Late autumn, 1970. Southern Shaanxi Military Region.
Political Commissar Liu Shutong stared at the three people on the bed, looking somewhat stunned.
“You’re really Huo Guangji’s wife?”
The woman on the bed was filthy from head to toe. Her waxy-yellow face was so thin that she was almost unrecognizable. She was still wearing an old-fashioned pair of loose-crotch trousers that hung limply around her body, barely staying up. Her slender neck was so thin that the veins were clearly visible. It supported her head so precariously that Liu Shutong was almost afraid her head might suddenly snap off.
The two little children sitting beside her were even worse. They were skin and bones, their cheeks sunken from hunger. Their entire faces seemed to consist of nothing but a pair of large, dull eyes staring blankly at the people in front of them…
Anyone who had ever gone hungry would recognize the signs. This was severe malnutrition caused by prolonged starvation, along with the inability to concentrate that came with it.
“Leader, my name is Qin Yue’e. This is my marriage certificate with Huo Guangji, and this is my letter of introduction.”
Qin Yue’e was simply too weak from hunger to speak much. After taking a breath, she slowly pulled out the two documents the original owner had kept hidden close to her body and handed them over with both hands.
Two days ago, she had been forced to transmigrate into this world. The moment she opened her eyes, she found two children beside her who were practically starving to death.
As a typical overworked office drone from the twenty-first century who had worked herself to death, Qin Yue could hardly believe that something as ridiculous as transmigrating into a novel had actually happened to her.
The novel was titled The Handsome Widower with Kids in the 1970s. The original Qin Yue’e was the legitimate wife Huo Guangji had left behind in his hometown. She was mentioned only briefly at the beginning.
Her sole purpose in the story was to bring the pair of children she had with the male lead to him after he had been away from home for three years. Those two children would later serve as the catalyst for Huo Guangji and the female lead, He Jiaojiao, to develop feelings for each other.
To put it bluntly, she and her children were nothing more than plot devices.
And in order to remain faithful to the female lead, Huo Guangji had never touched Qin Yue’e after their wedding night.
As a result, Qin Yue’e was driven out by her in-laws, left to fend for herself and her two children.
Desperate to keep her children alive, the original Qin Yue’e relied on the little information she remembered and set off for the military region in search of Huo Guangji.
Unfortunately, she ended up starving to death on the way.
Qin Yue was furious.
Absolutely furious.
But…
She rubbed her painfully empty stomach. All she could do was rage helplessly.
Then she obediently hoisted her two children onto her back and gritted her teeth as she continued forward.
She had been discovered that morning by soldiers on patrol from the Southern Shaanxi Military Region. By the time they found her, she had already passed out from hunger.
The patrol soldiers had assumed she was simply a villager from a nearby village. No one expected that the moment the woman opened her eyes, she would start shouting that she needed to see their captain, Huo Guangji.
Liu Shutong carefully examined the documents in his hands.
The marriage certificate was genuine.
The letter of introduction was genuine too.
This woman really was Huo Guangji’s wife!
His brows furrowed. He rubbed his aching head and immediately ordered an orderly to get some food for the mother and her two children.
Then he turned around and grabbed the guard stationed at the door.
“Go get that brat Huo Guangji over here! How could he let his wife and children become this starved? They traveled a thousand li just to find him! Is this how the organization taught him to treat his family?”
Clearly, Liu Shutong was furious.
Qin Yue’e sat on the steel-framed bed, completely uninterested in any of this. Her entire mind was focused on the bowl of egg noodles the orderly had just brought over.
When people are starving, their brains barely function. There is only one thing they can see.
Food.
Two large bowls of plain noodles, each topped with an egg.
Qin Yue’e used a smaller bowl to divide up the noodles and separate the two eggs. She let everything cool before feeding the children.
Only after watching the two little ones wolf down almost everything did she hurriedly slurp the remaining plain noodles into her own painfully empty stomach.
The feeling of finally having food in her belly…
It was wonderful.
“Mommy, what was that yellow thing we ate? It was so yummy! I want some more…”
The little girl, barely over two years old, said this so innocently that Liu Shutong and the guard were both stunned. They instinctively turned their faces away.
Just how hard had this child’s life been if she had never even eaten an egg?
“Go cook another ten eggs for the children. Take them from my ration,” Liu Shutong ordered.
“Leader, the children have been hungry for too long. They can’t eat that many eggs all at once.”
Qin Yue’e didn’t want to take advantage of his kindness, so she immediately refused.
She had already spent the entire journey going over the plot of the novel in her head.
Thankfully, the male lead Huo Guangji happened to have the exact same name as her former boss—the one who had worked her to the bone. She had practically memorized the entire novel during her breaks between work, all while cursing at it.
In the novel, Huo Guangji had no feelings for her whatsoever. His heart belonged entirely to He Jiaojiao.
As for the man standing before her—the male lead’s superior—he was none other than the “matchmaker” who personally pushed the male and female leads together.
So Qin Yue’e had never planned on clinging to Huo Guangji.
She had come here for money.
As long as he gave her enough money, she would turn around and leave immediately!
What kind of “marriage arranged by the parents” nonsense was this?
If Huo Guangji didn’t like her, he could have refused to marry her.
If he didn’t want to sleep with her, he could have refused that too.
But now that they had already had two children together, what kind of ridiculous first-love devotion was he pretending to have?
“Scumbag!”
Just as she was thinking this—
“Reporting!”
A deep, resonant voice suddenly came from the doorway.
Qin Yue’e instinctively looked toward the door.
The man standing there had slightly dark skin, sharp brows, and striking eyes. Beneath his thick eyebrows were a pair of alluring, almond-shaped eyes that gleamed with a sharp light as he looked her up and down.
He certainly looked like a respectable man on the outside.
What a shame his heart was rotten.
Hmph. Scumbag!
Qin Yue’e let out a cold snort and turned her head away.
To the man, however, her behavior looked like nothing more than a woman throwing a tantrum.
Huo Guangji instinctively frowned.
It wasn’t as if he didn’t recognize the woman in front of him. It was just…
How had she ended up looking like this?
Seeing how thin she was—nothing but skin and bones, her eye sockets sunken deeply into her face—and how tattered her clothes were, the words of reproach that had been about to leave Huo Guangji’s mouth died in his throat.
“How did you end up like this?”
His brows were tightly knitted, and there was a faint trace of impatience in his eyes.
Was he blaming her for bringing the children here and causing him trouble?
Qin Yue’e couldn’t help but let out a mocking laugh.
“You haven’t sent a single cent home in three years. What did you expect? Were your two children supposed to grow up drinking the northwest wind?”
The wording was crude, but the point was undeniable.
Unfortunately, his own soldier was clearly in the wrong, and Liu Shutong’s expression darkened.
“Huo Guangji! Explain yourself! What exactly is going on here? Is this how you were taught in political ideology class? Were you taught to neglect your wife and children and let them starve?”
Liu Shutong slammed his hand against the table so hard that it shook.
The man sitting opposite him, however, remained silent.
Huo Guangji’s thin lips were pressed into a tight line. He glared at Qin Yue’e with a deeply furrowed brow, clearly suppressing his anger.
Was he annoyed that she had come looking for him?
Qin Yue’e wasn’t intimidated in the slightest.
She glared right back.
Just because he was a soldier didn’t mean he could get away with being a shameless scumbag.
Qin Yue’e was not someone he could push around!
The man across from her was momentarily stunned by her gaze before frowning again.
“I clearly… Forget it. Since you’re already here, then stay.”
Huo Guangji took a deep breath and finally gave in.
Liu Shutong shot him a glare before turning to Qin Yue’e and softening his voice.
“Since you’ve come all this way, little sister-in-law, you can stay here in the military unit without worry! Don’t worry. If this brat ever dares let you and the children go hungry again, I’ll be the first one to deal with him!”
People had hearts, after all.
Although Liu Shutong still couldn’t understand how Huo Guangji could have done something like this, as his superior, the least he could do was take responsibility and give the mother and children a proper explanation.
Huo Guangji’s expression darkened.
Seeing this, Liu Shutong angrily shoved him.
“She’s your wife, yet you expect me to be the one comforting her for you? You’re as stubborn as a mule! I’m not letting you off for this. Go apologize to Comrade Qin Yue’e right now!”
But then a calm voice suddenly came from behind him.
“Leader, you’ve misunderstood!”
Qin Yue’e looked straight at Liu Shutong.
“I came here to divorce him!”