For some reason, the restaurant was packed with customers today, both upstairs and downstairs.
At the table beside them, four men had ordered only one serving of boiled fish and a plate of peanuts. They were drinking local liquor and talking so loudly that they could be heard from every corner.
The other diners seemed accustomed to this lively, noisy atmosphere. Everyone was laughing, chatting, and enjoying their meals.
Once Xiao Hongyao sat down, Song Kuoyang opened a bottle of soda and placed it in front of her.
She was just a little late, so she explained, “It’s a bit far from home. My older brother rode his bicycle and brought me here.”
There were only two restaurants in Anyang County with particularly good food.
The Anyang State-Run Restaurant was closer to the fireworks factory, but the county leaders were hosting the competition team there today. To avoid running into them, Song Kuoyang could only choose this place.
It would be too troublesome to explain everything, so he simply said, “The deep-fried chicken here is good, so I chose this place. After we eat, I’ll take you home.”
Xiao Hongyao wasn’t going home afterward, so she didn’t immediately refuse. Instead, she asked, “How long are you planning to rest after coming back? You don’t have to return to work immediately, do you?”
“I have to go to Jiangxi with the special competition team tomorrow. We’ll be gone for several days.”
In other words, he wouldn’t even get a single day of rest.
Xiao Hongyao already knew how the competition would turn out.
“You’ll definitely return victorious.”
No one wanted to succeed more than they did, and Song Kuoyang was no exception.
He smiled.
“Thank you. Let’s eat.”
The two of them had three dishes, and the portions were quite large.
In this era, if you couldn’t finish your food and hadn’t brought a container with you, there was no way to take leftovers home. So they had to finish everything.
Xiao Hongyao hadn’t eaten chicken since arriving in this world.
She picked up a chicken wing first.
The smooth, crispy skin and tender meat were delicious without being greasy. The rich flavor spread across her tongue, and every bite was fragrant.
“It’s delicious. It’s so crispy and fragrant.”
She happily dug in.
Seeing her cheeks puffed up as she ate, Song Kuoyang’s mind suddenly flashed back to the time he had pulled her out of the river and she had asked him for milk.
A sin. A sin.
He quickly pulled his thoughts back and casually changed the subject.
“The deep-fried chicken here is very popular. They only make five servings a day. It only became a signature dish last year.”
“No wonder I’ve never had it before.”
She guessed the original Xiao Hongyao probably hadn’t eaten it either.
“How many years have you been back in Anyang?” he asked.
“Five or six years. I returned to the city with my parents when I was sixteen.”
“About the same for me.”
Xiao Hongyao assumed that he had grown up in Anyang and couldn’t help asking curiously,
“Where were you before that?”
“When I was seven, my grandfather was persecuted. They forced his head into a water tank until he suffocated to death. Later, I followed my parents to a forestry farm in neighboring Yi County for labor reform. I stayed there for nearly ten years.”
They had lived in a makeshift bamboo shelter. His father became seriously ill and couldn’t get medical treatment, eventually dying in agony. His mother went insane and disappeared without a trace.
Song Kuoyang was taken care of by kind local villagers for two years before his aunt finally found a way to bring him back.
Xiao Hongyao had only learned about the ugliness of that era through novels. She and her relatives had never experienced it personally, so her understanding had always been distant and incomplete.
But today, a person who had actually lived through it was sitting across from her, calmly recounting his past.
Just a few brief sentences were enough to make the tip of her nose sting and her eyes redden unconsciously.
Song Kuoyang noticed.
Clearly, he didn’t need pity, nor did he want to dwell on those memories.
He quickly moved on.
“Come to think of it, I returned to the city about two years before you did. I took the college entrance examination the following year.”
Xiao Hongyao asked, “Aunt Liu said you ran into trouble during the college entrance examination too, just like me?”
Song Kuoyang casually replied,
“I failed the physical examination.”
Given Song Kuoyang’s circumstances at the time, the failed physical examination was most likely just an excuse. There was a good chance someone else had taken his place.
Xiao Hongyao also volunteered her own story.
“My mother suddenly passed away, and it affected me quite badly. I didn’t perform well in the college entrance examination.”
“Why didn’t you retake it?”
“I wasn’t in very good shape at the time.”
Afraid he might misunderstand and think she had some kind of mental illness, she quickly added,
“Mainly because I happened to be able to take over my mother’s job, so I simply started working.”
Since they were exchanging personal information, she asked him a lighter question as well.
“What do you like to do when you’re not working?”
“Drawing.”
“Drawing? Traditional Chinese painting or oil painting?”
Song Kuoyang laughed.
“Technical drawings. Pencil drawings.”
“Oh. Design.”
She smiled.
“I like reading romance novels.”
“What kind of romance novels?”
A domineering CEO falling in love with me.
A young widow and a rugged man.
A spoiled, beautiful woman and her obsessive boyfriend…
She couldn’t possibly tell him about any of those.
Xiao Hongyao smiled awkwardly.
“Hong Kong and Taiwanese romance novels.”
She had noticed that her second sister sometimes read them too.
This type of novel had only become popular in recent years, so Song Kuoyang nodded in understanding.
In truth, Xiao Hongyao’s mind wasn’t focused on these small-talk topics at all.
Just as she was wondering how to get to the main subject, he spoke first.
“Have you thought it through? Will you register our marriage?”
Xiao Hongyao immediately nodded like a pecking chicken.
“I’ve thought it through. We’ll register and get married. You can get a room through the work unit, and I’ll have somewhere to go. My family won’t force me to go on blind dates anymore.
“We can work together, and after three years, we’ll get divorced. I absolutely won’t cling to you. I’ll also return the bride price to you.”
Work together?
Get divorced after three years?
She wouldn’t cling to him?
Song Kuoyang’s eyebrows tightened slightly, but he forcibly relaxed them again.
After a long moment, he asked,
“What are you after?”
He clearly didn’t believe she was doing this merely to avoid being forced into blind dates.
Xiao Hongyao couldn’t possibly tell him the truth.
She wanted his secret formula.
She wanted his technical knowledge.
She wanted the business opportunities he could provide.
After thinking about it carefully these past few days, she had decided that she couldn’t mention the business partnership yet.
If she brought it up now, she might scare him away.
“I got dumped…”
Xiao Hongyao lowered her head and spoke softly, putting on a pitiful expression.
“I just want to marry someone better than him and get my dignity back.”
Song Kuoyang had heard that she had been dumped.
He asked calmly,
“You still can’t let him go?”
“No. I haven’t been holding on to him. I don’t even have much affection for him. I’m just angry. Why should my family give so much, only for him to abandon me for a better future and climb up the social ladder through someone else?
“Brother Song, tell me, why does he have the right to do that?”
Xiao Hongyao began her performance.
Her eyes were slightly moist, making her look particularly pitiful.
“I just want to marry someone better than him and make him furious!”
“You think I’m better than him?”
Xiao Hongyao nodded vigorously.
“A hundred times better.”
That didn’t seem enough.
She gritted her teeth and multiplied it by another hundred.
“Ten thousand times better.”
Song Kuoyang’s mind worked quickly too.
He narrowed his eyes at her.
“If I’m really that much better, why do you still want to divorce me after three years?”
“…”
If they didn’t divorce, then once she completed her mission, he would become a widower.
Xiao Hongyao pulled out the explanation she had prepared long ago.
She tried to sound as sincere as possible.
“What if you meet someone you really love in the future? This way, you’ll still have another option.”
Whose option?
The option she was leaving for herself?
Song Kuoyang silently ate some of the Chinese flowering cabbage.
After a moment, he replied,
“I don’t need another option. Do you?”
Xiao Hongyao was afraid he might misunderstand and quickly waved her hands.
“I don’t need one.”
The two fell silent again.
All around them were the noisy voices of the other diners.
Song Kuoyang took a sip of soda.
By now, he had more or less understood.
Perhaps, to her, he was simply a piece of driftwood that happened to be floating nearby when she was drowning.
If he didn’t want to be that piece of driftwood, he could still get up and walk away.
Xiao Hongyao ate her rice in small bites, feeling anxious inside.
Actually, even if they didn’t get married, she had already gotten to know Song Kuoyang. They could still work together and make money in the future.
But someone like him was extremely guarded.
She was afraid that if they didn’t marry, he might refuse to cooperate with her later.
In the original novel, he had rejected one potential partner after another and had always insisted on owning his business independently.
Clearly, a fake marriage wasn’t what he wanted.
That made sense.
People in this era hadn’t read many romance novels. How could someone like him accept a fake marriage?
People had to be selfish sometimes.
At this moment, she had to seize the initiative.
There was no need to worry about losing face.
And conscience wasn’t important either.
If doing something shameless was necessary, she could do it.
“I like you,” she said.
The change was so sudden that Song Kuoyang clearly hadn’t been prepared for it.
“You like me?”
“I do. You’re tall, you have a good build, and you’re handsome.”
Hearing this, Song Kuoyang’s Adam’s apple moved slightly.
The corners of his lips lifted faintly before he forcibly pressed them back down.
She quietly added something even more embarrassing.
“You saved my life. After we get married… I’ll belong to you for life, whether I’m alive or dead.”
Still not enough!
She immediately added,
“And you’ll belong to me too, for life or death.”
That was really shameless…
Amitabha…
Song Kuoyang visibly paused.
He raised his eyes and looked at her.
His gaze was deep and unreadable.
Then, beneath that inscrutable expression, the corners of his lips slowly curved upward.
“You’ve read too many Hong Kong and Taiwanese romance novels, haven’t you?”
Xiao Hongyao knew he was joking.
She didn’t argue and simply nodded along.
“Yes. I’ve read way too many Hong Kong and Taiwanese romance novels.”
The atmosphere at the table immediately relaxed.
Song Kuoyang said,
“Let’s keep things simple. We’ll get married and live our lives well together.”
Get married and live their lives well together.
That really was the simplest wish of ordinary people.
She nodded.
“Okay.”
“Have you really thought it through?”
He asked her one more time to make sure.
“I don’t need a fake marriage to get a room, and you don’t need to marry me just to repay me for saving your life.”
Xiao Hongyao looked at his handsome, refined face and, with a guilty conscience, nodded firmly.
“I’ve thought it through. We’ll get married and live our lives well together.”
She had to seize this opportunity.
Get on the train first, then worry about where it was headed later.
Once they were married and she became his wife, she wasn’t afraid that he would refuse to work with her.
It was a little shameless.
So be it.
If the system could be shameless, why couldn’t she?
If there really was judgment after death, she’d accept the consequences.
By now, the customers on the second floor of the Friendship Hotel had already changed.
It hardly looked like a weekday lunchtime. It seemed that everyone in this small county town was paid by the state and had plenty of free time.
Xiao Hongyao and Song Kuoyang quickly reached an agreement.
Once he returned from Jiangxi, they would register their marriage.
Because Xiao Hongyao’s father had passed away the previous winter and a full year had not yet passed, her family had already decided that they wouldn’t hold a wedding banquet.
That saved them the trouble of discussing it.
The factory’s newly constructed apartments would open for registration in mid-December. The apartments would be allocated at the end of the year, but they wouldn’t be ready for occupancy until March of the following year.
For now, Song Kuoyang lived in a shared dormitory, so if they got married, they would have to rent a place elsewhere.
“We can rent a place somewhere closer to the fireworks factory as a temporary home. Do you have any requirements for the place?”
Actually, Xiao Hongyao wanted to continue living in the Xiao family’s courtyard.
After all, her aunt’s cooking was far too delicious.
But living with the Xiao family had one major problem: she wouldn’t have any freedom.
Under her family’s watchful eyes, it would be inconvenient to do anything. She would constantly have to lie and then come up with more lies to cover the first ones.
It was exhausting.
So getting married and moving out would be much more convenient for her money-making plans.
Xiao Hongyao smiled.
“I don’t have any other requirements. As long as getting water is convenient.”
More importantly, she needed convenient access to a toilet.
The Xiao family currently used a public restroom, and going to the bathroom was a hassle.
Song Kuoyang didn’t have time to search for a house himself. He would have to ask someone else to find one.
But since she only had one requirement, he would certainly find a way to meet it.
“Got it.”
Neither of them was particularly formal.
They almost completely finished all three dishes.
Only after Xiao Hongyao ate the last shrimp did she put down her chopsticks.
She was pleasantly full and completely satisfied.
Song Kuoyang glanced at his watch.
It wasn’t even one o’clock yet.
Instead of inviting her to take a walk together, talk, or stroll around like a romantic couple, he said something completely lacking in romance.
“I’ll take you home. You’ll still have half an hour to rest when you get back.”
“No, no.”
Xiao Hongyao waved her hand and declined.
“I need to go to a relative’s house to discuss something.”
After declining, she suddenly regretted it.
“Actually, you can take me to my relative’s house.”
“All right.”
He stood up, picked up the apple from the table, and handed it to her.
He couldn’t exactly say that he had brought it specifically for her.
“It was given to the competition team. I don’t like apples, so I brought it with me. Do you eat them?”
Xiao Hongyao accepted it without hesitation.
“I do.”
During this era, fruit wasn’t something people could casually eat whenever they wanted. In places that didn’t produce apples, being able to eat one was considered quite a luxury.
A thought suddenly occurred to her.
She wasn’t sure whether she would still be in this world three years later.
If they were going to get married, she didn’t want to have children.
But how was she supposed to discuss that with him?
She couldn’t exactly say:
“I’m not ready to have children yet. Could you please prepare some condoms?”
Or perhaps:
“Family planning is everyone’s responsibility. How about we start planning ahead?”
People in this era were relatively conservative.
Wasn’t it far too early to bring up something like that?
He looked at her.
“What are you thinking about?”