“Duh, who doesn’t like money!”
She tucked the money into her pocket—though in reality, it went straight into her spatial dimension.
Mm, not bad, a very fruitful haul today.
She glanced at the silent man beside her. “Don’t tell me you have a grudge against money!”
Li Jingye shook his money.
“Is the money too hot to handle, then?” Yun Qingwan frowned.
Li Jingye shook his head once more.
“Spit it out!” Yun Qingwan’s patience was wearing thin.
“I just didn’t expect you to admit it so readily!” Li Jingye blurted out. His intuition was sharp; he could sense that his little wife was starting to get annoyed.
“What’s wrong with that? Liking money isn’t anything shameful.”
Yun Qingwan’s face radiated confidence and composure. In the modern era, who didn’t like money?
She looked up at the sky. Wisps of smoke were curling from chimneys in every household—it was already dinner time, which explained why there was hardly anyone around the family quarters.
“Help me check if anyone is around.”
Without asking why, Li Jingye immediately channeled the full focus he used during military missions to observe and listen, then shook his head. “There’s no one within a hundred meters.”
Yun Qingwan nodded. “Turn around.”
Li Jingye complied instantly.
Yun Qingwan was immensely satisfied. She hadn’t expected that the future rebellious big shot would be so obedient to his wife back in the day; she really liked this habit of his.
After storing the items away in her experimental dimension, she patted Li Jingye’s arm. “Let’s go home. If we’re any later, Mom is going to worry.”
Seeing her empty hands, Li Jingye’s gaze flickered. He wanted to ask, but ultimately held his tongue.
Up to this point, she showed no intention of harming the Li family, and that was enough for him. As for what secrets she held, he believed that one day, she would tell him herself.
Yun Qingwan secretly observed Li Jingye’s reaction and was extremely pleased with his performance. As expected of a big shot, he really knew how to keep his cool.
Today had gone so smoothly, aside from Lin Jianguo being cowardly and afraid of losing face while worrying about retaliation from the Li family, Li Jingye himself had undeniably contributed the most.
When they returned to the Li household, dinner was almost ready. The moment Mother Li saw Yun Qingwan, she handed her a cup of warm water. “Are you tired? Have some water first, we can eat in just a minute.”
Yun Qingwan took the cup. “Thank you, Mom.”
She felt a wave of emotion. For someone like her who had no blood relatives, receiving such meticulous care from an elder felt unexpectedly warm.
“We’re a family, no need to be so polite with Mom,” Mother Li said with a warm smile.
While they were talking, Li Jingye had already gone to set the table. By the time Yun Qingwan finished washing her hands and returned, the food was served, and the whole family was already seated waiting for her.
“You’ve been running around all afternoon, you must be starved. Come eat.”
Mother Li hurriedly got up to dish out a bowl of rice and placed it in front of Yun Qingwan. As for her son, he could serve himself.
“Thank you, Mom. You’re so good to me,” Yun Qingwan said gratefully.
This mother-in-law really was wonderful; it was just that the original body hadn’t known how to cherish it—what a bargain for her.
“Mom doesn’t have a daughter, so from now on, you are my daughter.” Mother Li was overjoyed.
Her daughter-in-law didn’t despise their family and was willing to go down to the countryside to suffer with them; she couldn’t possibly treat her too well.
“Mom!”
Li Jingye pinched the bridge of his nose. The family tree was getting a bit too tangled. If Yun Qingwan was his mother’s daughter, what did that make him? The Li family’s son-in-law?
Mother Li glared at her clueless son—he was as stiff and rigid as a block of wood. Her daughter-in-law was gorgeous and full of grace; what if she looked down on her son? Mother Li had worried enough to turn several strands of hair white.
Yun Qingwan chuckled. The atmosphere in the Li family was truly wonderful. She figured this must be what a harmonious family felt like. How could Cao Zhizhi bear to frame such a family?
After dinner, Li Jingye and Li Jingmo cleared the table, and Yun Qingwan went upstairs first. Before long, Li Jingye came back up too. Seeing Yun Qingwan sitting at the vanity unbraiding her hair, her every movement radiating temptation, he suddenly felt a tightness in his throat and a numbness in his fingertips.
Oblivious to his awkwardness, Yun Qingwan went on unbraiding her hair. “Who do you think is behind Cao Zhizhi?”
Surprised, Li Jingye looked at her; he hadn’t expected her to think on that level.
Yun Qingwan let her hair fall loose, turned her head to look at him, and smiled brilliantly. “Did you just realize how smart I am?”
Li Jingye’s face flushed instantly, the redness creeping downward.
Yun Qingwan covered her mouth. So the big shots in novels were this pure in their early days, huh?
She gave a dainty yawn and stood up. “Since the other party went so far as to frame the Li family, shouldn’t we deliver a generous ‘gift’ to them before we leave?”
Yun Qingwan’s words surprised Li Jingye once again—he hadn’t expected her to already be thinking about retaliating against their opponents.
“I’m going to take a nap. If you’re going out to handle business tonight, make sure to wake me up. I’m going with you.” Yun Qingwan’s eyes were closing from exhaustion, but she still emphasized, “Remember, you have to wake me up, or I’ll be mad at you!”
Perhaps because her soul and body hadn’t fully integrated yet, she constantly felt exhausted.
“…Alright,” Li Jingye replied in a slightly husky voice.
Yun Qingwan crawled into bed, muttering something about her hair being too long and a pain to manage, before gradually drifting off to sleep. Right before she completely lost consciousness, she patted the pillow beside her. “You should get some sleep too…”
Looking at the completely defenseless girl, Li Jingye’s Adam’s apple bobbed. He slowly walked over to the bedside and quietly studied her features.
He had known she was beautiful when they registered their marriage, but back then, he felt nothing special—certainly no racing heartbeat. Today, however, was different.
In front of her, he felt awkward.
And she seemed like an entirely different person.
He lay down beside her fully clothed, quietly waiting for midnight to arrive.
Suddenly, the Yun Qingwan beside him sat bolt upright. Her waterfall of long hair spilled over her slender shoulders and back. She was wearing one of his shirts that he had washed earlier as a makeshift nightgown.
As for why she was wearing Li Jingye’s shirt, it was partly because the original body’s pajamas had been packed into her spatial dimension during the raid by the Red Guards, and partly because the nightgowns inside her dimension were a bit too avant-garde for the current era. Borrowing her husband’s clothes was her only option.
She vividly remembered the terrified look on his face when she asked to borrow his shirt as a nightgown—it was hilariously endearing.
“What is it?”
Li Jingye hadn’t fallen asleep yet anyway. The moment she sat up, he sat up with her.
“I haven’t written the denunciation letter yet.” Her little head bobbed up and down with sleepiness.
A smile crept into the corners of Li Jingye’s eyes. “Don’t worry, I already wrote it.”
“Oh.”
Her body listed to the side and she fell right back asleep, facing straight toward Li Jingye. Because of the angle, he saw something he shouldn’t have.
A blush crawled up to his ears, and suddenly his nose felt itchy. Wiping it with his hand, the sticky sensation told him one thing: he had a nosebleed!
Like his pants were on fire, Li Jingye scrambled out of bed and tiptoed quickly to the bathroom.
By the time Li Jingye emerged from the bathroom, the night had grown deep.
He tiptoed back into the room, dried the remaining moisture from his skin, and gently shook the sleeping girl. “Yun Qingwan, wake up.”
Sleepy-eyed, Yun Qingwan mumbled, “In fairy tales, princes wake Sleeping Beauty with a kiss.”
As the words left her mouth, she snapped fully awake, locking eyes with Li Jingye’s deeply meaningful gaze.