Chapter 2
Yan Lei had previously argued with Qiao Weiwei and refused to divorce her, so he hadn’t returned home for several days, sleeping at the Battalion Headquarters instead.
He never expected that his wife would run away.
It was only after returning home that he learned Qiao Weiwei had entrusted their child to a neighbor and left him a letter.
Yan Lei came from a poor rural area and was illiterate before joining the army; it was only after attending a literacy class in the Military Unit that he learned to read.
He opened the letter and saw that Qiao Weiwei was determined to divorce him and pursue her own happiness.
Yan Lei felt both bitter and angry, but in the end, he gritted his teeth and came to the provincial capital to find Qiao Weiwei.
If it were possible, who would want to see their family fall apart?
But before coming, he had also thought that if Qiao Weiwei was determined to fly off with her Prince Charming, he wouldn’t be wishy-washy and would simply let her go.
Their union had been a mistake from the start.
When they were set up on a blind date, many of his comrades had advised him against it, saying that the girl looked too frail and didn’t seem like someone who could handle hard work, and that there was a faint resentment between her brows, making her seem like someone who couldn’t settle down to live a simple life.
But at the time, he was set on finding someone with a high level of education.
Among the girls he met that day, only Qiao Weiwei had attended high school, and although she had dropped out halfway, in Yan Lei’s heart, she was an intellectual.
Yan Lei held a sense of reverence for “educated people” in his heart, so he looked up to her.
It was just that Yan Lei hadn’t expected that this cultured girl truly couldn’t live a life with him.
Various conflicts had appeared ever since they got married.
But because Qiao Weiwei became pregnant shortly after their wedding, with the support of their child, this marriage had barely managed to last for a few years.
Never did he expect that it would still reach a point of falling apart.
He wanted to live with an intellectual, and coincidentally, Qiao Weiwei thought the same way.
Previously, The Technician had been corresponding with Qiao Weiwei too frequently, and Yan Lei felt something was wrong.
It was just that his own level of education was barely past illiteracy; he was at a level where he could recognize characters.
The Technician’s letters were constantly filled with quotes from this “sky” or that “v,” talking in circles that left him unable to understand anything.
When Qiao Weiwei read these letters that he couldn’t understand, her eyes were always filled with tears.
What the hell!
When Qiao Weiwei ran away, he was furious, but he still came to chase after her.
Divorce would be too damaging to everyone in the family, so he still wanted to try and save it one last time.
One last time.
Today, when he arrived in the provincial capital, he went straight to the Diesel Engine Factory and had someone call out The Technician for a private talk; after all, being cheated on was not something to be broadcasted, so he had to swallow his anger and talk in private.
When The Technician saw his military uniform, he guessed who he was, his face turned pale, and he confessed immediately: “Qiao Weiwei and I have a purely platonic classmate relationship. I got married yesterday, and she even came to eat some wedding candy.”
Yan Lei had thought Qiao Weiwei was eloping with him, but upon hearing this, he was stunned and realized something was wrong.
He stayed calm and pressed for answers, only to find out that it had been Qiao Weiwei’s unrequited wish all along.
But The Technician had clearly written her many letters!
Yan Lei grabbed him by the collar and hauled him up, gritting his teeth as he asked: “If you weren’t planning on taking responsibility, why did you seduce her!”
Compared to the tall and sturdy Yan Lei, the refined Technician looked like a bean sprout, but he stiffened his neck and said, “We really just had a pu—pure friendship; she was the one who misinterpreted it. If you don’t believe me, go read the letters I gave her.”
He shifted the blame onto Qiao Weiwei.
The Technician was confident that Yan Lei couldn’t find any evidence against him.
He had never expressed anything explicitly in the letters he sent to Qiao Weiwei.
He knew very well what Qiao Weiwei longed for, and he could always hook her between the lines, but if you wanted to say he seduced her, heh, there wasn’t a single word that proved it.
Yan Lei had read those letters, and indeed, there wasn’t anything seductive written in them, which was why he had never understood why Qiao Weiwei was making such a fuss about divorcing him.
But his intuition told him that this bastard was using words to seduce his wife!
Actually, if Qiao Wei, who had soul-traveled into this world, were to see this, she would be able to understand it clearly.
The Technician… was actually just flirting.
He was just flirting aimlessly for no reason, enjoying the ambiguous feeling of being worshipped, yearned for, and admired.
Qiao Weiwei was a married woman, and The Technician thought it was safer than flirting with an innocent girl, as he wouldn’t have to take responsibility.
Heh.
“Where is she?” Not wanting to dwell on what he couldn’t understand, Yan Lei asked sharply.
“I was on leave for my wedding a few days ago, so I wasn’t there. She came looking for me and left a message with my colleague, saying she was staying on Huayun Road for the time being.” The Technician swallowed hard. “I only found out when I came to work today. I only saw her once at the wedding yesterday; she ate a candy and left. Really, there were so many guests, I didn’t even get to speak to her, really.”
He had to prove his innocence; he couldn’t let Qiao Weiwei pin anything on him, especially since he was now the son-in-law of the factory director.
The look in the eyes of Qiao Weiwei’s husband was a bit terrifying.
The Technician remembered that Qiao Weiwei had complained in her letters, saying that her husband was from the countryside and uneducated, like an “uncivilized beast.”
Hiss, that description was actually quite accurate.
The Technician didn’t know that Yan Lei had been on the battlefield, had experienced the trials of blood and fire, and had killed enemies with real guns and ammunition, having seen the broken corpses of many comrades.
A person who had gone through such experiences was just different from an ordinary person. This was most intuitively reflected in their eyes.
Qiao Weiwei longed for educated college students who were refined and polite. She hated people like Yan Lei.
A marriage where you couldn’t get along in any aspect was a tragedy.
Yan Lei stared at this bastard college student for a moment, then let go of his collar and turned around.
The Technician let out a huge sigh of relief.
Yan Lei walked two steps, stopped, suddenly turned around, and punched The Technician in the face, knocking him to the ground, shattering his glasses, causing his nose to bleed profusely, and making him see stars.
He strode out of the Diesel Engine Factory and returned to the jeep: “Let’s go, to Huayun Road!”
Just like that, he found his wife who had run away from home.
Of course, Yan Lei didn’t know that the person he found was no longer Qiao Weiwei, but Qiao Wei.
He kicked the door open and entered, gave Qiao Wei a choice, and then waited for her reply.
This small, dilapidated room was very low, without even a window, with only a small hole gouged out high up in the wall for ventilation.
The room was dim and dark, and there was an unpleasant musty smell.
Yan Lei cast his gaze over and saw his wife, still as frail and slender as ever, with fair skin.
But her face seemed exceptionally pale today, pale to the point of having no color.
Or should one say, ghostly pale.
Yan Lei was full of anger.
He had thought she was in mutual love with someone else, but it turned out she was just foolishly unrequited.
So much for being an educated person; her brain was so useless! It was a total waste of all those years she spent studying!
The woman standing a few steps away from him leaned against the table, gazing at him, but did not give him an answer.
Yan Lei became impatient and was about to speak again.
Suddenly, he saw Qiao Wei smile at him slightly.
That smile carried a sense of tranquility and peace, an expression his wife had never had in the past few years.
Yan Lei was slightly stunned, and then, he watched helplessly as the fair and slender woman collapsed.
Yan Lei was the first person Qiao Wei saw when she arrived in this world.
“First” always has some special meaning.
Furthermore, he was the husband of her current identity, which meant that in the future, she and he would inevitably have many entanglements.
Having regained a new life, Qiao Wei couldn’t help but smile at this man who represented the beginning of her new life, and then she couldn’t hold on any longer and collapsed forward.
Before losing consciousness, she felt as if she had fallen into a sturdy embrace and was caught steadily by someone…
Qiao Wei gradually regained consciousness and seemed to hear someone talking.
A woman’s voice, with a hint of annoyance, was scolding: “…It’s not the old society anymore. You’re a cadre, aren’t you? A proper cadre’s family, how did you manage to let someone become malnourished? Look at how thin this female comrade is! What are you doing? Treating her like an animal?”
And the man didn’t defend himself or talk back at all, just kept saying “Mm-hmm,” and “Yes.”
Perhaps feeling that the man’s attitude was decent enough, the woman’s tone softened slightly as she said: “She can leave once she wakes up. Feed her something good to build her strength back up.”
The man: “Mm.”
That voice was low and deep. Qiao Wei immediately recognized that this voice belonged to Yan Lei, the husband of the original owner, Qiao Weiwei.
She had received Qiao Weiwei’s memories and even emotions, and for a fleeting moment, she felt a sense of disgust toward the owner of this voice.
Fortunately, this sense of disgust coming from Qiao Weiwei quickly disappeared, and Qiao Wei regained control of her own emotions and feelings.
She felt both familiar with and like a stranger to Yan Lei, but at least she wouldn’t feel disgust, because, after all, she was not Qiao Weiwei.
But Qiao Wei lay weakly on the bed, organizing the information in her mind, knowing that from now on she would have to continue living as Qiao Weiwei.
And the original owner Qiao Weiwei wanting to divorce the male lead was truly too naive.
She had originally chosen marriage as a way out because she couldn’t endure the hardship of being a worker and couldn’t keep doing it.
Now her parents were both deceased, and she had no other relatives.
Most importantly, she had no workplace.
Now, her only identity was as Yan Lei’s wife, a military dependent.
But if she left her husband Yan Lei, she would completely become an individual without an organization or a workplace.
In this era, a person without an organization or a workplace basically couldn’t survive.
Even setting up a street stall was not allowed; this era only allowed disabled people and widowed elderly people to set up stalls, and anything else was considered speculation and profiteering.
The original owner probably never even thought about the question of how to survive after leaving Yan Lei.
Love really can lower a person’s intelligence.
Of course, it could also be the author lowering her intelligence.
After all, as a cannon fodder character, her purpose for existing was just to let the female lead become a “stepmother” to raise the children.
Honestly, in a novel, what better path was there than sticking with the male lead?
None.
The female lead, after being reborn, was willing to become a stepmother just to marry Yan Lei.
With the premise of known future benefits, being Yan Lei’s wife was the best choice for both Qiao Wei and the female lead.
Just as she was lost in thought, there were footsteps, the sound of a door opening, and then the worn blue cloth curtain was “swished” open.
It turned out she wasn’t the only one in the hospital room; it was a four-person room, two beds were empty, and there was an old lady lying on another bed, seemingly asleep, which was why the room was so quiet.
Qiao Wei turned her head to look and met Yan Lei’s gaze.
Yan Lei stared at her.
Qiao Wei looked at Yan Lei for a moment and wanted to get up.
Yan Lei pulled the curtain shut behind him, put down the aluminum lunchbox in his hand, and reached out to help her.
His hands were large, dry, and warm.
Qiao Wei could feel the strong support on her back.
Yan Lei then gripped her arm and lifted her with force, and she easily sat up.
Yan Lei helped her lean against the headboard.
He pulled over the wooden square stool by the bed and sat down, silently lifted the lid of the aluminum lunchbox, and handed it over.
Dumplings.
Dumplings were the kind of food that Qiao Wei basically didn’t eat in her future life, unless it was for the festive atmosphere of the New Year.
But seeing the dumplings at this very moment, Qiao Wei’s mouth immediately began to secrete a large amount of saliva, and she developed a strong appetite.
She glanced at Yan Lei.
Yan Lei averted his gaze, his voice cold: “The doctor said you were malnourished and told me not to let you go hungry.”
His words carried sarcasm.
Because, aside from the housing issue, he had never treated Qiao Weiwei poorly in other aspects of life.
And yet, Qiao Weiwei had left him for a few days and starved herself into malnutrition.
The doctor had examined her; there was no other reason for her fainting, it was purely weakness.
Combined with the information given by the landlady, she had actually fainted from hunger.
No one knew better than Qiao Wei what was going on with Qiao Weiwei; a box of dumplings wasn’t anything special in the future, but in this era, it could be called fine food, and it was exactly what this body needed at this very moment.
Although the man in front of her looked cold, he hadn’t defended himself a single bit when the female doctor scolded him just now, yet he had bought her dumplings.
According to the information Qiao Wei had received, in this era, when out and about, one couldn’t just get dumplings so easily.
Qiao Wei reached out to take the lunchbox and said softly: “Thank you.”
Yan Lei looked at her in surprise.
Qiao Wei smiled slightly, took the lunchbox and placed it on her lap, glanced at it, and then looked at Yan Lei.
Yan Lei said nothing, took out another roll of something, and handed it to her: “Here.”
Chopsticks—in this era, a lunchbox and chopsticks were standard personal equipment.
The chopsticks were inside a sealed plastic bag that had been used many times, rolled up, but washed quite clean.
Perhaps because she had been observing the chopsticks for too long, Yan Lei added coldly: “I washed them.”
His wife had a germaphobia and was very difficult to please; he had experienced this countless times over the years.
Although it sounded like an impatient tone, this man had actually washed the chopsticks for her, hadn’t he?
He was already better than ninety percent of men who just grumbled and scolded but didn’t do anything.
Qiao Wei thought this was great.
Because Qiao Weiwei’s “germaphobia,” in Qiao Wei’s view, was just a perfectly normal hygiene habit.
And in the future, Yan Lei would be her husband, the person she would live with.
So it would be great if he could accommodate her hygiene habits.
Qiao Wei smiled encouragingly at him, not sparing any praise: “How thoughtful.”
After saying this, she turned slightly to the side, facing away from him a bit as she began to eat the dumplings.
Today’s wife made Yan Lei feel like a stranger.
The man’s gaze swept over her thin shoulders and back, and thinking that this change might be because her extramarital affair had encountered setbacks, he “hummed” and averted his gaze again.
After eating the box of dumplings, Qiao Wei felt as if her body had been recharged.
This feeling was just too good.
In the late stages of her terminal illness, she hadn’t been able to eat normally, and every day she was tortured by pain, wanting to die but unable to.
Now, this body, which was considered “weak” in the eyes of the doctor and Yan Lei, was already too healthy for her—healthy enough to make her want to run, jump, and even sing to express her happiness.
Seeing her finish, without her asking, Yan Lei took the lunchbox, closed it, put it into the plastic bag, and stuffed it into his military green satchel.
After tidying up, he raised his eyes, sat up straight, and looked at Qiao Wei: “Going home?”
