“Comrade Chen, this is the Little Comrade Lu I told you about. She’s young and has plenty of milk—she’ll definitely be able to feed the baby well.”
Lu Wanwan was wearing a coarse cloth outfit. As she listened to Aunt Zhang praising her nonstop, her gaze quietly swept across the room.
A huge portrait of Chairman Mao hung on the wall. Against the wall stood a dark five-drawer cabinet, and on top of it sat a black-and-white television covered with a crocheted cloth.
Having a television in this era was truly remarkable. No wonder this family could afford to hire a wet nurse.
She smiled bitterly to herself. She had never expected that a dignified translator fluent in five languages would end up working as someone’s wet nurse. But as long as she could earn money for her daughter’s heart surgery, she would even clean out latrines if necessary.
Lu Wanwan had transmigrated into the 1970s three years ago. When she first arrived, she was a two-hundred-pound country girl, pregnant with a child.
The original owner of the body had gotten pregnant out of wedlock. Her uncle and aunt thought it was shameful and drove her out of the house. In despair, she jumped into the river.
Fortunately, Lu Wanwan was a good swimmer and managed to save her own life.
Having grown up in an orphanage, Lu Wanwan longed deeply for family affection. Even though she knew raising a child alone in this era would be difficult, she still resolutely gave birth.
Luckily she had enough body fat to sustain her, and she successfully delivered twins—a boy and a girl. She named them Tuantuan and Yuanyuan. To raise the two children, she did every dirty and exhausting job she could find. After finally managing to raise them to the age of two, her daughter Yuanyuan was diagnosed with heart disease.
The town clinic couldn’t treat it, so she brought both children to the capital.
As for asking the children’s father for help, she had never even considered it. A scumbag who abandoned his wife and children couldn’t be any good. Besides, perhaps because of the original owner’s self-protection mechanism, she could barely remember what that man even looked like.
Fortunately, luck was on her side. She met Aunt Zhang from the same hometown, who introduced her to this wet nurse job. Eighty yuan a month—this was the highest-paying job she could find.
The hostess sitting on the sofa opposite her was a woman in her early thirties. She was pretty, dressed neatly in a synthetic shirt, and holding a swaddled baby in her arms.
She looked up and sized Lu Wanwan up, her gaze lingering briefly on Lu Wanwan’s delicate face and full chest before nodding in satisfaction.
“You don’t look like someone from the countryside at all.”
Lu Wanwan lowered her head shyly. She was quite satisfied with this body now. When she had been fat, her features weren’t obvious, but now that she had slimmed down, she looked seventy to eighty percent like her former self.
“Did you bring your medical examination report?” Chen Shu asked.
Lu Wanwan quickly took the hospital certificate out of her cloth bag.
Chen Shu examined it carefully and nodded. “Good that you’re healthy. Aunt Zhang said you have a pair of twins. How old are they?”
“Two years old, Sister Chen.”
“They’re also drinking your milk?”
Lu Wanwan’s face warmed slightly. “We’re poor in the countryside and can’t afford milk powder, so they’ve never been weaned.”
Only then did Chen Shu show a satisfied expression. “That’s good. My little one is only a year old, but unfortunately I don’t have any milk anymore. Here, try feeding him first.”
As she spoke, she handed over the baby in her arms.
The little one looked very much like Chen Shu, with bright black eyes and an adorable face.
Lu Wanwan took the baby and skillfully unbuttoned her shirt to start breastfeeding.
After watching for a while, Chen Shu said to Aunt Zhang, “Go prepare some brown sugar water for Xiao Lu. I need to take a phone call.”
Now only Lu Wanwan and the baby were left in the living room. She gently patted the little one. Smelling the milk, the baby eagerly latched on, clearly hungry.
Watching him suck greedily, Lu Wanwan’s heart softened. She thought of Tuantuan and Yuanyuan at home, and guilt surged within her.
To save money, she had left the two children in the crowded courtyard where she rented a room, asking a neighbor auntie to watch them for half the day.
She wondered whether the little ones were behaving. Yuanyuan was especially attached to her—she didn’t know whether the girl would cry if she couldn’t see her.
Just as she was thinking about it, the door was suddenly pushed open with force.
Startled, Lu Wanwan looked up and saw a tall figure stride in.
The man was wearing a military-green shirt with one button at the collar casually undone. His sleeves were rolled up to his elbows, revealing strong forearm muscles.
He had a short crew cut, the stiff bristles accentuating his sharp and rugged facial features. His eyebrows were thick and dark, his nose bridge high, and his phoenix-shaped eyes were slightly narrowed, flashing with a sharp light. There was an innate rebelliousness in his expression.
Zhou Yushen clearly hadn’t expected someone to be in the living room. His steps halted as his gaze fell on Lu Wanwan.
The young woman had her long hair braided, with a few loose strands falling by her neck, outlining the soft contours of her face.
She had extremely beautiful peach-blossom eyes. Her pupils were a pale amber color, like clear autumn pools. At the moment, those eyes were widened slightly in shock.
His gaze slowly moved downward, noticing her open collar, where a patch of delicate skin was faintly visible.
Sensing his stare, Lu Wanwan’s face instantly flushed red. She was naturally fair-skinned, and the blush spread from her cheeks to her ears, even tinting her neck a light pink.
She hurriedly turned her body, protecting the baby with one hand while clumsily trying to button her shirt with the other. But the more anxious she became, the more her hands trembled, and the button refused to find its hole.
Zhou Yushen frowned slightly. A strange sense of familiarity rose within him. The girl in front of him seemed someone he had seen before.
Lu Wanwan finally fastened the button. She gently placed the already full baby onto the sofa and covered him with a thin blanket.
After finishing, she turned around to face this unexpected intruder.
“Who are you?” she demanded, anger suppressed in her voice. “Don’t you know how to knock before entering a room?”
Zhou Yushen raised an eyebrow. He hadn’t expected this little nanny not only to be unafraid of him but also to speak to him in such a tone.
He stepped forward. Lu Wanwan instinctively stepped back, her heel hitting the edge of the sofa and causing her to sway.
Zhou Yushen reached out to steady her, but she slapped his hand away.
“Don’t touch me!” she snapped like a startled cat, every hair on her body standing on end.
Zhou Yushen withdrew his hand and slipped it into his pocket, a half-smile curling on his lips.
“This is my house. Do I need to knock before entering any room?”
Lu Wanwan froze for a moment, then frowned. Could this man be Comrade Chen’s husband?
Not willing to back down, she retorted, “Even if this is your house, if you see someone inside, you should at least have basic manners.”
Zhou Yushen took another step closer, shortening the distance between them.
Lu Wanwan could smell the faint scent of tobacco and soap from him, blending into an aggressive, imposing presence.
“What’s your name?” Zhou Yushen suddenly asked, his eyes fixed tightly on hers.
Lu Wanwan’s heart skipped a beat. For some reason, she felt a little afraid to look into his eyes.
The man before her gave her a strange sense of familiarity, yet she couldn’t remember where she had seen him.
She subconsciously swallowed, instinctively not wanting to tell him her name.
Just then, Chen Shu’s voice suddenly sounded from the doorway.
“Yushen? Why are you back? And what are you two doing…?”