Chapter 3
This time, Yan Lei did not say, “Divorce or go home.”
Of course, he hoped his wife would come home with him; divorce had never been a choice he wanted.
But his wife had always been eccentric. Even though her delusional extramarital affair had failed, Yan Lei wasn’t entirely sure if she would definitely come home with him.
He appeared stern on the outside, but in reality, he had no confidence.
People’s hierarchy of needs really are different.
Qiao Weiwei was young and healthy, had a husband and a child, and craved satisfaction on a spiritual level.
Meanwhile, Qiao Wei from the other world, although not like Qiao Weiwei whose parents had both passed away, had seen her parents divorce when she was very young. The mother who raised her had passed away before her. After she contracted a terminal illness, her father—with whom she had never lived—ruthlessly abandoned her.
During their last phone call, he said, “Don’t come and disturb my life again.”
Then he blocked her.
Her boyfriend also flinched when faced with her serious illness; after visiting her for the last time, he never contacted her again.
At that time, Qiao Wei had nothing left. She had no family, no lover, and no job. To pay for her treatment, she had sold her house, and in the end, she died lonely and in pain in the hospital.
For Qiao Wei, who had experienced such a life, having a healthy body and a home to return to was better than anything else.
One man’s poison is another man’s meat. Her needs were different from those of the original owner, Qiao Weiwei.
Now, someone was asking her to come home.
Facing the man whose face was pulled tight, Qiao Wei answered happily and affirmatively, “Let’s go home!”
The joy and delight in her tone could not be concealed. Her bright eyes looked at him with a smile, as if she were full of anticipation for the life ahead.
Yan Lei couldn’t help but be stunned.
Qiao Wei sat in the back of the jeep, feeling very secure in her heart.
In this era, anyone who could use a car meant that he could provide “Qiao Weiwei” with a stable life.
Qiao Wei was a newcomer, having received the original owner’s memories. She felt both familiar and strange toward everything in this world, like looking at a movie set. However, thinking about the fact that her life was guaranteed, the feeling of unease about being in a new place lessened significantly.
“Sister-in-law, are you alright now?” Driver Zhang asked while driving.
The driver was a young man in his early twenties.
Qiao Wei’s mind registered that his surname was Zhang—Driver Zhang.
“I’m fine now,” she said.
“What did the doctor say?”
Since he was asking her, it meant he didn’t know the situation and hadn’t asked Yan Lei yet. Qiao Wei then said, “It was just hypoglycemia.”
Considering that information was not well-developed at this time and many things that were common knowledge in later generations might not be understood by many people here, Qiao Wei added an explanation, “Hypoglycemia means the blood sugar concentration is too low, making a person prone to fainting. Drinking some sugar water or eating some sugar can help them recover.”
“Whoa! You have to eat sugar?” Driver Zhang clicked his tongue, “That’s a rich man’s disease.”
“Sister-in-law, you know so much; you truly are an educated person.”
After the compliment, he added, “Was that older woman a relative of yours, Sister-in-law? Why didn’t she follow you to the hospital in the car, or even see you off?”
He was talking about the old woman who rented her the house.
Every era has its own characteristics. At this time, staying at a relative’s house when visiting was the norm. If you didn’t stay at a relative’s house, it meant either the relative was slighting you, or you looked down on the relative.
You must welcome guests when they arrive and see them off when they leave.
If the etiquette isn’t up to par, people will talk behind your back.
Driver Zhang had followed them to the Diesel Engine Factory and waited outside, but didn’t see anyone. He followed them to Huayun Road, where Regimental Commander Yan carried the fainted Qiao Wei out horizontally in his arms. He only saw an old woman following them—if you said she was a relative, it didn’t quite look like it. Regimental Commander Yan didn’t pay attention to her, simply carried his wife into the car, shouted at him to drive to the hospital, and slammed the car door shut.
He didn’t see that old woman speak or follow.
Qiao Wei’s gaze turned from the scenery outside the window, and she happened to see Yan Lei’s warning look in the rearview mirror.
She searched the original owner’s memories. It turned out the original owner had entrusted the child to a neighbor, using the excuse, “I’m going to visit relatives. When the child’s father returns, you can hand the child over to him.”
The only person who knew the truth was Yan Lei, because the original owner had left him a letter in the bedroom saying goodbye and demanding a divorce.
She understood. The driver didn’t know the truth about Qiao Weiwei running away from home. Perhaps he had guesses, perhaps he was probing, or perhaps he just wanted to gossip and chat.
But she and Yan Lei had to cover this up.
Qiao Wei stared into the man’s eyes in the mirror.
In her memories, this man was uneducated, vulgar, and had many “peasant habits.” Of course, these were all very subjective impressions, all coming from the original owner.
Qiao Wei received this information, but she didn’t fully accept it.
In fact, since she transmigrated and met Yan Lei, her impression of him wasn’t bad at all.
Look, he was quite shrewd, knowing how to keep things hidden, which not only saved face for himself but also left a retreat for the original owner.
Now, the original owner’s retreat was the main road that Qiao Wei had to take.
Qiao Wei smiled slightly at the man in the mirror.
Yan Lei frowned, deeply suspecting that Qiao Wei might have lost her mind a bit because of her failed romance. Ever since she woke up, she had been acting strange.
How many times had she smiled at him? The number of times she smiled at him today was more than in all their years of marriage combined.
Yan Lei was worried that she would say the wrong thing, expose the ugly truth, and make everyone look bad.
Qiao Wei in the back suddenly sighed and said, “He’s a distant relative. You know, I don’t have any family left. I finally found this distant relative, heard he got married, and rushed over to congratulate him. But I was met with a cold shoulder. His son is now a key worker at the factory and looks down on a poor relative like me.”
The driver exclaimed, “Sister-in-law, you call yourself a poor relative? No! How can anyone look down on a military dependent? Sister-in-law, you are the wife of a Regimental Commander! What kind of relatives do you have?”
Qiao Wei said, “It’s my fault too; we hadn’t seen each other in many years. I just said my mother had passed away, my father had passed away, and my father’s job position had been taken by someone else, so I didn’t have a job. I just hadn’t had a chance to say that my husband is a military cadre.”
The driver slammed the steering wheel, “I knew it! So, Sister-in-law, didn’t you tell them later?”
“Tell them what?” Qiao Wei said, “Is there any need to keep in touch with such relatives in the future?”
The driver clicked his tongue, “That’s their loss. Sister-in-law, you did the right thing! We don’t care for people like that.”
Yan Lei withdrew his gaze from the rearview mirror and looked ahead, “Drive carefully.”
In the provincial capital, you could still see a couple of four-story buildings, but once outside the city area, it was suddenly different. It even felt like there was no urban-rural fringe; it was as if you had directly entered the countryside all at once.
Yan Lei didn’t speak, so Qiao Wei didn’t speak either. She gazed at the scenery outside, eyes full of green farmland, especially vibrant and full of life. She watched with great interest.
In her memories, the original owner had come by long-distance bus, which had many stops in between, lots of people getting on and off, and a lot of luggage, taking most of the day to arrive slowly.
The car was much faster, taking just over two hours. The main reason was that the road wasn’t good enough, and there were flocks of sheep, chickens, ducks, and other poultry that would block the road from time to time.
When encountering this situation, the driver was also quite helpless, sticking his head out the window to shout at the villagers to hurry up and drive the sheep to the side.
Yan Lei glanced at Qiao Wei in the rearview mirror. He thought Qiao Wei would be impatient. She hated these things the most.
She was a city girl, always longing for the provincial capital and hating the countryside.
Yet after she married him, she could only live in the town near the Military Unit, where all the military families lived. The conditions in the town were far worse than in the city. He knew she married him for a good life, but this one thing alone had disappointed her too much.
She had always wanted him to change careers. Military officers transferring to civilian jobs could usually go to fairly good units, and if he pulled some strings, it wouldn’t be impossible to go to the provincial capital.
But Yan Lei was only twenty-six and had no thoughts of changing careers. He was a man who had been on the battlefield, and the country’s surrounding geopolitics were complex; it was possible that there would be wars in the future.
He indeed didn’t have much education, unlike her who had studied until high school, but he had gone from a country boy to a military officer. Everything he had now came from the country and the Military Unit. In his bones, he had a heart full of passion, and he still wanted to serve the country with his body.
They had argued about this many times, and later, they couldn’t even be bothered to argue; the two of them had nothing left to say.
Yan Lei had originally thought that as long as they could maintain a home, that would be enough. He hadn’t expected the high school graduate to be so naive, getting hooked by a few ambiguous poems and sweet words from someone else, and actually abandoning her husband and child to elope.
He looked at the woman in the back seat again.
It was really strange. She was looking at the flocks of sheep, chickens, and ducks outside, and there was actually a smile on her face, as if she really liked it.
She had clearly hated these things the most before. She hated to death that the town was surrounded by the countryside, blending into one.
Yan Lei frowned again. He didn’t know how many times he had frowned today.
Qiao Wei liked this pastoral scenery very much.
She watched with great interest as Driver Zhang and the villager chatted away, their voices so loud it was like they were arguing. Finally, Driver Zhang handed a cigarette to the villager, and the villager nimbly drove the flock of sheep away.
Qiao Wei couldn’t help but laugh.
The driver complained, “The roads in the countryside are just like this.”
He felt a bit stingy about his cigarette.
Speaking of cigarettes, her memories were activated again. Qiao Wei remembered that there were cigarettes in her “home” too. Yan Lei, this man, also liked to smoke.
She looked over and happened to see Yan Lei smoking.
From this angle, she could see his profile. His jawline was strong, his eyebrows were long and thick, and his nose bridge was very high.
He is the male lead! Of course, he would be extraordinarily handsome.
How could someone without a handsome face be a male lead?
This reminded Qiao Wei that she had transmigrated into the world of a book.
In this world, the original body was a cannon fodder who never showed her face. Actually, even when she was reading it, she enjoyed talking about how the female lead and the widower male lead fell in love after marriage,
and how she became a virtuous and good stepmother—this kind of stepmother story had been very popular for a while.
No one cared at all about the original wife who had been turned into cannon fodder.
Especially since the female lead was a reborn woman who, in her previous life, disliked that the male lead had children and was old, marrying an educated youth she liked, only to have a miserable life after marriage. This time, she knew from the start that the male lead had a bright future, so she did everything she could to marry the male lead, cling to his thigh, and from then on, lived a glorious and good life.
It was just a big power fantasy story.
But now that Qiao Wei had transmigrated here, the female lead’s big power fantasy was her own big Bad Ending.
This wouldn’t do.
She had transmigrated from another miserable life, and now, she had a young and healthy body, a handsome and promising husband, and a home waiting for her to return.
All of this could not be taken away by someone else.
Especially when she thought of “home,” her heart began to ache, and a small figure appeared before her eyes.
“Mom, when are you coming back?” the child asked when being entrusted to the neighbor.
The child didn’t know they had been abandoned.
The original owner, Qiao Weiwei, died in sorrow and despair, handing over her body and life to the transmigrated Qiao Wei, but at the same time, she left a deep mark in Qiao Wei’s heart—a sense of guilt toward that child and remorse for abandoning the child.
The original owner hoped the transmigrator could make up for all of this for her.
It was like a transaction.
Qiao Wei accepted this transaction. She accepted the healthy body, the handsome husband, and this home, and in return, she had to give the original owner’s child a happy life.
It was very fair.
Therefore, Qiao Wei could not become the faceless cannon fodder in the story like the original owner.
This story had already changed the moment she transmigrated.
This marriage had to continue, so from now on… Qiao Wei glanced at the rearview mirror again and locked eyes with Yan Lei once more—
Hello, male lead.
From now on, I am the female lead in your life!
