In the dilapidated room, the man fastened his belt and said nonchalantly, “You should consider whether we apply for a marriage certificate or pretend nothing ever happened.”
Ning Yuan trembled, clutching a tattered blanket as she lay on a broken bed, one hand rubbing the back of her head.
Her clothes had been stripped off, and the back of her head, which had been struck with a stick, still ached, leaving her dizzy and groggy.
And the man standing before the bed had a lean, powerful upper body with broad shoulders and a narrow waist. In the dim light, his skin was strikingly pale.
Ning Yuan felt dizzy. She couldn’t tell if it was from her headache or from the shock of seeing such a scene.
She blurted out instinctively, “But nothing happened between us…”
She had been knocked unconscious, stripped bare, and thrown into his dilapidated room. He, too, had been given wine laced with beast medicine and tossed inside.
Yet, this man had suppressed his instincts with inhuman willpower, climbing into a tub of ice-cold water and staying there for half the night.
Until the drug’s effects wore off… He was a ruthless one.
The man’s hair and body were dripping wet.
He expressionlessly swept his soaked bangs back from his forehead. “No one will believe that a man and a woman, naked in the same room, did nothing.”
Ning Yuan’s unfocused pupils suddenly constricted—
The man’s face had features so refined they were sharp. Droplets of water trickled down the high, narrow bridge of his nose.
His long, dark, deep-set eyes held a distant, cold light, and their upturned corners were long and exquisitely delicate, as if meticulously drawn by a fine brush.
It was a handsome face that, forty years later, would make twenty-first-century girls scream.
But a scar ran across one of his temples, marring his looks and giving him a cold, fierce, and ruthless air that people of this era despised.
“What are you looking at!” Rong Zhaonan noticed her gaze and furrowed his sharp brows.
He hated it when people stared at his face.
Rong Zhaonan raised a hand and pushed his bangs back down to cover his brow and scar, then put on his large, black-framed glasses.
With that, he once again looked like that unpopular, pale, and indifferent village doctor.
Ning Yuan felt a little dazed. She closed her eyes. “Nothing. I just feel that… the world is full of strange things.”
For example…
She had fallen asleep on her hospital bed, full of sorrow and regret, while looking at old photos from her time as an Educated Youth in the countryside decades ago.
Then, she had woken up, finding herself back in this heart-pounding night forty years in the past.
If not for the very real pain in the back of her head…
If not for the man who should have only existed in old photographs standing alive and well before her…
She would have thought she was in a dream, not that she had bizarrely been reborn to the time she was sent to the countryside decades ago.
And right now, outside the window.
Not far away, a crowd holding torches was already charging toward this dilapidated room by the Cowshed!
A high-pitched female voice cried out, “I saw it all! Ning Yuan was dragged into this Cowshed by that sent-down village doctor to be defiled! Hurry and save her!”
“Come out! You bastard surnamed Rong! How dare you act like a hooligan while you’re sent down for re-education! You’re despicable!”
“Quick, report this to the commune! Execute the rapist!”
“Let’s break in first! Saving Educated Youth Ning is what’s important!”
The man’s face darkened. If he were caught with the “criminal evidence” of raping a female Educated Youth, he would probably be executed on the spot.
He immediately went to the side, took out some dry clothes, and began to dress swiftly.
Ning Yuan rubbed the back of her head and looked at him, asking softly, “Do you have any other clothes? Give me a set. I’m naked.”
Her clothes had been stripped away. Those bastards hadn’t even left her a single piece of underwear, as if they couldn’t wait for her to be thoroughly ruined by this man.
Rong Zhaonan immediately pulled a set of faded, washed-out old work clothes from a dilapidated chest of drawers and threw them to her.
Ning Yuan caught the clothes and immediately started putting them on. Listening to the commotion outside, she sighed softly. It was such a long-lost scene.
On this night in 1978, someone had orchestrated this trap, drugging Rong Zhaonan with beast medicine used for breeding cattle and knocking her out, all to catch them in the act, ruin her reputation, and prevent her from getting a spot to return to the city.
He had restrained his instincts, tying himself up and soaking in cold water rather than harming her, but in her previous life, she had left him to be beaten blind in one eye by those people.
It was one of the deepest regrets of her life.
Now that she had a chance to make amends, she couldn’t let history repeat itself! She would also make those who harmed her pay the price.
Rong Zhaonan’s eyes were stung by a flash of the girl’s snow-white skin. He immediately averted his somber gaze and said coldly, “If you still want your reputation, put on the clothes and escape through the back door. I’ll help you.”
But Ning Yuan suddenly said, “I’m not leaving. I’ll marry you!”
Rong Zhaonan’s sharp brows knitted together as he glanced at Ning Yuan. “What did you say?”
Ning Yuan flinched under his blade-like gaze, her hand trembling as she buttoned her shirt, but she still said, “If they think I slept with you willingly, you’ll be fine.”
Rong Zhaonan said expressionlessly, “Although I don’t know who is using me to harm you… if you get a marriage certificate with me, you might never be able to return to the city for the rest of your life. Does that not matter to you?”
He had been sent down from the capital to this remote mountain village in Nanxi Province to be a village doctor and reform his thinking.
Perhaps he would never be able to leave this village, destined to sweep the Cowshed and farm the land for the rest of his life.
As for the girl before him, if he remembered correctly, she was an Educated Youth sent down from the provincial capital to participate in rural construction. There were new quotas to return to the city every year.
If she got involved with him, she would never be able to go back to the provincial capital.
His icy eyes were as sharp as knives, intimidating and severe, as if nothing could hide from his gaze.
Ning Yuan’s heart fluttered with panic. She looked away and took a deep breath. “It doesn’t matter. After this is over, we can just get a divorce later.”
How could he not be able to return to the city?
She knew that in the near future, Rong Zhaonan would not only return to the city, but his status would be extraordinary and his position extremely high. He would become a major leader in his work unit.
The impact of a divorce on him would be far better than him being blinded in one eye.
Hearing this, Rong Zhaonan narrowed his cold eyes dangerously.
This girl had a small, round face and a pair of eyes as big and bright as black grapes, which were incredibly vibrant when she looked at people.
She looked innocent and upright, yet her way of handling marriage seemed extremely casual.
The reputation of a divorced woman was terrible!
Or perhaps, she had other motives for approaching him?
Before he could think further, with a loud “bang,” the main door was kicked open.
A crowd of people instantly flooded in from outside.
“Little Yuan, it’s all my fault! I let you get defiled by this bad element sent down for re-education! Wuwuwu…”
A young woman with a square face, wearing gray-blue work clothes and a chin-length bob, rushed in.
She viciously grabbed Ning Yuan’s arm, intending to drag her out from under the blanket.
She wanted everyone to see Ning Yuan’s naked, “defiled” state.
Ning Yuan’s arm throbbed in pain from her forceful grip. “Tang Zhenzhen, let go of me! Let go!”
She had put on Rong Zhaonan’s shirt, which barely covered her upper body, but she hadn’t had time to put on the pants!
If Tang Zhenzhen really dragged her out and let so many people see her exposed, she would truly become a “loose woman” for all to scorn!
How could Tang Zhenzhen let go? Crying, she yanked hard at the tattered blanket. “Little Ning, we’re all sisters! Let me see where you’re hurt. We’re all comrades, don’t be afraid!”
Ning Yuan looked at this hypocritical face from her memories, a flash of disgust in her eyes.
In her past life, Tang Zhenzhen, this “good friend,” was half-responsible for her being unable to acknowledge her biological parents, her husband’s infidelity, and the half-lifetime of depression and torment she endured, exploited and controlled by her adoptive parents and sister-in-law until her death!
A chilling light glinted in Ning Yuan’s eyes. She suddenly lowered her head and bit down hard on Tang Zhenzhen’s wrist