A man’s low, restrained, husky voice suddenly sounded beside her ear.
Ning Xi’s entire body burned like a furnace. Dizzy and unfocused, she turned her head to look.
What met her eyes was a resolute, handsome face.
A neat buzz cut, sharp and steadfast brows and eyes, a tall, straight nose, firm lips and the faint blue stubble along his jaw added a wild, masculine edge to his overall presence.
Lower down.
Broad, powerful chest muscles. Clearly defined, solid abs.
Rough and ridiculously handsome!
Ning Xi reached out with her small hand and touched those tempting abs, drawing a low groan from the man.
“Don’t seduce me!”
Jiang Chengbei caught her soft, pale little hand that was setting fires everywhere yet his lips suddenly softened.
Ning Xi had kissed him.
She… hadn’t she despised him for being a crude soldier, crying and screaming that she would rather die than marry him?
And now…
“Ning Xi, look carefully. Do you know who I am?”
“You’re big brother,” she replied.
The kind who’s handsome and strong.
Ning Xi’s almond-shaped eyes were moist, filled with affection.
She probably didn’t even realize how irresistibly seductive she looked at this moment.
Jiang Chengbei, who had always possessed formidable self-control, finally lost it. He lowered his head to her ear, scorching breath brushing her nearly translucent earlobe as he murmured deeply,
“I’ll take responsibility.”
Responsibility for what? Ning Xi wanted to say this was just a dream but in the next second, her lips were sealed.
All her words were swallowed by the man’s burning lips and tongue, along with her breath, which he relentlessly claimed.
She was about to suffocate…
She pushed him hard.
Sensing her resistance, Jiang Chengbei’s Adam’s apple rolled as he forced himself to pull back. Just as he was about to leave, a pair of arms white and delicate like lotus roots suddenly wrapped around his neck.
Ning Xi clung to him, her voice hoarse and soft.
“Don’t go.”
Boom.
Those two simple words were like oil poured onto fire.
All of Jiang Chengbei’s reason vanished, leaving only one thought behind.
To cherish her. To take her. To make her bloom fiercely and cry.
He didn’t know how long it was before Ning Xi, utterly exhausted, finally closed her eyes. Her body felt limp and boneless, so tired she couldn’t even move a finger.
Just as she was about to fall asleep, a flood of memories that didn’t belong to her rushed into her mind.
She had transmigrated into a period novel titled “The Village Girl of the ’70s Strikes Back as a Top Divine Doctor.”
The female lead was Cao Xinrou, who longed desperately yet hopelessly for the powerful military figure Jiang Chengbei.
And she was Jiang Chengbei’s troublesome ex-wife.
The original body’s name was also Ning Xi, just twenty years old.
Three months ago, her parents and siblings had been sent down for reeducation. Before that happened, they had hurriedly sent her to the countryside.
Because the Ning family carried “capitalist elements,” they were purged. Former relatives and friends scattered instantly, terrified of being implicated.
Only Old Master Jiang who had once received great kindness from the previous generation of the Ning family extended a helping hand.
As long as she married Jiang Chengbei, whose family background was politically clean and who had a military background, she wouldn’t be dragged down by her family’s classification.
But the man Ning Xi wanted to marry was her childhood sweetheart, Gu Mingze.
For three months at the Jiang household, she avoided marriage at all costs, even writing multiple letters to Jiang Chengbei, declaring she would rather die than marry him.
Thus, the engagement remained in limbo.
Yesterday, Jiang Chengbei returned home on leave, and Old Master Jiang brought the marriage back up.
Jiang Chengbei had no objections.
He loved Ning Xi.
She was six years younger than him, strikingly beautiful the prettiest girl he had ever seen.
But Ning Xi didn’t like Jiang Chengbei.
She felt as if the sky had fallen and went crying to her confidante, Cao Xinrou, to complain.
Cao Xinrou had secretly loved Jiang Chengbei for many years. When she learned he was truly going to marry Ning Xi, jealousy nearly drove her mad.
So she devised a plan.
She drugged Ning Xi and arranged for the village fool, Ergouzi, to ruin her.
According to Cao Xinrou’s plan, once Ning Xi had been violated, she would bring people over to catch them in the act.
In the original story, this was exactly what happened. Ning Xi’s reputation was destroyed, and she became infamous as a fallen woman.
When everyone believed she had no choice but to marry Ergouzi to preserve appearances, Jiang Chengbei stepped forward. He ignored the gossip and married her despite her ruined reputation.
With a military officer like Jiang Chengbei protecting her, no one dared to gossip again.
But the original Ning Xi was a hopeless love-brain troublemaker.
When Jiang Chengbei was later seconded to a confidential department for security work, she followed him and lived in the institute’s family compound. Somehow, she reconnected with her childhood sweetheart Gu Mingze.
The two fell madly in love.
To get a divorce, she even attempted suicide, completely chilling Jiang Chengbei’s heart. Their marriage lasted less than two years before ending in divorce.
After the divorce, she married Gu Mingze immediately.
Unfortunately, love-brained people rarely get good endings.
What she thought was love was actually hell.
After the Ning family was rehabilitated, Gu Mingze used their capital to bribe his way up the ranks and Ning Xi herself became another means of bribery.
He demanded that she sleep with different men. When she refused, he punished her with cold violence not hitting or yelling, but refusing to speak to her at all.
She didn’t last long before giving in.
To keep Gu Mingze’s love, she spent night after night beneath different men, until she was tortured to death by a perverted big shot. She died at just thirty-five.
When reading the book, Ning Xi had nearly died of anger at the original character.
She cursed while reading and cursed so hard that she ended up transmigrating into her.
Perhaps because of the butterfly effect caused by her transmigration, Ergouzi didn’t succeed this time.
Jiang Chengbei happened to pass by the thatched hut, heard cries for help, chased Ergouzi away and then got entangled with her instead…
Heavens above, how could fate toy with someone like this?
Just thinking about how shamelessly she had clung to Jiang Chengbei moments ago made Ning Xi want to pass away on the spot.
She didn’t dare look at him. She grabbed her clothes and threw them on hastily. In the corner of her vision were the man’s solid, sweat-slicked muscles, radiating overwhelming sexual tension.
But Cao Xinrou would probably be bringing people over soon. The most urgent thing now was to escape before being “caught in the act.”
“What are you staring at me for? Hurry up and get dressed!”
She absolutely didn’t want to be branded with the accusation of fooling around before marriage.
Messing around with men and women wasn’t a trivial matter.
Not only would it ruin her it would also affect Jiang Chengbei’s future.
Drugged with a powerful aphrodisiac and having overexerted herself earlier, Ning Xi’s fingers trembled as she tried to fasten her buttons.
Jiang Chengbei watched for a moment, then reached over. With a few swift movements, he buttoned up her shirt for her, covering the ambiguous marks on her body.
He dressed himself just as quickly.
Almost at the same moment, a series of hurried footsteps sounded outside.
“It’s here! I saw Ergouzi dragging Sister Ning Xi into the thatched hut with my own eyes! Everyone, hurry and help her if she’s ruined by Ergouzi, she won’t be able to live!”
Cao Xinrou’s voice was urgent, on the verge of tears.
Her face was full of worry, but her innocent, doe-like eyes gleamed with unmistakable delight.
This wasn’t her fault. If anyone was to blame, it was Ning Xi for blocking her path. If Ning Xi married Jiang Chengbei, what would all her years of waiting amount to?
From the moment she first understood love, the only man she ever wanted to marry was Jiang Chengbei.
She had waited so long she’d become a twenty-five-year-old spinster.
If she couldn’t marry Jiang Chengbei, she’d only end up with a divorced man or an old bachelor.
Her parents were already looking for matches she had no way out.
This time, once Ning Xi’s body was “tainted,” Jiang Chengbei would surely reject her.
He would belong to her alone.
“Kick the door down! Save Ning Xi!”
Desperate to see Ning Xi utterly disgraced, Cao Xinrou rushed forward and kicked open the flimsy door.
Certain the people inside were Ning Xi and Ergouzi, she didn’t even look before shouting loudly,
“Ergouzi! Let go of Ning Xi!”
“Sister Ning Xi, why didn’t you run or scream? How could you just let Ergouzi violate you? You, you’re morally corrupt, messing around with men and women…”
Halfway through her tirade, she suddenly froze, as if her throat had been grabbed.
Her eyes widened in shock.
“Brother Chengbei why is it you?!”