Hearing that Huo Zhoubai wanted to send her away, a surge of bitter pain rose in Shen Shujiao’s heart.
“Y-you… don’t you want me anymore?”
Although in this life Shen Shujiao and Huo Zhoubai had only spent that one night together, in her previous life, after her death, she had spent ten years by his side as a wandering soul.
After Huo Zhoubai was framed by Shen Xueman, his identity became extremely sensitive. At first, no one dared to get close to him.
But three years later, his intelligence, capability, and handsome looks drew the admiration of many girls from the surrounding villages.
Among them was the village party secretary’s daughter, who even threatened to kill herself just to marry Huo Zhoubai.
If Huo Zhoubai had married the party secretary’s daughter, his life would have been much easier.
But he didn’t.
Because he offended the party secretary, his days became even harder.
From then on, Huo Zhoubai stopped caring about his appearance. Before long, a handsome, sunny man turned into a weathered old bachelor, no longer favored by the young village girls.
Shen Shujiao’s soul watched as Huo Zhoubai endured, day after day, those ten years of human suffering that were worse than hell.
During those ten years of companionship, she had already developed feelings for Huo Zhoubai.
What’s more, now that she had been reborn and was carrying Huo Zhoubai’s children, she would never leave him.
“I do. Of course I do. It’s just that the current situation is unstable. Hong Kong really is more suitable for you than the mainland right now.”
Shen Shujiao grew up in Shanghai, cherished and doted on as the youngest daughter of her parents. If she wanted her quality of life to remain unchanged, the country simply couldn’t provide that in the short term.
She was lively and free-spirited—she shouldn’t be bound by the invisible shackles at home.
“Huo Zhoubai, back then my father used the life-saving favor my grandfather once did for your grandfather in exchange for me marrying you, asking you to shelter me for the rest of my life. They believed in you, and so do I. I believe you have the ability to give me happiness. I’m not going anywhere in this life—I’ll stay by your side. Of course, if you truly don’t want me anymore, I won’t force you to marry me.”
Huo Zhoubai hurriedly expressed his feelings. “I will never abandon you. It’s just that the times are unclear right now. If something happens to the Huo family and we’re sent down to the countryside, are you willing to go with me and live that kind of hard life—eating coarse grain and scraping by?”
“I’m willing!” Shen Shujiao answered firmly, without a moment’s hesitation.
It was as if she were making up for the regret of her previous life, when Huo Zhoubai had asked if she was willing to marry him and she hadn’t given a clear answer.
“Huo Zhoubai, no matter where you go—whether it’s a mountain of blades, a sea of fire, or the most barren edge of the earth—I’ll follow you. Don’t underestimate me. I’m not that weak.”
Reborn into this life, Shen Shujiao truly wasn’t that weak anymore. She only wanted to cherish the people she cared about, and never let the regrets of her previous life happen again.
To Huo Zhoubai, Shen Shujiao’s gentle yet resolute words were the most beautiful, heavenly music he had heard in his twenty-six years of life.
Before turning twenty-six, in order not to lose to his two extraordinarily gifted, intelligent, and outstanding older brothers, Huo Zhoubai had devoted himself entirely to earning military merit and never considered romance.
When he heard from his grandfather that the son of an old comrade—who had once saved his life—wanted to use that life-saving favor to find a powerful family to protect his youngest daughter,
Huo Zhoubai even thought Shen’s father was a petty man trying to exploit a debt of gratitude.
But the moment he saw their daughter, he was struck by an intense impulse—to marry her and make her his wife.
At this moment, Huo Zhoubai finally understood why he felt such a powerful urge to claim Shen Shujiao as his own.
Because she was worth it.
He also began to believe what his comrades said in idle chatter—that love at first sight truly existed in this world.
“Shen Shujiao, thank you for being willing to be with me. I’ll take care of things here as soon as possible and then come to Shanghai to find you.”
“Mm. I’ll wait for you.”
After the call ended, the anxious panic in Shen Shujiao’s heart finally eased a little after hearing from Huo Zhoubai.
She gently stroked her still-flat lower belly, her brows and eyes filled with maternal tenderness.
“Babies, you knew Daddy was calling, didn’t you? That’s why you guided Mommy to answer the phone, right?”
“In seven days, Daddy will come to find us. Are you excited to see him too?”
In her previous life, seven days after she miscarried and died tragically, Shen Shujiao saw Huo Zhoubai arrive in Shanghai.
Her soul hovered in the air as she overheard the conversation between Huo Zhoubai and Shen Xueman. Only then did she learn that just after Huo Zhoubai returned to the army and finished writing his marriage application, he was summoned by the investigation team for interrogation.
His marriage application was never submitted. When trouble later struck the Huo family, it had nothing to do with her at all.
After learning that she had died on the operating table from massive blood loss after aborting the child in order to distance herself from him, Huo Zhoubai didn’t say a single word. He only stood by her grave, his face icy cold, for a full day and night before leaving.
Now, putting herself in Huo Zhoubai’s shoes, encountering a scumbag woman like her—his reluctance to marry in the previous life was completely understandable.
As for whether Huo Zhoubai never married because he loved her, Shen Shujiao never even thought in that direction.
After all, they had only met once, and she had been schemed against by her own family and ended up sleeping with him.
Huo Zhoubai’s willingness to marry her was entirely because he had taken her body, and out of a soldier’s sense of responsibility, he felt obliged to marry her.
Shen Shujiao quickly pulled her thoughts back. She stood up from the sofa and went upstairs to the bedroom she had lived in since childhood. From a hidden compartment under the bed, she took out a safe, spun the combination, and retrieved the crescent-shaped jade pendant her mother had given her.
This was an heirloom passed down through the Shu family. Whoever wore this jade pendant would be blessed with great fortune and endless good luck.
The Shen family had originally been on the verge of bankruptcy due to the turbulent times, but everything turned around after her father married her mother, allowing the family to rise again.
Her father, who already doted on her mother, treasured her even more after that—so much so that he even added her mother’s surname, Shu, to both her and her sister’s names.
Her mother had given her this jade pendant when she turned eighteen. Because it was her mother’s personal belonging, Shen Shujiao had wanted to keep it safe, fearing it might break, so she had locked it away in the safe and never taken it out.
After she miscarried and died miserably on the operating table, her soul followed Shen Xueman back home. She watched as Shen Xueman easily found the safe under her bed, spun the combination, took out the jade pendant, unlocked the space within it, and stored all the assets her parents had left her into that tiny piece of jade. Only then did Shen Shujiao realize that Shen Xueman was not from this world.
In the novel, her cousin Shen Xueman went to Hong Kong with her eldest uncle’s family, and the assets her parents had left her were also transferred away by her uncle’s family through deception.
When Shen Shujiao sat alone in the empty house, crying helplessly, Huo Zhoubai descended from the sky, took her to follow the army, and she lived a life of comfort and happiness, enjoying family bliss.
As for Shen Shujiao’s eldest uncle’s family, things didn’t go so well.
With her enormous fortune in hand, her uncle—who had no business sense at all—dragged his son Shen Jinlong around Hong Kong making investments everywhere. They ended up being targeted by Hong Kong’s criminal gangs and were robbed in their own home.
In order to save his own life, Shen Jinlong pushed Shen Xueman into the arms of the gang boss. After the boss tired of her, he threw her to his underlings. In the end, Shen Xueman was tortured to death.
This chapter has ended. (Please click the next chapter to continue reading!)