Everyone at the dining table was struck dumb with astonishment. Even Jiang Nuo herself was completely dumbfounded; along the way, she had imagined several different ways Chu Yanhan might introduce her to his family, but not a single one of them resembled this!
Niu Yingying was already in tears. In order to wait for Chu Yanhan, she had stubbornly waited from an eighteen-year-old maiden all the way to nearly thirty, only to find out that Chu Yanhan was getting ready to marry—and the bride wasn’t her!
Seeing that she was about to cry, Mother Jiang hurriedly pulled her out into the courtyard. “Yingying, don’t rush. Yanhan must just be acting on a temporary impulse. I’ll go right inside and interrogate him properly. Your uncle and I could never possibly agree to let him marry some other girl; our Chu family’s daughter-in-law can only ever be you!”
Niu Yingying nodded in agreement. At that moment, she had no choice but to pin all her hopes on Mother Jiang, and she ran home in tears, feeling deeply wronged.
Father Jiang, on the other hand, had no objections to the Jiang Nuo they had just met. Since she and his son both worked in the military region, they would be able to get along much better day-to-day and take good care of his son’s daily life; all in all, he was quite satisfied with her.
Taking advantage of the moment while Mother Jiang was still outside talking to Niu Yingying, he pulled the household registration booklet out from a drawer, extracted the single page belonging to Chu Yanhan, and handed it over.
“Hurry up and put this away, or your mom’s going to hide this booklet away in a minute, and if you try to look for it then, you definitely won’t find it!”
“Thanks, Dad!” Chu Yanhan folded the sheet of paper neatly, tucked it into his shirt pocket, and even patted it twice for good measure!
Mother Jiang had her own selfish calculations running through her head. She wanted to lean on the big tree of Niu Yingying’s family so their days ahead would be even better; Niu Wanshan was a section chief with plenty of authority and lucrative perks, and since Niu Yingying was an only child, the Niu family’s property would inevitably become the Chu family’s assets in the future!
Stepping back inside from the courtyard, completely unaware of what had just transpired inside the house, she slammed the bowls and chopsticks down with a loud, clattering crash, glaring at Jiang Nuo with sheer disgust!
“I do not agree! You can forget about getting your hands on that household registration book, not in this lifetime!”
“Aside from marrying Yingying, you have no other choice!”
Chu Yanhan remained completely expressionless, which led Mother Jiang to assume that he had listened to reason and would surely give up on the girl he had dragged back home.
After finishing the meal, the man went back to his own room to grab a few items and hurriedly rushed to take Jiang Nuo to the guesthouse.
As they headed out the door, he called out toward the kitchen, “Mom, Dad, I’m taking Jiang Nuo to the guesthouse!”
Busy cleaning up in the kitchen, Mother Jiang felt even more reassured when she heard the courtyard gate click shut. If her son genuinely intended to marry the girl he had brought back, he definitely would have kept her at home tonight instead of packing her off to a guesthouse!
The guesthouse in Beijing wasn’t as crude and primitive as the one in Gaojia Village’s town; the rooms came equipped with private shower and toilet facilities, and the beds were large and soft.
“Why did you say those things out there just now? I never agreed to marry you, and besides, I’m not nearly as great as you made me sound!” Jiang Nuo looked at him in bewilderment.
Even with all that, Mother Jiang still wouldn’t approve; if she found out that Jiang Nuo was just a rural household registration holder who hadn’t even secured a job yet, goodness knows what kind of harsher, uglier words she might spit out.
Chu Yanhan simply pressed his thin lips together in a tight line, frowning deeply, clearly troubled by heavy thoughts.
After getting the room key, he carried the luggage in one hand and held Jiang Nuo’s hand with the other, pushing the door open.
Once inside, he eagerly dropped his luggage, turned to face her squarely, reached out, and cupped Jiang Nuo’s chin. “I really do like you, and you saw how it was out there. If you don’t marry me, I’ll be forced to marry that person. Since you helped detoxify and save me anyway, be a hero to the end—even a sham marriage with me will do.”
“I really don’t like women!”
Chu Yanhan was starting to act a bit like a clingy rascal, terrifying the eighteen-year-old Jiang Nuo. If she had known this sort of thing would happen, she might as well have gritted her teeth and stayed with that old geezer instead.
If he had said anything else, Jiang Nuo might have actually believed it, but claiming he didn’t like women? She had practically been eaten alive, inside and out, by this exact man—how on earth could he call that not liking women?
“Why would we do a sham marriage? There’s no point to it!”
Jiang Nuo had her own mental calculations at play. Once she reached the military region, she could use Chu Yanhan’s connections to successfully enter the health station, secure the housing unit provided by the workplace, and earn a steady salary—that would be the absolute prime moment to kick the man to the curb.
She only wanted to drag things out day by day; in any case, marrying him was out of the question, let alone engaging in a sham marriage!
As for Chu Yanhan’s own hidden agenda, he had already called his military unit a few days prior, so his marriage application was probably already approved by now. For the time being, he just had to coax Jiang Nuo into a good mood and make sure she didn’t throw a temper tantrum.
Switching topics smoothly, Chu Yanhan asked, “Didn’t you say on the bus that your body felt uncomfortable and you wanted to take a bath?”
Only then did Jiang Nuo remember that the long-distance bus had been reeking of all sorts of smells, and the clothes she had on had been worn for several days straight—it was high time she changed out of them!
In her rush to flee Gaojia Village, she had only brought a few changes of clothes, and every single one of them was bright red—clearly meant as outfits prepared for her wedding!
With no other options left, since the hem of her current dress was already torn to shreds, she stopped hesitating, grabbed a fresh change of clothes, and stepped into the bathroom.
However, she had no idea how to operate the city-style showerhead. Seeing the water sprinkler begin to drip a few drops, she hurriedly stepped right under it—and before the water had time to heat up, a jet of ice-cold water blasted straight onto her skin, chilling her to the very bone!!
“Ah!!” Shivering violently from head to toe, Jiang Nuo was just about to open her mouth and ask why there was no hot water when the temperature suddenly shot up, instantly washing away the earlier freeze!
Hearing the loud commotion coming from the bathroom, Chu Yanhan hurried over to the door.
“What’s wrong? Did you bump your injury?” Over the past few days, Chu Yanhan’s greatest worry had been when Jiang Nuo’s wounds would fully heal. Although the doctor had prescribed a tube of ointment, they hadn’t had a single chance to apply it yet!
“I’m fine! The water was just a bit cold for a second!”
Frowning slightly, Chu Yanhan realized he should have adjusted the water temperature for her beforehand instead of letting her walk right into it. Expecting her to be on guard against him and afraid he might pull another out-of-line stunt, the moment he thought about stepping closer, the door was slammed shut right in his face.
Before long, the moment Jiang Nuo stepped out of the bathroom, she started sneezing!
Reaching into his luggage, Chu Yanhan pulled out a packet of medicine, mixed it with warm water, and walked over with the cup. “Drink this right down, or else if this turns into a full-blown cold and fever, it’ll be too late!”
Jiang Nuo didn’t feel like she was that fragile, and she couldn’t help suspecting whether something had been tampered with in that cup of water.
The next second, noticing her hesitation, Chu Yanhan took a sip of it himself. “Don’t worry, you’re injured right now, I won’t touch you!”
Only then did Jiang Nuo feel reassured. Knowing her own frail physical state, she tilted her head back and downed the entire bowl of medicine in one go!
From somewhere within his belongings, Chu Yanhan produced a short-skirt pajama set. “This is 100% cotton. Change into this as sleepwear—it’ll be much more comfortable, and it’ll make applying the medicine a lot easier too!”
The man’s gaze instinctively drifted toward that area, prompting Jiang Nuo to spin around in a rush. “Don’t look!”
The shy, flustered expression on the young girl’s face amused Chu Yanhan. “I won’t look! I’m going to take a shower now. If you can’t manage applying the ointment yourself, let me know and I’ll help you with it later!”
With that, the man grabbed a white undersuit and a pair of loose shorts and headed straight for the bathroom.
Listening to the steady sound of running water gushing inside the bathroom, Jiang Nuo finally let out a sigh of relief. Reaching into her pocket, she pulled out the ointment prescribed by the doctor. Because she had changed into the short skirt, she had to apply the cream around the area purely by feel, which completely exhausted her by the end of it!
Sprawled out limply across the bed in an X-shape, waiting for the ointment to be fully absorbed down below, she suddenly realized that the sound of water in the bathroom had stopped.