar with the place. Surely he had to help her, right?
He placed the two cans of yellow-peach preserves and the biscuits he was carrying on the table.
Then he took off his military overcoat, revealing the uniform underneath.
He pulled over a chair and sat down beside the bed.
Although they were both seated, Qiao Lanshu was much shorter than him. Looking at Qin Yuanzheng sitting so close in front of her, she could even smell the cool, clean scent of pine and cypress mingled with coal dust coming from him. Her face quietly reddened again.
Qin Yuanzheng, who was more than ten years younger now, looked even taller, more upright, and more handsome.
Qin Yuanzheng found her rather intriguing as well.
This young woman really was easy to embarrass. Her face turned red at the slightest thing.
So he dragged his chair backward again, putting more distance between them.
Qiao Lanshu was speechless.
No, why was he moving farther away?
Qin Yuanzheng looked at her and asked, “Which regiment, battalion, and company is your fiancé in? What’s his name? Tell me, and I’ll help you find him.”