The roar of the jeep completely faded away at the mouth of the alley.
The two slightly peeling wooden doors were locked from the outside with a click, as if Bai Luoluo’s entire world had been sealed inside this small, square, single-story house.
She was truly under house arrest.
These past two weeks had felt, to Bai Luoluo, like a long and absurd nightmare.
That bastard Lei Li had said he was locking her up for “reflection”—and he had really meant it.
For a full two weeks, that tall figure had vanished as if into thin air, never showing up even once.
According to the young soldier who delivered her meals, the commander had led a unit deep into the mountains for some kind of closed-off, devil-style training. No one knew when he’d be back.
Bai Luoluo cursed eighteen generations of his ancestors in her heart.
What training? This was clearly him avoiding her!
Eat and run, pull up his pants and deny everything—what kind of man was that?!
Still… maybe it was better that he didn’t come back.
If that cold-faced demon king were standing in front of her every day, staring at her like she was something filthy, she felt she’d lose ten years of her life.
But these days—
They were unbearable.
Lei Li hadn’t cut off her food supply. Every day, a guard would deliver her meals on time, placing them on the small windowsill outside the door.
But the quality of the food…
Bai Luoluo stared at the aluminum lunchbox in front of her, heavy with the atmosphere of the era, and her stomach churned.
Cabbage again.
Boiled cabbage—no oil in sight, with two dead vegetable worms floating on top, not even properly washed.
Half a month ago, she would’ve overturned the lunchbox on the spot.
But now, she didn’t even have the energy to get angry.
These past few days, her body had become extremely strange.
She didn’t know whether it was because she’d gotten caught in the rain that night, or because Lei Li had tossed her around too brutally and damaged her vitality.
She was always tired.
Not the soreness from physical labor, but a deep exhaustion seeping out from her bones.
Even if she slept twelve hours a day, she’d still wake up drowsy, her whole body limp, as if her strength had been drained away.
“Ha—ah—choo—”
Sitting on the edge of the bed, Bai Luoluo couldn’t help yawning again, tears welling up at the corners of her eyes.
She’d only just finished breakfast—why was she sleepy again?
Irritated, she scratched her head.
Her once soft, flowing waves of hair had gone untended for half a month. With no care, no essential oils, and no motivation, it now sat in a messy heap atop her head, like a chicken’s nest that had just exploded.
The room wasn’t much better.
That expensive German-imported enamel bathtub, useless without a hot water system, sat abandoned in the corner collecting dust, with two pieces of dirty laundry tossed inside.
The genuine leather sofa that had once drawn envious looks from the entire compound was now piled high with clutter.
She couldn’t help it.
She truly didn’t want to move.
Even lifting a finger felt exhausting.
Worse still, her lower abdomen had been feeling strange lately.
Every so often, it felt like a weak electric current ran through it—zzzt—tingly and numb, with a faint, dull ache.
The pain wasn’t severe, but it was impossible to ignore.
Sometimes, she’d be sleeping soundly in the middle of the night, only to be jolted awake by it, breaking out in a cold sweat.
“System! You dead system!”
Bai Luoluo called out anxiously in her mind. “What’s wrong with me? Do I have some terminal illness?”
“That bastard Lei Li—he doesn’t have some contagious disease, does he? That night… there was no protection at all!”
The more she thought about it, the more frightened she became.
Medical conditions in this era were already backward. If she’d really caught some nasty disease, wouldn’t her whole life be ruined?
Inside her mind, the system’s cold, mechanical voice remained steady and emotionless.
[Host, please rest assured. The Chosen One is in good health, possesses excellent genes, and carries no infectious diseases.]
[The host’s body is currently in a ‘special modification phase.’ Mild discomfort is normal.]
“Special modification phase?”
Bai Luoluo froze. “What does that mean? Are you turning me into the Terminator or something?”
[Given that the host’s current physique is too delicate to withstand future task pressure, the system is reinforcing and expanding certain organs—particularly the uterine environment.]
[Host is advised to rest more and drink plenty of warm water.]
After that, the system fell back into a deathlike silence.
Bai Luoluo was completely baffled.
Uterine reinforcement? Expansion?
Why did that sound so terrifying?
Was it because of that so-called “seven babies in one pregnancy”?
But…
She touched her still-flat lower abdomen.
It had only been half a month. Even if she were pregnant, it couldn’t possibly need expansion already, right?
Besides, she didn’t feel pregnant at all.
Apart from being tired and sleepy, she had no other symptoms—no nausea like in the TV dramas.
This system had to be fooling her.
Bai Luoluo sighed, flopped back onto the bed, and pulled the blanket over her head.
Whatever.
Sleep first.
Heaven and earth could wait—sleep came first.
This nap lasted straight until nearly noon.
Outside, the sun hung high and merciless in the sky, cicadas buzzing weakly in the trees, their noise grating on the nerves.
“Oh my, Auntie Cui, look at the time—why are the curtains at Commander Lei’s place still drawn?”
Outside the courtyard, deliberately lowered voices drifted over.
But the soundproofing in that single-story house was terrible, and with the gaps in the old windows, the voices still slipped clearly into Bai Luoluo’s ears.
The speaker was Wang Cuihua, the woman who lived next door— the biggest gossipmonger around.
“Who knows!”Another sharp, shrill voice chimed in. Judging by the tone, it had to be Sister-in-law Liu, the compound’s famously loose-lipped busybody.
“I passed by earlier and took a peek inside—good grief! That room’s a mess, looks like a pigsty!”
“Clothes thrown all over the place, and that precious sofa’s covered in dust. No one’s even bothered to wipe it down.”
“Tsk, tsk, tsk—this is what a rich family’s young lady looks like?”
Wang Cuihua let out a snort, her tone full of contempt and malicious delight.
“What young lady? I say she’s just a lazy woman!”
“Tell me—among all the wives in this compound, which one isn’t up before dawn managing the household? Cooking, washing clothes, working in the vegetable plots.”
“But she is too precious for that!”
“Commander Lei’s only been gone half a month, and she’s already this lazy—won’t even sweep the floor. The sun’s practically on her backside and she still won’t get up.”
“If you ask me, Commander Lei must’ve had eight lifetimes of bad luck to marry an ancestor like her.”
“I heard his face was black as thunder when he left that day. Who knows what shameless thing this woman did to disgust the commander!”
“Exactly! I don’t think this marriage will last. They’ll be divorced sooner or later!”
The voices outside grew louder and louder, with no attempt to hide their malice.
As if tearing Bai Luoluo down a few notches would somehow make them look especially diligent and virtuous.
Bai Luoluo lay on the bed, shaking with anger.
She suddenly threw off the blanket, wanting to rush out and argue with them.
Lazy?
Did she want to be lazy?
She wasn’t lazy—she was unwell!
She was sick!
But the moment her feet touched the floor, a violent wave of dizziness hit her. Black spots swam before her eyes.
Her legs went weak, and she nearly collapsed to her knees.
She clutched the edge of the bed, gasping for air, cold sweat instantly soaking through her back.
Forget it.
What was the point of arguing with long-tongued gossips like them?
Winning wouldn’t earn her a medal, and losing would only make her feel worse.
Besides, that bastard Lei Li had given a strict order—she wasn’t allowed to leave the courtyard. If she gave him any excuse, who knew how he’d torment her again?
Bai Luoluo bit her lip and forcibly swallowed that surge of rage.
She climbed back onto the bed and pressed the blanket tightly over her ears.
Can’t hear it, can’t hear it—like listening to a turtle chanting scriptures.
Yet the tears of grievance still slipped from the corners of her eyes, soaking the pillow.
She missed home.
She missed her father, missed the soft bed back home, missed the delicate pastries, missed that world without rumors and slander—a world filled only with flowers and applause.
This place was nothing short of hell.
And she was a prisoner trapped inside it.
At the same time—
Hundreds of kilometers away, deep in the mountains—
A high-intensity armed cross-country drill had just ended.
Lei Li charged across the finish line like a leopard. His training uniform was completely soaked through with sweat, clinging tightly to his powerfully defined muscles.
He panted heavily, wiping the mud and water from his face with one hand. The fierce killing intent in his sharp eyes hadn’t fully faded.
“Commander! Water!”
The guard Xiao Zhang handed him a military canteen.
Lei Li took it, tilted his head back, and gulped down several mouthfuls. The icy mountain spring water slid down his throat, barely suppressing the agitation burning in his chest.
But it didn’t help much.
These past two weeks, he’d been like a tireless machine, ruthlessly squeezing every last bit of strength from his body.
Fifty-kilogram weighted runs, freehand rock climbing, mud-pit combat—
As long as it exhausted him, as long as it stopped him from thinking about that damned woman, about that damned night, he’d do anything.
Yet the harder he tried to forget, the clearer the memories became.
That unbelievably soft body, that sickeningly sweet rose fragrance, her tearful, broken pleas by his ear—
Even in his dreams, they clung to him like parasites embedded in bone.
“Damn it!”
Lei Li cursed under his breath and smashed the canteen to the ground.
“Commander, are you okay?”Xiao Zhang jumped in fright and asked cautiously.
These past two weeks, the commander’s temper had been terrifyingly volatile—like a powder keg that could explode at any moment.
Lei Li ignored him. He walked over to the shade of a tree, sat down, and lit a cigarette.
Through the drifting smoke, his brows were tightly knotted into a deep frown.
That woman…
What was she doing now?
Still crying and playing pitiful?
Or scheming up some new trick to trap him?
Or maybe she couldn’t take the hardship anymore and was already packing her things, ready to get lost?
The thought stirred an inexplicable irritation in his chest.
Just then, the signal officer in charge of logistics ran over, holding the latest supply list.
“Reporting, Commander! The compound called. They’re asking when we’ll be heading back. The family housing vegetable plots are about to be turned over, and they want to know if manpower needs to be reserved.”
Lei Li exhaled a smoke ring and asked casually,“Has anything happened in the compound lately?”
The signal officer froze for a moment and glanced at Lei Li hesitantly.
Was the commander asking about official matters… or something private?
Meeting Lei Li’s icy gaze, the signal officer swallowed and answered stiffly,“Nothing major. It’s just… just some gossip about your family member.”
Lei Li’s fingers paused. Ash fell onto his trousers, burning a small hole.
He didn’t seem to feel it at all. His eyes sharpened instantly.
“Speak.”
Just one word—cold enough to freeze blood.
The signal officer shuddered and hurriedly spilled everything like beans from a bamboo tube.
“Well… some of the sisters-in-law have been saying that Comrade Bai—Bai Luoluo—is too lazy.”
“They say that in the half month since you left, she hasn’t stepped out the door once, just sleeps in the house every day.”
“Doesn’t get up until the sun’s high in the sky, the room’s a complete mess, and she’s picky with food—takes a few bites and throws the rest away.”
“Everyone’s saying… saying she’s a capitalist young lady with a maid’s fate—only knows how to enjoy comfort, doesn’t know how to work…”
The signal officer’s voice grew quieter and quieter, because he could already see the commander’s face darkening like the sky before a violent storm.
Lei Li crushed the cigarette butt hard beneath his fingers.
Lazy?
Not going out?
Sleeping all day?
Good.
Very good.
He had thought locking her up would make her reflect, make her rein in that pampered arrogance and scheming mind.
Instead, she’d been living quite comfortably!
So she’d taken his place as a free hotel?
Taken all those bad habits as a matter of course?
Then again, someone like her was probably long used to a life where food was served and clothes were handed over without lifting a finger.
This half month of house arrest hadn’t been punishment at all.
It had actually indulged her laziness!
Lei Li suddenly stood up and jammed his cap onto his head.
“Notify the entire unit—pack up your gear!”
“We’re returning to camp!”
His voice carried a clenched-teeth ferocity.
Since you have so much energy.
Since you like lying around so much.
Then I’ll find you something to do.
I’ll make sure you learn what ‘labor is the greatest honor’ really means among the working masses.
Bai Luoluo—
It’s time we properly settled this score.