“Swoosh!” The blanket slipped off, and Rong Zhaonan was met with a blinding expanse of snow-white skin.
The two of them froze simultaneously.
He instantly let go of her hand and turned his back, a hint of red coloring the tips of his ears. “I… didn’t do it on purpose.”
Ning Yuan’s face flushed, and she fumbled to pull the blanket back up, gritting her teeth and whispering, “Forget it… Just consider it something I owe you!”
Yes, she owed him!
She had gone all out to help Rong Zhaonan, not only out of guilt for owing him an eye from her previous life.
It was also because she had been reborn and knew his identity was special. He was destined for an extraordinary future and would become a very powerful figure.
She had changed her original choice to run away and abandon him, opting to help him instead.
She did it so that in the future, when she needed it most, he could lend her a helping hand.
But even if she told the truth, this formidable man would probably think she was spouting feudal superstitions to deceive him!
Ning Yuan could only say in a muffled voice, “Even if I manage to escape their scheme this time, there will be a next time. It’s better to let them think they’ve succeeded.”
She paused, then added, “Once they’ve all returned to the city, I’ll find a way to go back myself. That way, they won’t be able to cause you any trouble either.”
Rong Zhaonan knew that the quotas for Educated Youth to return to the city were limited, and their household registrations were forcibly transferred to the countryside.
The Educated Youth all feared they would never be able to go back and would be stuck suffering in the village for the rest of their lives.
That was why all sorts of dirty tricks were played to compete for the return quotas.
However, the girl in front of him…
From his professional experience in interrogation and investigation, he could tell she wasn’t telling the whole truth.
He looked at Ning Yuan and said coolly, his expression unreadable, “As long as you’ve thought it through.”
She was deliberately getting close to him, likely aiming for his family background in Beijing.
No rush. If she was one of those people sent to harm him, or if she had some other ulterior motive, she would reveal her true colors sooner or later.
Ning Yuan glanced at Rong Zhaonan, feeling a little uneasy.
Rong Zhaonan had been subjected to quite a bit of persecution since being sent down here; he didn’t seem like someone who trusted easily.
Her excuse might not be enough to make him lower his guard.
Forget it. She had no intention of harming him. He would find out in the future.
“I need a pair of pants,” Ning Yuan said with a light cough.
Rong Zhaonan recalled the expanse of white he had just seen. He lowered his gaze and turned to rummage through his battered chest of drawers.
He pulled out a pair of equally faded army-green trousers and handed them to Ning Yuan along with a hemp rope, then turned his back to stand by the window.
Ning Yuan climbed up and quickly put on the pants.
She tied the waistband with the hemp rope and, after some fussing, rolled up the cuffs several times before she could barely walk.
She couldn’t help but marvel inwardly, this man’s legs are so long!
She glanced at Rong Zhaonan’s back. He stood as straight as a poplar and as steadfast as a green mountain, tall, slender, and exuding a cold indifference that kept others at a distance.
Even after enduring the torment of being dismissed from his post and sent down to the Cowshed, his spine remained unbent.
Ning Yuan hesitated for a moment. “I’ll… head back first. Tomorrow, we’ll go to the brigade to get a letter of introduction so we can go to the county marriage office to register…”
Rong Zhaonan turned to look at her and said flatly, “I can’t just leave the village. You should know that.”
Only then did Ning Yuan remember that he was here for re-education through labor.
Besides mucking out the Cowshed and working in the fields, he had to attend the village’s study sessions and write self-criticism reports.
He was also subject to frequent inspections by the red-armband-wearing brigade members and was not allowed to leave the village.
Ning Yuan realized she had oversimplified things.
She rubbed her temples, feeling the back of her head ache again. “I’ll… I’ll figure something out tomorrow.”
Fortunately, in this era, although people had started taking wedding photos, they weren’t yet required on the marriage certificate.
Watching Ning Yuan’s hasty departure, Rong Zhaonan took off his large, black-framed, broken glasses.
The man’s pair of cool, phoenix eyes stared at her retreating back, deep and inscrutable.
…
When Ning Yuan returned to the Educated Youth Spot, Tang Zhenzhen and two other female Educated Youth were chatting. The moment they saw her enter, they all fell silent.
In the past, the relationships among the Educated Youth had actually been quite good. After all, they were young people who had left their homes together to work in an unfamiliar countryside.
But ever since the quotas for returning to the city were introduced, and batches of their peers began to leave, the mentality of those left behind had changed. They were filled with anxiety, jealousy, and the fear of being stuck in the countryside for life, never to return to their parents in the city.
In her previous life, Ning Yuan had also clung tightly to the hope of a work recruitment spot, which was why she had been so afraid of ruining her reputation and affecting her chances of returning to the city.
But now, reborn, she knew the mass return of Educated Youth was about to begin. She wasn’t in a hurry.
Ning Yuan ignored them, picked up a thermos to get some hot water, and prepared to go back to her room to wash up.
Tang Zhenzhen narrowed her eyes, stood up to block her path, and put on a look of deep distress.
“Ning Yuan, are you crazy? How are you going to face people in the village from now on? What will Brother Li Yan think if he finds out you slept with a ‘bad element’ who was sent down here?”
Hearing Li Yan’s name, Ning Yuan suddenly turned her head and stared at Tang Zhenzhen. “Tang Zhenzhen, do you think Li Yan will fall for you just because you’ve ruined me?”
How did this woman still have the gall to put on an act in front of her?
If she hadn’t tricked her into going out, Wang Jianhua wouldn’t have had the chance to knock her out and throw her into the Cowshed.
Rong Zhaonan had strong willpower. If they had thrown her to some other old bachelor or hooligan, her innocence would have been destroyed.
Tang Zhenzhen’s face instantly flushed red, and a cold glint flashed in her eyes. “What, you’re unchaste yourself, and now you want to slander the revolutionary feelings between the rest of us?!”
Li Yan was the youngest brigade secretary in the commune. A handsome and promising young man in his early twenties, he was educated, had a bright future, and held considerable power.
Many of the female Educated Youth had a crush on him.
But he seemed to only have eyes for Ning Yuan, which made Tang Zhenzhen and the others extremely jealous.
Huang Xuehong, who had a dark, chubby face and a fiery temper, jumped off her bed and spat in Ning Yuan’s direction.
“Pah! It’s clearly you who’s morally corrupt, sleeping around with a bad element! Get out! Don’t defile our Educated Youth Spot!”
Ning Yuan’s cold gaze swept over Tang Zhenzhen, Huang Xuehong, and another girl, Tan Xiaoxia, who remained silent but had a look of contempt in her eyes.
She spoke, “I suggest you’d better not cause me any trouble. Since I can’t return to the city anyway, I don’t mind dragging someone down with me.”
In her past life, how could she have been so foolish as to consider these three her good friends?
Whenever her family sent some tasty treats, she would try to curry favor with them, even going without herself.
In the end, one wanted to harm her, and the other two didn’t even think to ask what had really happened.
With that, she flicked her braid and walked into the utility room with her washbasin.
The others stared at each other, stunned by how the usually gentle, shy, and easily manipulated Ning Yuan had suddenly become a different person. For a moment, they were all intimidated.
Back in her room, Ning Yuan put down the washbasin, immediately opened her small suitcase, and from its very bottom, took out a small brocade pouch.
Inside was an exquisite jade chili pepper, about the length of her little finger, strung on a faded red cord.
It had been carved from one of three pieces of a broken jade bracelet.
Ning Yuan sat by the window holding the jade chili pepper and breathed a sigh of relief.
Thankfully, she had returned with the memories of her past life to a point in time before she had given this jade chili pepper away.
She would never again be like she was in her past life, giving the only memento her birth parents had left her to Tang Zhenzhen.
She would not let her use this item to ruin her entire life.
Ning Yuan caressed the jade chili pepper. At this time in her previous life, she still didn’t know that her current parents were not her biological ones.
There were four children in the family, and although her eldest brother was the one who was adopted, her parents had been colder to her than to him since childhood.
After she was sent to the countryside, other Educated Youths’ parents tried to find ways to get their children city-return quotas, but her family completely ignored her.
In her past life, even though Tang Zhenzhen and Wang Jianhua’s plot against her had failed, she had been left all alone in the village until the very end.
She became the last person from her Educated Youth team to return to the city.
Mixed feelings churned within Ning Yuan when she suddenly sensed something cold spying on her from outside the window.
She snapped her head up and looked out.
But outside the window, there was nothing but the moonlit courtyard.
Ning Yuan frowned, thinking it must have been her imagination, and carefully put the jade chili pepper away again.
She began to take off her clothes, preparing to give herself a sponge bath with the hot water.
On a hidden spot on the roof not far from her window, a thoughtful glint flashed in Rong Zhaonan’s cool eyes.