At the utterance of Wen Yan’s name, the blizzard itself seemed to quiet.
Twelve telegrams, every single one signed.
Wen Yan single-handedly fueled the Reclamation Team’s gossip mill for the entire winter.
The young soldier pointed at Wen Yan.
“Sh-sh-she…”
‘How dare she come here?’ he wanted to ask.
‘How could she have the gall!’
Every single one of those divorce telegrams had brought utter humiliation upon the wonderful Jiang Yingzhang.
Whispers erupted from the crowd as all eyes landed on Wen Yan.
Wen Yan, however, had never been one to be bothered by others’ feelings.
She pulled down her scarf, revealing a fair, pretty face.
First, she looked at the young soldier.
“Your sled pulls to the left; it’s likely to tip over.
Be careful when you travel.
If you need it repaired, you can come find me.”
The young soldier’s brow furrowed in anger.
‘Nonsense!’
‘He didn’t believe a single word of it!’
Wen Yan paid no mind to whether he believed her.
She finished speaking, then raised a hand to wave at the surrounding crowd.
Her clear, bright voice rang out.
“Hello, comrades.
I’m Wen Yan, Jiang Baizhou’s wife.
As you can see, I’m not some monster, just…
quite good-looking, actually.
If you haven’t gotten a good enough look, you can stare all you want tomorrow.
I’m not leaving.
For now, it’s freezing, so I’ll be taking my leave first.”
With that, Wen Yan turned to look at the astonished Jiang Baizhou.
“Let’s find somewhere we can talk.”
Jiang Baizhou composed himself, his voice polite but distant.
“Alright.
This way.”
As they walked off, one after the other, a heated discussion erupted among those left behind.
“She’s here for a divorce, right?”
“Definitely.
I’ve never seen a married couple act like such strangers.”
“That’s the first time I’ve ever heard someone introduce themselves that way.
The nerve of her!”
“Well, she is very pretty.
She wasn’t wrong about that.”
Standing in the crowd, Bai Shanshan bit her lip, trying to ignore the probing looks from her fellow educated youths.
‘She chanted to herself, ‘They’ll be divorced by tomorrow.
They have to be!”
‘No man would ever tolerate that kind of humiliation from a woman!’
After repeating this mantra several times, her clenched jaw slowly relaxed, as if her conviction could make it true.
*
Walking behind Wen Yan, Jiang Baizhou thought, ‘I really don’t know the first thing about her.’
‘I’d assumed she was a spoiled, pampered city girl, but her actions just now had completely shattered that image.’
‘And when she said she wasn’t leaving…
did she mean she wasn’t leaving tomorrow, or that she was staying for good?’
‘There’s no way she’d stay for good.’
‘So that’s it.
She didn’t want to wait the three months and came in a rush to finalize the divorce.’
Jiang Baizhou sighed softly.
‘Well, talking in person is for the best.’
His gaze drifted to Wen Yan’s red woolen hat.
A small pom-pom on top bobbed back and forth, giving her a playful, cute appearance.
And yet, the woman walking ahead of him was completely expressionless, her stride like that of a “leader on an inspection tour.”
Anyone who didn’t know the situation might think this was her personal “territory.”
Amused and intrigued, Jiang Baizhou found himself wondering, ‘Should I actually try to save this marriage?’
Wen Yan had no idea what Jiang Baizhou was thinking.
She was busy observing her surroundings.
‘I’ll have to live here for many years, after all.’
There were rows of longhouses, each stretching for dozens of meters, built from yellow mud bricks mixed with straw.
Every roof had three or four chimneys, and the earthen walls were insulated with woven straw mats.
There were a few dozen of these buildings, all clustered to the north.
To the west stood a few larger earthen buildings.
One had a red cross painted on its exterior; that must be the administrative area.
To the east were several detached mud houses and dugouts, and it was toward this eastern section that Jiang Baizhou led her.
“This is the residential area for military families,” he said.
“We built all of these houses over the last year.”
When they first arrived, there was nothing here but a frozen, barren wasteland.
They had to dig caves in the snow for shelter and only began building these houses, piece by piece, when spring arrived.
During the summer, people lived in branch huts and thatched shacks, or simply slept on the ground with a direct view of the stars.
He didn’t blame Wen Yan for not wanting to come.
Her parents were university professors, and she came from a well-off family.
He didn’t know why she had agreed to marry him in the first place, but it was only human for her to not want to come here and endure such hardship.
When they’d been set up through an exchange of photographs, there had been no mention of him being sent to Black Province for the reclamation project.
“We’re here.
This is the quarters I was assigned.
You can stay here tonight.
I’ll go squeeze in with one of my comrades.”
Jiang Baizhou opened the door, letting Wen Yan in first.
“I’ll get a fire started.
We need to heat the room, or it’ll be freezing tonight.
You rest for a bit.
I’ll go check the canteen in a little while.”
The small, ten-square-meter mud hut could be taken in at a glance.
On the right was an earthen kang bed topped with a reed mat, which was slightly scorched in the middle.
A neatly folded, army-green quilt sat on top.
To the left was a crude wooden table.
On it lay a notebook, a chipped but clean enamel mug, and an aluminum mess tin.
A tree stump served as the single stool.
In the center of the room was a simple stove made of stones, inside which embers still glowed.
The window was on the same side as the table but was covered by a straw curtain, plunging the room into darkness.
‘This was the very picture of having nothing but four bare walls.’
Wen Yan sat on the tree stump and had just taken off her hat and scarf when Jiang Baizhou asked, “Did you have a smooth journey?”
Wen Yan thought for a moment.
‘Her father had pulled strings to buy her a sleeper ticket, and her mother had arranged for a friend who worked on the train to look after her.’ She nodded.
“Very smooth.”
‘All I did was eat and sleep.’
She didn’t elaborate.
Jiang Baizhou lowered his eyes, assuming she didn’t want to say more to him.
“As long as it was smooth, that’s good.
I’ve already applied for leave and was planning to come back to find you in a few days.”
Wen Yan looked at Jiang Baizhou, slightly surprised.
‘He was planning to come back?’
‘He hasn’t been back in two years.
He must be angry enough now to come back and demand a divorce.’
‘She could understand his anger, but divorce was not an option.
Maybe she should try to coax him a little?’
As Wen Yan frowned slightly, wondering how to appease him, Jiang Baizhou misinterpreted her expression as disgust.
Still, giving up without even trying wasn’t his way.
“Just settle in for tonight.
We can discuss everything else tomorrow.”
‘He’d have to think it over tonight.
How should he handle this conversation?
Maybe he should ask someone to help mediate?’
“Are you about to leave?
If you’re not, let’s talk now.”
‘She hated leaving things unsettled.
If she delayed, who knew what could happen?
Besides, there was already someone out there waiting to swoop in.’
Wen Yan’s tone was firm.
Jiang Baizhou opened his mouth, then closed it.
‘Is she really that desperate for a divorce?
I can’t be that terrible, can I?’
‘Growing up, people had always told him he was good-looking.’
A knot of frustration tightened in his chest.
Jiang Baizhou met Wen Yan’s resolute gaze and sighed to himself.
‘Fine.’
He finally spoke.
“I know you’re here for a divorce.
I have no intention of making this hard on you.
If you’re set on it, I won’t fight you.”
Wen Yan blinked.
‘Divorce him?’
‘No, no, no!’
‘I can’t let this ridiculous misunderstanding continue.’
She sat up straight with a jolt and immediately clarified her intentions.
“I’m not divorcing you.
I came here to build a life with you.”
THUD.
The piece of wood in Jiang Baizhou’s hand dropped to the floor.
‘Not getting a divorce?
Here to build a life with me?’
Jiang Baizhou eyed her head suspiciously.
“You…
you didn’t hit your head on the way here, did you?”
Wen Yan shook her head.
“No.
My head is clear, and my body is healthy.”
“My parents are supportive.
I did send the telegrams, but didn’t you write back telling me to think things over?
Well, I did think about it, very seriously, and I realized you were right.
I’ve decided not to divorce you.”
A rare look of confusion crossed Jiang Baizhou’s face.
‘Did my one letter really have that much of an impact?’
He lowered his head and added more wood to the fire.
‘This was not at all how he’d expected things to go.’
‘Then again, he *had* wanted to try and save the marriage.’
‘It just…
felt a bit too easy, didn’t it?’
‘Wen Yan waited for his response.
The system required Jiang Baizhou to agree to not getting a divorce before it would register her mission as complete.’
‘Jiang Baizhou’s silence must be due to his wounded male pride.
He needed an out.’
‘It shouldn’t be too hard.
She was an expert at coaxing her pet orange tabby.’
‘She even managed to placate her advisor, who nicknamed herself ‘Master Extinction’.’
Wen Yan was a woman of action.
She crouched down beside Jiang Baizhou and, to his shock, grabbed his shoulders with both hands and turned him to face her.
“Don’t be angry anymore, okay?
I like you the most.”
Heat rushed to Jiang Baizhou’s head.
The veins on the backs of his hands stood out, and the wood he’d picked up splintered slightly in his grip.
‘What in the world is she saying!?!’
Wen Yan arched an eyebrow.
‘Still not talking?’
‘That must mean she hadn’t coaxed him enough.
Time for another round.’
“I’ll never throw a tantrum like this again.
I’m begging you, please forgive me!”