2
My A-Chun
Finally, it was quiet.
Just as Lu Xuanzhou was about to fall asleep again, he felt something in his arms.
He instinctively squeezed the “thing” in his embrace—it was soft and yielding, like a glutinous rice dumpling.
“Mmm.”
The glutinous rice dumpling actually made a sound.
Lu Xuanzhou snapped his eyes open and was met with a flash of stark white that stung his vision. The woman from last night’s dream—was she real?
Bang!
The door was flung open!
Lu Xuanzhou yanked the blanket, almost instinctively covering the woman completely.
Song Zhian kicked the door open and saw Lu Xuanzhou lying shirtless on the bed. His eyes nearly bulged out of their sockets as he roared and charged toward the bed.
The pool of blood on the pillow made it impossible for him to deceive himself into ignoring it.
His wife—the one whose hand he had only held, whom he hadn’t even kissed—had been given entirely to Lu Xuanzhou!
No, he still refused to believe it. He couldn’t believe his well-behaved wife would let another man get close to her.
Song Zhian glared furiously at Lu Xuanzhou and the lump beside him.
“Is that my Achun under the blanket?”
“Who is Achun?”
Lu Xuanzhou yawned, which Song Zhian interpreted as pure provocation.
Humiliated, Song Zhian gritted out, “My wife, Lin Jianchun, whom I married just yesterday.”
“Why are you looking for your new wife in my bed?”
Lu Xuanzhou asked without a hint of shame, genuinely confused. Shouldn’t Song Zhian’s newlywed wife be in the Song family’s bed? What was he doing searching for her here?
“Lu Xuanzhou, you’ve gone too far!” Song Zhian’s last thread of restraint snapped. He ripped the blanket away.
Lin Jianchun clutched the blanket tightly as the plot of the book flooded her mind, the pain making her break out in a cold sweat.
When Song Zhian pulled the blanket off, he saw Lin Jianchun drenched in sweat, her face twisted in agony.
He bellowed, “What were you two doing just now!”
It was already daylight, and they were still shamelessly… working up a sweat.
Lu Xuanzhou propped himself up and turned to see Lin Jianchun drenched, as if she had just finished exercising… If he remembered correctly, he hadn’t done anything, had he?
“Lu Xuanzhou, I’ll fight you to the death! How dare you sleep with my wife!”
Song Zhian swung his fist at Lu Xuanzhou. Lu Xuanzhou, broad-shouldered and long-limbed, caught Song Zhian’s small fist with one hand and shoved him away.
What nonsense. Anyone would sweat and suffer if they were trapped under a blanket for too long.
Mother Lu quickly stepped in with Little Lu to pull the enraged Song Zhian away, shooting a meaningful glance at Lu Xuanzhou to hurry and get up.
To be caught in bed like this and still lie there nonchalantly—wasn’t that just twisting the knife?
Mother Lu said, “Young people shouldn’t be so impulsive—it’s easy to cause trouble. There might be a misunderstanding here. Let’s wait for your wife to get up and explain.” As she spoke, she pulled Song Zhian out of the room.
After a moment of exhaustion, Lin Jianchun finally realized she had truly transmigrated into the book.
After Lu Xuanzhou dressed and got up, he noticed Lin Jianchun still lying there, her face pale and bloodless, her long hair splayed across his pillow. He recalled how, in last night’s dream, this woman had actively reached out to touch him. Had she mistaken him for Song Zhian?
“Aren’t you getting up?”
Lin Jianchun felt completely drained. She lifted her gaze to meet Lu Xuanzhou’s disdainful eyes, which perfectly mirrored the male lead’s contempt for his early-deceased ex-wife in the book. She decided she’d had enough.
With utter nonchalance, Lin Jianchun rolled over. “I’m tired.”
Lu Xuanzhou’s hands paused as he buttoned his clothes. “Hm?”
What did her exhaustion have to do with him? Outside, the furious Song Zhian was still waiting for her explanation.
Lin Jianchun turned her back to Lu Xuanzhou, making it clear she intended to brazen it out completely.
She wasn’t stupid. She hadn’t even processed the plot from the book yet and had no desire to become the target for the Song family to tear apart.
Lin Jianchun decisively closed her eyes, forcing herself to fall asleep. She felt she could still salvage the situation—if she fell asleep again, perhaps she’d return to the real world. Once back, she swore she’d no longer slack off or go with the flow as a university lecturer. She’d diligently teach those naive and foolish university students to fiercely compete in college physics courses, and she wouldn’t let a single physics slacker off the hook…
She mentally swore an impassioned thousand-word essay before finally drifting off to sleep with peace of mind.
Mother Lu, barely containing the Song family’s rage, entered the room and saw Lin Jianchun fast asleep again.
Mother Lu irritably pinched Lu Xuanzhou’s arm. “Look what you’ve done—you’ve exhausted her.”
She was wrong to have listened to her eldest son’s previous advice about establishing a career before marrying. If he had married early, this mess wouldn’t have happened. The brash boy dared to sleep with a woman without even confirming her identity, and now he’d worn her out so much she couldn’t even get out of bed.
Lu Xuanzhou flatly denied it: “I didn’t.”
“Shut up. Later, follow my lead.”
Based on her experience, someone this exhausted wouldn’t wake up even if you made noise—at least three times over.
Mother Lu dragged Lu Xuanzhou out by the arm, not forgetting to kick him and hiss, “Close the door.”
She didn’t care whose family the girl originally belonged to—now that her son had slept with her, she was part of their family. And since she was their daughter-in-law, there was no reason to let others scrutinize her freely.
“It’s all my fault. If I hadn’t fainted last night, this wouldn’t have happened. Son, your mother has failed you. I wish I could just die right now.”
Song’s Mother, her face deathly pale and a silk scarf wrapped around her head, beat her chest and stamped her feet in overwhelming regret.
Song Zhian gritted his teeth: “Mom, it’s not your fault. It’s Lu Xuanzhou’s damn fault for not acting like a decent person. Couldn’t get a wife at twenty-five, so he resorted to dirty tricks to steal my…”
Mother Lu didn’t like that: “My son is a big truck driver holding the steering wheel—that’s a genuine iron rice bowl. Isn’t that better than your petty clerk job?”
The Song family’s expressions turned sour.
Though Lu Xuanzhou looked intimidating—tall, sturdy, and unsmiling—ever since he secured his iron rice bowl, matchmakers had never stopped coming.
Even Song Caiwei had a crush on Lu Xuanzhou. She’d recently persuaded her mother to sound out the Lu family, and her mother agreed it would be her turn after her brother got married. Who would have thought some country girl would snatch the prize first?
Her eyes red with hatred, she said, “Brother Lu has always been chaste and proper—he wouldn’t do something like stealing my brother’s fiancée. Where’s my sister-in-law? Let her come out and explain.”
Everyone looked at Lu Xuanzhou, who truthfully relayed, “She’s tired.”
That one sentence made the entire Song family lose their composure.
Song Caiwei resentfully declared, “It must be that country bumpkin Lin Jianchun. She saw that Brother Lu is more successful than my brother, so she deliberately seduced him.”
Song’s Mother scolded, “Caiwei! How can you speak of your sister-in-law like that? No matter how unfair you think it is for your brother, she is still your sister-in-law.”
Her daughter was at the age for marriage proposals. If such rumors spread, what respectable family would still want her? At this point, the only way was to insist that Lin Jianchun was their daughter-in-law, so they could demand compensation from the Lu family. As for Lin Jianchun, having slept with another man, she naturally didn’t deserve to enter their Song family.
Lin Jianchun dozed off fitfully, then opened her eyes and stared at the mosquito net above her, letting out a sigh of despair: she still hadn’t traveled back.
Outside the door, the commotion continued, with the Song family determined to push Lu Xuanzhou to face a firing squad, even if it meant tearing off all pretense.
If she remembered correctly, in the book, Lu Xuanzhou wasn’t sent to labor reform. Instead, under the mediation of the neighborhood committee head, he compensated the Song family a large sum of money, leaving his own family deep in debt. Little Lu ended up going to the countryside because there was no money to buy him a job. Later, he married and had children there, but due to overwork, he died before turning thirty. Mother Lu, overwhelmed with grief, eventually went blind…
Meanwhile, the Song family used that money to arrange a new marriage for Song Zhian and even bought a job for their younger daughter, Song Caiwei.
And yet, the female lead, Song Caiwei, still had the nerve to claim she had long harbored a secret crush on Lu Xuanzhou.
What a deadly kind of crush.