The weather was hot, and Li Zhanye had originally been reluctant to let Zhou Wanning wait for him in this heat, but Zhou Wanning was too lazy to run around—going back and forth twice had left her whole body feeling uncomfortable.
“Lazy enough to kill you.”
Li Zhanye looked at Zhou Wanning, who was drenched in sweat from the heat, and felt a pang of heartache, but even more than that, his heart felt warm.
He led her to sit in the shade of a tree, then placed his own hat on her head before feeling at ease: “Don’t take it off. If you get tanned, I won’t like you anymore.”
“Oh.”
Zhou Wanning didn’t really care, too lazy to even lift her hand. The sun was too fierce at this hour, leaving her looking wilted all over.
Seeing her so obedient, Li Zhanye felt the urge to pin her down and tease her again. “You’re just taking advantage of the fact that our marriage report hasn’t come through yet to seduce me. Just you wait—sooner or later, I’ll have my way with you.”
By now, Zhou Wanning had learned to ignore Li Zhanye’s occasional bouts of madness. She looked past him and said, “Everyone’s waiting for you.”
Even so, Li Zhanye still gave Zhou Wanning a hard, lingering kiss before leaving.
Even from a distance, Li Zhanye could clearly see Zhou Wanning and Li Zhannan squatting under the big tree like two well-behaved rabbits, looking like a picture of peaceful serenity.
Unable to resist, Li Zhanye bragged to Xiao Zhang beside him: “Hey, you have no idea—it’s so hot today that I told my wife to go home and wait for me, but she absolutely refused. She insisted on staying to keep me company, saying she wouldn’t feel at ease unless she was watching me. She’s afraid I’ll get too chummy with someone else when she’s not around. Tell me, isn’t my wife a little too worried about me?”
Xiao Zhang: “…”
Having just witnessed his regiment commander’s insufferable behavior, he had no desire to give him another chance to show off. He pretended he hadn’t heard Li Zhanye at all and just buried his head in cutting the wheat beneath him.
Li Zhanye didn’t let him off the hook because of that—if anything, he got even more carried away.
“Come to think of it, what would a man without a wife know anyway? This feeling of being missed, of having a wife and kids to come home to—I doubt you could ever understand it. Besides, there’s no better wife in this world than your sister-in-law, so you can’t exactly relate to me.”
“!”
Xiao Zhang’s shoulders swung even faster, wishing he could fling his regiment commander two miles away.
“Hey, Xiao Zhang, don’t feel inferior. A woman like your sister-in-law—no one but me could handle her. If she’d married you, you wouldn’t have been able to keep her in line either. Tsk tsk tsk. She’s not attached to home—she’s only attached to me.”
“Regiment Commander, has anyone ever told you that you—”
Are truly insufferable!
“Your sister-in-law does always say that about me. A virtuous wife, you know—they manage a lot. You get it. Listening to your wife brings good fortune. There’s no shame in that~”
Xiao Zhang was completely spent. Not daring to vent his frustration at his superior, he poured all his strength and energy into the wheat in front of him.
Even from far away, Zhou Wanning could sense that Li Zhanye and the others had suddenly picked up their pace in cutting wheat by a huge margin. It seemed like it wouldn’t be long before they finished harvesting it all.
The sun slanted westward, and the heat gradually faded. Zhou Wanning pulled Li Zhannan out from under the tree to stretch their legs. She taught him how to tell a tree’s age and gave him simple arithmetic lessons at the same time.
When Li Zhanye finished his work and came over, he saw Zhou Wanning and Li Zhannan each holding a small branch, doing addition and subtraction on the ground.
“If this tree bore 50 fruits, ten would go to Er Ya, fifteen to your brother, and the rest to you—how many fruits would you get to eat?”
Li Zhannan wrote down a 24 and a 1. He circled the 24 and pointed it toward Zhou Wanning. “You…”
Zhou Wanning smiled and patted Li Zhanye’s head. “Good boy.”
Li Zhanye wrapped his arms around Zhou Wanning from behind. “Why aren’t you ever this gentle with me?”
“You’re a child too?”
Li Zhanye enveloped Zhou Wanning entirely with his body, and when no one was watching, he planted a loud smack of a kiss on her rosy lips. “If you need it.”
Zhou Wanning confirmed once again—there was no one in this world more shameless than Li Zhanye.
By the time Li Zhanye and the others headed back, the sky had already darkened. Zhou Wanning had made plenty of flatbreads at noon, so in the evening she just reheated some meat and paired it with the leftover shredded potatoes from lunch—another simple meal.
No sooner had they finished eating than Li Zhanye wanted to carry Zhou Wanning back to the room to sleep. He was utterly smitten with her, wishing he could cling to her every second of the day.
But then, a few uninvited guests arrived. Several villagers had dressed up their daughters and brought them over.
“Regimental Commander Li.”
The man at the front wore a fawning smile. “Are you still taking on a housekeeper? My girl’s a looker, and her mother’s a fertile one—after her, she gave me three sons in a row. She can work hard, she’s sensible, and her price is lower than Er Ya’s.”
“My girl’s not bad either, and the price is negotiable.”
Li Zhanye held Zhou Wanning close, occasionally glancing over, but mostly looking at her. “Wife, see how sought-after your husband is? You’d better keep a tight leash on me. Remember, don’t keep pushing me away from now on.”
Zhou Wanning couldn’t care less. Her mother had told her that men were all the same—clingy when they first got you, but once time passed, they’d start craving something new.
Rather than have him bring back someone difficult and troublesome later, it was better to let him take in a few simple-minded ones. “Just take them all in.”
Zhou Wanning meant it as genuine advice. Li Zhanye didn’t seem short on money anyway; he could afford to support them.
“It’s good for you, and good for me.”
“Jealous—you’re jealous.”
Li Zhanye flashed a row of neat white teeth. “Wife, you’ve finally learned to be jealous of your husband.”
Zhou Wanning: “?”
Was this man insane?
Li Zhanye: “Even your jealousy is adorable. I could just kiss you to death.”
This man was definitely insane!
Zhou Wanning shot Li Zhanye a fierce glare, then lifted her foot and kicked him in the shin. “Handle it however you want yourself.”
Watching Zhou Wanning’s huffy retreating figure, Li Zhanye burst into hearty laughter. His wife had finally started to worry about him.
But then…
His gaze turned cold as he looked at the crowd gathered outside the wicker fence. His wife’s jealousy was one thing, but he would never allow anyone to come between him and her.
“Do you take me for a junk collector, accepting just anyone?”
Li Zhanye was a scoundrel in front of Zhou Wanning, but in front of outsiders, he was even more unbridled. “You caught me in a good mood today. Don’t bring this up again, or I’ll pay your homes a visit with a torch for a little chat.”
The faces of those gathered outside the fence all turned pale, as if recalling something unpleasant. They immediately grabbed their daughters and hurried away, not daring to entertain another thought.
After driving away the outsiders, Li Zhanye wasted no time at all. Seeing Zhou Wanning already lying down, he immediately pounced on her: “Wife, I’ve dealt with all those people—not a single one left. Come on, give me a reward kiss, wife~”