When he looked at her tear-filled eyes again, his heart immediately softened despite himself. Most of the displeasure from being toyed with by her instantly vanished.
He took the opportunity to wipe the tear stains from her face, his tone carrying a hint of helplessness. “Alright.”
“Then why aren’t you coming over?” Shen Yingying glared at him, putting on an angry expression. “You’re really so clueless, aren’t you?”
As she spoke, she patted her own waist and urged him: “Hurry up!”
Xie Fangzhu: “…”
He frowned. Seeing her brows raised in irritation, he thought to himself that although she was different from before, one thing had not changed.
She still took a mile when given an inch. Give her a little encouragement, and she would push her luck without restraint.
But… he still gave in. He simply could not refuse that fierce yet expectant little expression. With one sweep of his large hand, he wrapped an arm around her waist and drew her into his embrace.
Supporting the back of her head, his face slightly flushed, he spoke softly in a somewhat hoarse voice:
“Wife, I was wrong… This was my fault. How could I ever dislike you? You are my… my precious Baby. Ahem… I love you more than anything.”
Shen Yingying almost burst out laughing. She had never expected him to be so obedient.
For a moment, she even felt fortunate that the Xie Fangzhu she had encountered was the current one. Although he was infuriating, he was easy to fool.
If she had arrived several years later, after he had completely matured, things probably would not have been so easy.
“Seeing how sincere you are, I’ll forgive you.”
She smiled until her eyes curved into crescents, raised her face, and quickly kissed him on the chin. Then she looked at him expectantly. “Xie Fangzhu, I’m a little hungry. I didn’t eat anything at noon today.”
Xie Fangzhu froze for a moment. He still was not used to her sudden sneak attacks.
Even though it had only been a kiss on the chin, it was enough to throw his heart into turmoil.
“Ahem.” He coughed to disguise himself. “I’ll go to the canteen and buy some food. What do you want to eat?”
Shen Yingying searched through the original owner’s memories. Although the original owner stayed home every day, she never cooked. Like Xie Fangzhu, she used grain coupons to eat at the mining district canteen.
She named two dishes that were commonly available in the canteen and that she also quite liked.
Xie Fangzhu acknowledged her request, lifted the mosquito net, stood up, and walked toward the door. After taking only two steps, he suddenly stopped.
“Shen Yingying, don’t launch any more surprise attacks in the future.”
Shen Yingying poked her head out from inside the mosquito net and tilted her head as she looked at him. “You don’t like them?”
Xie Fangzhu frowned, as though seriously considering the question.
After a long while, he compromised once more. “Do whatever you want.”
“Then I won’t hold back anymore.” Shen Yingying giggled, lifted the mosquito net, sat on the edge of the bed, and began putting on her shoes.
Xie Fangzhu’s gaze fell upon her fair feet. After hesitating for a moment, he finally spoke.
“I’m going to the canteen now. Shen Yingying, you’re not allowed to run away. If you…”
Before he could finish speaking, a slender figure hurried over. The next moment, a soft, delicate hand covered his mouth.
Xie Fangzhu lowered his gaze. Shen Yingying was looking at him with an unhappy expression. Looking farther down, he saw that she had only managed to put on one shoe, while the other foot was still bare, making her look rather disheveled.
“I, Shen Yingying, always keep my word. You’re my man, so how could I possibly run away?! You’re not allowed to say things like that to me ever again!”
Just hearing those words made her feet ache for some reason.
After Xie Fangzhu left, Shen Yingying wandered around inside the house.
The small wooden house had two rooms, one large and one small, both built by Xie Fangzhu himself.
Because the original owner did not have Mining District Household Registration, he alone could not apply for family housing in the mining district. Like other couples who were not both employees, he had no choice but to choose a plot of land on the hillside behind the family residential compound and build this wooden house.
At the beginning, he had built only one room. However, after the original owner arrived and saw the wooden house, she immediately flew into a rage.
She had originally thought that after getting married she would be able to live in a brick house. She had never expected it to be such a tiny wooden house, and she caused a scene for several days.
In the end, Xie Fangzhu had no choice but to build an additional small room.
After the small room was completed, the original owner directly drove him into it while she occupied the larger room herself.
The room where Shen Yingying was currently standing was the small room where Xie Fangzhu lived.
The room was not large, and there were not many belongings inside, only a bed and a cabinet. However, everything was arranged neatly and kept spotlessly clean.
When she opened the cabinet, she found that although the large cabinet contained only a few pieces of clothing, they had all been folded with meticulous care.
This involuntarily reminded her of the neatly folded clothes she had seen after waking up earlier. She could not help wondering whether he had a touch of obsessive-compulsive tendencies.
After looking around his small room, Shen Yingying walked out and headed toward the larger room next door, where the original owner had lived.
The door was locked. Fortunately, when the original owner had run away, she had taken the key with her.
Shen Yingying felt around in her pocket and soon found the key.
Unlike Xie Fangzhu’s clean and orderly little room, the original owner’s room was much larger and crammed full of belongings.
Shen Yingying disliked cleaning, and the original owner had been exactly the same.
However, in Shen Yingying’s own era there were robot vacuum cleaners, and she also had enough money to hire a housekeeper, so her home had always been kept spotless.
The original owner had none of those things, so the condition of the room was extremely poor.
Not only was it packed full of belongings, but the entire room was also in complete disarray.
When Shen Yingying walked inside, she felt there was hardly anywhere left to place her feet.
The moment she saw such a room, her first instinct was to turn around and leave. However, when her gaze landed on the mirror hanging on the wall to the left, she stopped, stepped over the obstacles scattered across the floor, and took the mirror down.
The moment she saw the person reflected in the mirror, her eyes widened involuntarily.
The woman in the mirror had a lovely oval face, snow-white skin, pitch-black eyes beneath thick lashes, and naturally rosy lips. She was an extraordinary beauty.
But that was not what surprised her. She had already known from reading the novel that the original owner was beautiful. Back in the village, she had been the village beauty. After marrying Xie Fangzhu and moving to the mining district, she had become the mining district beauty.
What astonished her was that the woman in the mirror resembled her by eighty or ninety percent. If she styled her hair and lost a little more weight, they could practically be called identical.
Immediately, she began to question Xie Fangzhu’s judgment.
That morning she had cried and coaxed him, yet he had still wanted to break her legs. Faced with such a beautiful face, how had he been able to bring himself to do it?!
After admiring herself in the mirror for quite a while, she finally put it down. She was about to leave the room with the mirror when a woman’s voice suddenly sounded from outside the door.
“Yingying, are you here?”
Shen Yingying looked toward the doorway and saw a woman, around twenty years old, leaning inside.
The moment she saw her, the original owner’s memories immediately surfaced in Shen Yingying’s mind.
This woman’s name was Wu Xiaoxia. She had been the original owner’s only close friend in the mining district. Whenever everyone else praised Xie Fangzhu, only Wu Xiaoxia would join the original owner in criticizing him. She had undoubtedly been regarded as the original owner’s best friend.
However, Shen Yingying had read the novel and knew that Wu Xiaoxia had always liked Xie Fangzhu. On the surface, she had been the original owner’s best friend, but privately she had not been. Her greatest wish had always been for the original owner and Xie Fangzhu to divorce.
The reason the original owner had come to know the outsider who claimed to be a “factory director” had also been closely connected to Wu Xiaoxia.
Wu Xiaoxia knew that the original owner desperately wanted to find a wealthy and influential man, while she herself wanted the position of Xie Fangzhu’s wife to become vacant.
Therefore, even though she knew that the man calling himself a “factory director” was likely a fraud, she still found a way to introduce the original owner to him.
From time to time, she would also casually make a few seemingly offhand remarks to encourage her.
The original owner had never been particularly clever to begin with. After hearing a few more words from her so-called best friend, she had completely believed the deception.
If the incident of eloping with the “factory director” had never happened, Shen Yingying would not have held any grudge against Wu Xiaoxia. She might even have helped her steal Xie Fangzhu away.
After all, she also could not wait for someone to hurry up and take Xie Fangzhu, that crazy lunatic, off her hands.
But Wu Xiaoxia had deliberately encouraged the original owner to become acquainted with that outsider.
Because of that, Shen Yingying, who had been forced to take the blame, had nearly lost both her legs. There was no way she could treat Wu Xiaoxia with a pleasant expression.
With that thought in mind, she walked toward the doorway.