Gu Wenshan’s chest was still solid and broad beneath her, and the little flower spirit sprawled across it, humming and whining, throwing everything she had into stripping him bare.
Facing his eager girlfriend, Gu Wenshan felt nothing but pride and satisfaction—clear proof of his own appeal.
Except that Xiangzhi kept gnawing away, working his neck until it went numb and tingly, and yet—
He turned his head and there was the window, curtains still wide open.
Broad daylight, clear skies overhead.
He reached for the curtains but couldn’t quite reach them, nearly sending the little flower spirit tumbling off him in the process.
He quickly wrapped an arm around her slender waist to catch her, and the moment her waist twisted in his grip, another bead of sweat broke out on his forehead.
The little flower spirit had no technique to speak of, but when it came to driving a man wild, she was second to none.
“Someone might walk by outside.”
Gu Wenshan flipped them over, pinning her restless little hands above her head.
Xiangzhi’s eyes shimmered like rippling spring water, full of longing and want, and she said, coquettish: “I want…”
His Adam’s apple sat right in her line of sight, and she couldn’t help sticking out the tip of her tongue, wanting to lick it.
Gu Wenshan’s breath caught sharply, and then he kissed her fiercely, capturing that disobedient little tongue and sucking on it.
Xiangzhi flushed a deep red from the kiss, feeling like she couldn’t get enough air, and had to wrap her arms tightly around his neck.
A second before his reason snapped entirely, Gu Wenshan forced his hand out from beneath her shirt.
She still didn’t understand any of this—all she knew was how to chase the pull of desire head-on.
He was a decent man. He could hold himself back.
He couldn’t just take her like this—his wife deserved a proper marriage, an honest name, a rightful place.
Every ounce of restraint cost him something, and with each one his eyes grew a shade darker.
Xiangzhi, breathing softly in his arms, gazed up at him through a haze and reached out with soft, pliant arms to pull him back down against her.
Those slender jade arms proved more powerful than an army of ten thousand.
Gu Wenshan pulled himself back abruptly, lowering his head to survey the disarray of both their clothes.
Xiangzhi looked ready to cry from frustration with him, her nose tip red, and she sniffed at the air.
The whole room was thick with the scent of gardenia—a sea of temptation that had very nearly drowned Gu Wenshan whole.
He shoved the window open, letting the cold wind sweep away every trace of heat and impulse, then turned back around, his face already settling into the doting smile Xiangzhi knew so well.
But only Gu Wenshan knew just how little ease there’d actually been in any of it.
Forcing down that kind of physical desire went against nature itself—it was its own quiet suffering.
But for Xiangzhi’s sake, he was willing to suffer.
“I can’t take advantage of you like this.”
Gu Wenshan kept a full step of distance between them, looking down at the little flower spirit with her rumpled clothes, and reached out to stroke her hair fondly.
He said, gentling his voice: “I want to love you with my head, not just my impulses—not because of desire alone. I control what’s below my waist. I won’t let what’s below my waist control me.”
Xiangzhi wrapped her arms around his waist, her flushed cheek pressed to his abdominal muscles, and tilted her head up to look at him: “We don’t need any controlling.”
Gu Wenshan held firm to his resolve, tilting her chin up for a light kiss. Seeing her about to cling to him again, he straightened up: “We do. I need to treasure you properly.”
In this day and age, a man and woman walking together on the street were expected to keep half a step of distance between them—holding hands wasn’t even allowed. A young man who said anything even mildly suggestive to a young woman could be arrested for hooliganism. And a woman’s conduct before marriage was watched especially closely.
He wanted her as soon as possible, but he didn’t want one careless moment of his own to leave her exposed to gossip and judgment for the rest of her life.
Seeing how firm he was, Xiangzhi shuffled over to the edge of the bed and rested her head against his lean, muscled waist, saying quietly: “Then I should treasure you too. I should get myself ready.”
“Do you know how to get ready?”
Gu Wenshan cupped the back of her head in his large palm, stroking her soft hair and, hidden beneath it, the pale, slender curve of her neck that fit so perfectly in his hand.
Compared to how she liked to bite him, he found himself wanting to nip at her a little too, just once.
Same craving, both of them.
The little flower spirit had no idea how serious this all was—but he did.
Xiangzhi quietly did up the button at her collar and murmured: “The political review.”
Gu Wenshan wasn’t satisfied with that answer. He crouched down to bring himself level with her eyes and asked again: “And after the review?”
If anyone else had heard the way he said it, they would have caught the coaxing note in his voice at once. The little flower spirit, none the wiser, simply followed his lead and answered obediently: “Getting married. Marrying you—a military marriage.”
His Adam’s apple bobbed again, and he gripped her wrist, stroking it with barely restrained want as he led her on: “And do you know what you’ll get to do, once we’re married?”
The little flower spirit, having failed to eat him several times over already, let her pretty little face fall, saying, none too pleased: “Eat you.”
Gu Wenshan burst out laughing at her sulky little expression: “That’s right. Once we’re married, you’ll get to eat me. I promise there won’t be a single hitch.”
“In the picture books, anyone who makes a promise like that never comes to a good end.” Xiangzhi, alarmed, clapped a hand over his mouth: “Quick, spit that out.”
“Ptooey, ptooey.”
Gu Wenshan pulled her hand away and kept it clasped in his own, and said gently, with the only patience he had left in this life: “Then let’s both hold on a little longer. I’ll file the marriage application, and the moment Commander Liu approves it, we’ll go get our marriage certificate and get married right away. Sound good?”
One hour, from confirming they were together to filing a marriage application—Gu Wenshan’s courtship could have qualified for rocket propulsion.
Xiangzhi, thoroughly unwilling but coaxed along all the same, nodded: “Fine.”
With that, she kicked off her shoes, hopped down, crouched by the coffee table, and slapped down a pen and paper: “You write it. Finish it today, turn it in today. Once it’s approved tomorrow, I’ll eat you tomorrow.”
Gu Wenshan had to remind her: “The political review takes some time.”
The little flower spirit’s gaze drifted to the sesame oil jar sitting in the kitchen corner, and she thought to herself that she really did need to get ready—she was still two catties short.
A man as rare as Gu Wenshan, one in a million, deserved to be savored slowly, chewed carefully.
The two of them, each lost in their own private thoughts, somehow ended up perfectly in sync anyway.
Once the marriage application was written, Gu Wenshan had to go to work that afternoon and turn it in on the way, while Xiangzhi left the bungalow to head to the flower house.
There was actually another important matter today—Old Zhou, fresh out of the hospital, had said she needed to sign her formal worker’s contract, using this bit of good fortune to shake off her earlier bad luck.
At the door of the flower house’s duty office, a new sign now hung: “Logistics Landscaping Coordination Department.”
The interior had been rearranged too.
The barracks had provided new desks and chairs, so Xiangzhi and Old Zhou could now sit facing each other, each with their own desk. By the door, diagonal from the desks, stood a newspaper rack and two bright red new thermos flasks.
New portraits of the Chairman hung on the wall, giving the whole place a freshly renewed feel, and across from the portraits hung a brand-new map with the rooster outline of the country.
On the desk sat a plastic pen holder with three pencils and an old fountain pen inside, and beside it, an unopened bottle of Hongyan brand blue-black ink.
Seeing how rosy and glowing her complexion looked, her hair soft and shining, Old Zhou relaxed and handed her the contract: “It’s normally renewed once a year, but since the personnel office saw you’d earned a commendation, I put in a request with the unit for a three-year contract instead. What do you think?”
Xiangzhi, never one for dense fine print, squinted at it for a long while before pointing at the numbers, her eyes lighting up: “What’s this 27? And this 5? What’s this 3? And 1.5?”
Seeing how clueless she looked, Old Zhou explained her benefits to her: “27 yuan is your base salary, 5 yuan is your meal subsidy, 3 yuan is your clothing subsidy, and the 1.5 is the sanitary allowance for female comrades.”
Xiangzhi was thrilled beyond words—jumping from a mere fifteen yuan eighty to thirty-six fifty. No wonder everyone fought tooth and nail to become a formal worker!
“Congratulations. You’re officially a formal employee now.”
Once she’d signed, Old Zhou sat down facing her, the old man and the young woman side by side: “You already know your work assignments for the month. But the most important thing right now is that the military’s cracking down hard on matters of ideology and conduct. Watching your mouth comes first. Living simply and working hard comes second.”
He eyed her new padded jacket, her new sweater, her new synthetic-fabric shirt, and her leather shoes, and said, putting on a stern face to relay the message from above: “You need to keep your thinking properly aligned, young comrade. Don’t let yourself get swept up in comparing yourself to others, and don’t let capitalist ideas creep in and corrupt you…”
Xiangzhi, cradling her big tea mug, listened along drowsily.
Twenty minutes later, Old Zhou finally wound down. Truth be told, it had been a while since he’d had an audience for a proper speech, and he’d gotten a little too into it, nearly unable to stop himself.
Once everything that needed saying had been said and everything that needed conveying had been conveyed—
Old Zhou pulled a yellowed envelope from his drawer and handed it to Xiangzhi: “Here, daughter. This is a little something from your father. Take good care of it.”
Xiangzhi took the envelope, opened it, and found ten ten-yuan bills inside, her eyes going round: “Sir, weren’t you just telling me to live simply and work hard?”
Old Zhou chuckled: “That salary of yours won’t stretch far enough. You live simply, and I’ll do my part as your father—giving you a hundred yuan a month on the side isn’t much at all.”
Not much? That was practically three months of her salary!
What Old Zhou really wanted to guard against was Gu Wenshan’s financial influence over her. Before he’d known Xiangzhi was his daughter, she’d already spent plenty of Gu Wenshan’s money on things.
If Gu Wenshan was willing to spend that freely, there wasn’t much Old Zhou could say about it.
But he wasn’t about to be outdone as her father either—he had to give even more than Gu Wenshan did. A daughter needed to be spoiled properly, so she’d never be swayed by some man’s petty little favors!
Xiangzhi, not fully grasping the depth of Old Zhou’s scheming, saw only the sincerity in the old man’s eyes and accepted the money without hesitation: “Then I’ll try not to make you too angry, okay?”
“Good enough. Hearing my daughter say that alone will add a few years to my life.”
Old Zhou smiled kindly, got up, and brought over the thermos: “Have some hot water, your cup’s gone cold.”
Xiangzhi held out her big mug, and Old Zhou had her set it down properly on the table before pouring the hot water in.
“Now that I’ve got thirty-six fifty a month, that’s not too far off from what Gu Wenshan makes, is it? He’s bought me so many things—I want to buy him something too.”
Old Zhou said, his smile not quite reaching his eyes: “Not too far off from your salary? Child, he makes quite a bit more than you.”
“How much more could it possibly be?” Xiangzhi said, pleased with herself. “I’ve got three extra subsidies too, you know.”
Old Zhou counted it out for her on his fingers: “Gu Wenshan is a regiment-level cadre. On top of his base salary, he gets a cadre allowance, quarterly bonuses, transportation subsidy, position subsidy, travel subsidy, meal subsidy, and so on. If I remember right, he should be pulling in around two hundred eighteen yuan. Probably more.”
“…A whole fifteen yuan eighty.”
Ah. So that was what he’d been laughing about, back then.
Xiangzhi, mimicking Gu Wenshan’s own tone, said, her smile not reaching her eyes either: “My whole month’s salary doesn’t even match the tail end of his paycheck! Dad, he was laughing at how little I make!”
That single word “Dad” struck straight at Old Zhou’s heart, and he slapped the table: “That’s nothing to worry about! I’ll bump your allowance up to three hundred a month!”
“Ah… there’s really no need for that.” Xiangzhi wasn’t a greedy child, and scratched her head. “Honestly, my salary’s plenty for me these days.”
Old Zhou thought to himself, child, every single thing on you from head to toe was bought with that little rascal Gu Wenshan’s money—of course your salary’s enough for you.
Still, he needed to spoil her properly. Next payday, he’d give her even more.
The old man and the young woman chatted away in the duty office, Xiangzhi’s little face flushed pink from the heat of the stove.
Just as it was nearly time to clock off, the new wall clock struck five.
Outside the window, snowflakes began drifting down across the sky.
“Wonder if the application’s been turned in yet,” Xiangzhi said, yawning and stretching. “Ugh, getting married is such a hassle.”
Old Zhou nearly spilled his tea all over himself, and said, startled: “Married?”
Xiangzhi nodded: “Yeah, married. Gu Wenshan said he’d come find you once he’d turned in the application.”
Old Zhou laughed in outrage: “Acting first and reporting after, is it?”
Xiangzhi said: “No, actually, I was the one pushing for it.”
That only made Old Zhou more outraged.
So what exactly had he just spent all that time doing? Closing the barn door after the horse had already bolted?
He’d been standing guard this whole time, and the thief had already made off with the goods!
Gu Wenshan left the bungalow, the marriage application tucked in his pocket, and headed for the office building.
Commander Liu had gone to report in Beijing at the start of the year, and Gu Wenshan had just missed him.
Not wanting to leave the application sitting on someone’s desk, he wanted to hand it over in person, so he waited two whole days for Commander Liu to return from Beijing.
Stone Zhibing, meanwhile, was busy preparing for the nationwide “Learn from Workers, Learn from Farmers, Learn from Soldiers” campaign—over the next few days, outstanding sent-down youths selected from across the province would be arriving at the unit for a month of training.
Mainly, they’d be undergoing a month of strict military drills, experiencing firsthand what life as a new recruit was actually like. Truly an activity to bring tears of joy to one’s eyes.
Stone Zhibing, run ragged with preparations, finally managed to corner an equally run-ragged Gu Wenshan. Even so, the two busy men still found time to needle each other.
“Well, well, Old Gu. You go your whole life without a girlfriend, and then the moment you get one, you make a splash.”
Stone Zhibing was in the middle of reviewing the files of the outstanding sent-down youths—even the young comrades coming in for training needed to be vetted, not just anyone could walk through the gates.
Gu Wenshan paid his teasing no mind at all. That was exactly the effect he wanted.
Ideally, every single person in the whole unit would know by now that he and Xiangzhi were together, so no one would even think about setting their sights on his precious treasure.
When Stone Zhibing got no response, he looked up and started: “Is your mouth ever going to heal? I’m just saying—are you dating this woman or eating her? ”
Gu Wenshan smiled: “Can’t help it. Passion runs hot.”
Stone Zhibing’s mouth twitched: “Oh, I’m well aware how hot it’s running—you can’t go anywhere these days without hearing about the two of you. But you’d better get that mouth healed up soon, or people who don’t know better will think you’ve taken up with a little praying mantis.”
A little praying mantis? Wasn’t that the one that ate the male after mating?
Gu Wenshan let the comment roll off him without a second thought.
Once he’d finished his work for the day, he spotted Commander Liu’s car heading toward the family compound outside the window.
He called out to Stone Zhibing, grabbed his coat and cap, and hurried after it. His office was on the fourth floor, and by the time he made it downstairs, the car was already gone.
Figuring Commander Liu had gone home for dinner, Gu Wenshan wasn’t in a rush. He pulled on his coat, planning to head to Commander Liu’s house first, then swing by Old Zhou’s place that evening with a gift in hand.
He’d gone to Old Zhou’s the day before yesterday too, but Old Zhou had been off in Yanxia Village and they’d missed each other.
In the distance, at the large vehicle lot, big trucks were pulling in from outside, carrying in batches of the outstanding sent-down youths selected for the “learning from soldiers” program.
This year’s scale was bigger than previous years—the southern district was even planning to build a joint military-civilian Hope School, and quite a few new teachers were temporarily housed in the staff dormitories. The whole unit felt noticeably livelier than usual.
Busy as he was, Gu Wenshan came to a stop passing by the bulletin board.
The newspaper piece from Xiangzhi’s interview a couple of days ago had finally been published.
Just as Commander Liu had predicted, in a show of the masses responding to the Central Committee’s call for “learning from soldiers,” Xiangzhi’s recent commendation had landed her on the front page.
She stood in front of the arched auditorium built during the Soviet aid period, beaming a bright smile at the camera. Li Quanlan’s family stood to her left, and Commander Liu and the other leaders to her right.
Because Gu Wenshan was often away on missions, he generally avoided being photographed, but in this shot he happened to be standing near the camera, exchanging a small smile with Xiangzhi as their eyes met.
Behind them, in the distance, a crowd of onlookers had gathered, and if you looked closely, you could even spot a member of the arts troupe peeking out from inside the auditorium.
Mu Ying happened to see this same newspaper when she came by.
She’d always been the center of attention—not just on stage, but in everyday life too. But this photograph had reduced her to nothing more than part of the background, and worse, the shutter had caught her expression at that exact moment, fully capturing her open envy for the world to see. It left her burning with shame, her sense of superiority shattered to pieces.
And the one responsible for all of it stood right at the center of the photograph, basking in everyone’s attention, basking in the praise, holding everything she’d ever wanted.
Gu Wenshan nodded to the soldiers from the motor pool as he passed, and was just about to keep walking when someone suddenly stopped him.
Mu Ying had made up her mind to try one more time—if this didn’t work either, she was prepared to steel herself and go back to Beijing for good, never to set foot in the 114th again, sparing herself from having to watch those two carry on together, forever cast as nothing but Xiangzhi’s backdrop.
Seeing it was her, Gu Wenshan’s brow furrowed, and he simply looked at her coldly without a word, too proud to even open his mouth.
Mu Ying looked up at Gu Wenshan, tall and imposing in his military coat.
The thick coat wrapped around him like an impenetrable wall, hiding whatever heart lay beneath from view entirely.
There had been a time when she’d assumed he simply didn’t have one. Now she knew—he had one, he’d just given it to someone else.
Tears very nearly spilled over, and with a tightness in her throat, she said, with difficulty: “Gu Wenshan.”
Gu Wenshan looked at her, his face utterly blank: “We’re not close enough for you to address me so familiarly.”
He turned the marriage application over in his pocket, looking at her with a strange, restless irritation.
Mu Ying curled a finger to wipe away a tear sliding down to her chin, and forced a smile, her manner deliberately pitiable: “Regiment Commander Gu, there’s something I’d like to discuss with you. Could you possibly—”
“I don’t have time.”
“Regiment Commander Gu, we’ve known each other since we were children. For old times’ sake, could you just come over there with me and let me say a few words? Just a few.”
Mu Ying pleaded, not caring in the least about the puzzled looks from passersby. She was gambling everything on this one last chance—the spark inside her hadn’t quite died out yet. This was a man she’d loved for seven years.
Gu Wenshan’s instinct was to refuse outright—and refuse he must.
But before he could get a word out, a round, chubby head suddenly popped up from the back of one of the large trucks, and its owner immediately started in on Mu Ying: “Here’s a woman who looks decent enough on the outside, so how’d her insides turn out so rotten?! Chasing after a man who’s already taken, and with a face this thick besides—are you secretly some kind of giant ink-stone demon in disguise?!”
“Who are you calling a giant ink-stone demon?!”
Mu Ying spun around, hoping to find support from Gu Wenshan, only to hear the plump girl behind her shout: “Eyes on me! Don’t go drooling over someone else’s man!”
Startled out of her wits, Mu Ying forgot all about her tears and her pitiful act, whipping around to find a stocky young woman with short braids jutting off her shoulders, leaping down from a truck over two meters high with a look fierce enough to kill.