Time passed slowly. Old Mrs. Zhang was a particularly warm-hearted person. The next day, she asked her son to send them a large cart of coal. Together with the firewood that Wang Shanxi brought back from Liushugou, it was enough for them to burn for the whole winter.
Jiang Youtao and Old Lady Zhang's family got along better and better. When the two families met, they were as affectionate as one family. Only Wang Lichuan was miserable. Old Lady Zhang had very high expectations for him. He didn't study hard enough at school. When he got home, he had to come to Jiang Youtao's house to make up for an hour of lessons. The Chinese teacher and the math teacher lived in the same courtyard. He couldn't even go to another place to take a break.
Wang Lichuan was extremely desperate.
Just as Wang Lichuan was in despair, the first snow in Zao Township arrived quietly.
Jiang Youtao opened the door as usual. The roof and the yard were all white, and snowflakes fell into the center of the yard.
Xu Manqiu came out of the kitchen with three big sweet potatoes in her hands: "I got up to go to the toilet this morning and found it was snowing, so I quickly went to the kitchen stove to roast some sweet potatoes. We will have sweet potatoes for breakfast today."
Xu Manqiu has never gone back since she came to the commune. She takes care of Jiang Youtao and the others' food and daily life like a little maid. She still refuses to stop doing so even though Jiang Youtao and Gu Nianwei are not happy about it. If they say it a few more times, the little girl will be in tears, like a little puppy that is about to be abandoned.
Jiang Youtao and Gu Nianwei saw this and just let her go. If she felt more at ease here, they would also feel relieved. The educated youth camp was not very safe after all, there were many old bachelors there, and they were afraid that one day they would hear the news that Xu Manqiu was forced to marry an old bachelor.
Then they would be heartbroken.
There is a public toilet at the end of Xingfu Lane. They go there to use the toilet. It is not far away, but a little inconvenient, especially on winter nights, when they really don't want to go out.
So every household prepared several urine buckets at home, but Jiang Youtao and Gu Nianwei never emptied their urine buckets. Xu Manqiu would get up and empty them before dawn. They tried to resist, but they didn't get up as early as Xu Manqiu, so they had no choice but to give up.
It was the guilt of exploiting child labor that made them feel so uncomfortable, and they could only compensate her in other ways.
Jiang Youtao folded the quilt and got off the kang. She was exposed to the cold air in the room and shivered, getting goose bumps all over her body.
Jiang Youtao went to the washbasin rack next to the low cabinet to pour water to wash her hands. Gu Nianwei ran outside in a hurry, with her hair still loose and untied.
When she rushed out, she saw a man wearing a military coat and carrying a luggage bag. She looked back and they exchanged glances. The soldier nodded at her and then strode away. He was quite handsome, with an upright posture and a cool and handsome appearance. With a glance back and a nod, Lin Jianzhong, who was also wearing a military uniform but did not exude the spirit of a military uniform, was compared to the dirt.
Seeing him enter Gu's house, Gu Nianwei knew who it was after a brief thought. When she came back from the toilet, there was no one in Xingfu Lane. There were only a few messy footprints left on the snow, which were quickly covered by the new snow.
The cold wind blew, and Gu Nianwei wrapped her clothes tightly. She wore a thin down jacket and down pants under her clothes, but the strong wind still couldn't withstand the severe cold. The winter at this time was much colder than the winter in later generations.
She went to the kitchen to wash her hands, then ran into Jiang Youtao's room: "Guess who I met at the door?"
Jiang Youtao took a bite of the sweet potato and grimaced because it was hot, but she couldn't bear to spit it out. This sweet potato was given by Xu Dazui's family. The sweet potato that was frozen by frost was particularly sweet, especially when it was baked, it was oozing syrup.
After finally swallowing the sweet potato, Jiang Youtao asked, "Who did you meet?"
Could it be that Gong Xubo is brave enough to come to Gu's house to look for Lin Manrou?
Being a teacher is not easy. Jiang Youtao and Gu Nianwei have to prepare lessons until very late every day. When they open their eyes during the day, all they think about is how to improve students' grades. But they can't go too far, otherwise their brain cells will die.
The only pleasure for the two of them was to watch the subtle exchanges between Lin Manrou and Gong Xubo.
In less than a month, the two of them were already secretly getting along very well.
Gu Nianwei walked in and peeled the sweet potato that belonged to her: "Lin Manrou's man, the son of the Gu family next door."
Jiang Youtao uttered a loud noise and almost bit her tongue: "What, he's back? Didn't Teacher Lin say he wouldn't be back until the end of the year?"
Jiang Youtao didn't even eat the sweet potatoes. She put on her cotton jacket and scarf and said, "Hurry up, let's go to Auntie's house for a while."
There was only a wall between Mrs. Zhang's room and Lin Manrou's room, which was the best place to eavesdrop. Jiang Youtao was so curious about what Gu Hanshen wanted to do by coming back early.
Gu Nianwei knew that Jiang Youtao was curious, so she immediately went back to the house to put on her cotton monkey. When she came out, Jiang Youtao and Xu Manqiu were already waiting for her in the yard. Jiang Youtao was holding half of the sweet potato that she had not finished eating in her hand.
Jiang Youtao trampled the snow in the yard into circles of footprints. Xu Manqiu also played with her. Both of them were dressed so heavily that they looked like balls, which was very funny to watch.
The three of them chatted and laughed as they went to Old Lady Zhang's house. Xu Manqiu was with them every day, and they didn't hide their gossip from her. To be honest, she was also very curious about Lin Manrou's family.
Today is the weekend, and Wang Lichuan originally wanted to sleep in, but he saw two of his teachers walking in while eating sweet potatoes.
His face was suddenly filled with a mask of pain. Ever since his family became familiar with the two teachers, whenever there was class, the teachers would always call on him to answer questions, and he couldn't stand it anymore.
Jiang Youtao saw him and asked casually, "Wang Lichuan, have you finished your homework?"
"Teacher Jiang, not yet." Wang Lichuan answered obediently, not daring to fool around at all.
In the Wang family, his grandmother has the final say. His grandmother told him to study hard and be better than Zhang Liming next door, so he had to work hard, otherwise his life would be difficult in the future.
Jiang Youtao nodded: "Do your homework well and don't be lazy."
As Jiang Youtao spoke, she took people to Old Lady Zhang's room. Old Lady Zhang was leaning against the kang, slightly against the wall, listening to the noise next door.
Seeing the three of them, her eyes lit up and she took the initiative to move to the side: "Come on, come on, Gu Hanshen is back. Now we have something interesting to watch."
The three of them took off their shoes and got on the kang, huddled together against the wall with their ears perked up.
In order to make it easier to eavesdrop, Jiang Youtao bought a wireless speaker, which she had unknowingly attached to the corner of the wall on Gu's side.
She doesn't know the specific principles, but the system's black technology is still quite powerful.
·····
Gu Hanshen finally reconciled with his parents and sister. He carried his luggage bag and returned to his and Lin Manrou's wedding room.
Lin Manrou was still sleeping on the kang wrapped in a quilt. She was wearing a strange-looking skirt that looked like a scented bag, with her two feet exposed.
There were two big red wedding characters on the window next to the kang, and everything in the room was new. This was the new house that the Gu family had arranged for Gu Hanshen.
Gu Hanshen pulled a stool and sat beside the kang.
At the beginning of last month, he received a letter from Lin Manrou, which was written with tenderness in her heart and full of sweetness between the lines. He was shocked when he first read it, and was delighted when he read it again.
He is 25 years old this year. He joined the army at the age of 16, and it has been nine years now. During these ten years, he watched his comrades around him get married and have children one by one. Of course, it is impossible not to be envious.
More than two months ago, when he came back to visit his family, his mother arranged a blind date for him. Lin Manrou was his blind date. Before the blind date ended, she took the initiative to ask him if he was satisfied.
As a man, how could he not be satisfied? My wife has a pretty face and speaks softly. She is a high school student and a teacher in the countryside. She is an educated person.
It took a total of one week from the blind date to the marriage. When he was full of expectations for his future life, on the wedding night, he was kicked off the kang by Lin Manrou. He still remembers his shock vividly.
Later she cried and said that he had hurt her, that he was too rude, and that he did not know how to be gentle with women.
The humiliation in his heart is still fresh in his mind, and even though she cried bitterly afterwards, he still can't get over it.
He returned to the army overnight and spent a month to enlighten himself. He was undoubtedly happy to receive the letter from her. Who wants to divorce if he can live a good life with his wife?
But ever since he received the letter, he would dream whenever he lay down. He could no longer tell whether it was a dream or reality, but the little things in his dreams that happened in the army and in society all happened just as they did in the dream.
Including the letter in the dream that represented his wife's transformation.
This forced him to accept the fact that he was dead. He died at the age of 44 because he accidentally discovered his wife's shameful past and died distracted on the battlefield. This way of dying was really frustrating!
Gu Hanshen thought of many ways of dying: dying on the battlefield, dying during training, or dying in his sleep. But no matter which one he thought of, the option of dying in suffocation did not exist.
Whenever Gu Hanshen thought of this incident, he felt uncomfortable all over.
Gu Hanshen looked at Lin Manrou's sleeping face and slowly closed his eyes. No one can accept that they have a cheating relationship, including Gu Hanshen. Although as Lin Manrou said, that was her past life, she has done nothing wrong in this life.
But is this really the case? Some of Lin Manrou's habits from her previous life have been engraved into her bones. She is extravagant and enjoys pleasure. Her stalls are expanding and she has more and more money. Because of this, there are inspections every year to check on her.
He didn't care about these, this was a necessary procedure in the army, what made him uncomfortable was Lin Manrou's various behaviors in bed. There were so many tricks that he had never heard of some of them.
He had wondered before and asked her about it, but she said that it was the sisters-in-law in the courtyard who talked about it. Old women really don't know how to talk, so Gu Hanshen believed it. What can he do if he doesn't believe it? Is he going to suspect that his wife has an affair with another man?
No normal person would have such doubts.
But all this was explained when he saw the diary.
She was really experienced, so experienced that it made his scalp tingle. All the sweet memories he had in the past had become like shit mixed in with the sugar, leaving him with a lump in his throat.
After reading the letter over and over again and asking his retired comrades to secretly investigate for a period of time, he finally confirmed that the red-light district hostess with astonishing experience had been reborn.
He would not accompany Lin Manrou in the kind of drama that she wanted to play out, with a loving couple and full of affection.
Lin Manrou felt someone was watching her while she was sleeping. When she opened her eyes, she found Gu Hanshen sitting in front of the kang.
She was a little hesitant to recognize him. Gu Hanshen was too young now, and he looked a little different from the elegant man in her memory. She felt a little strange about him.
But she quickly pretended to be surprised and jumped up from the kang: "Han Shen, Han Shen, you are back?"
She threw herself into his arms and sat astride his legs.
Gu Hanshen had good habits, never smoked or drank, and always had a faint scent of soap on him. In her previous life, Lin Manrou thought he was not interesting at all, unlike Gong Xubo, who always had a faint scent on him.
But after experiencing so many men, she had smelled all kinds of perfumes, cigarettes and alcohol, and she still felt that Gu Hanshen smelled the best.
Leaning in his arms, she felt an indescribable sense of security. Lin Manrou closed her eyes and felt extremely happy.
A familiar restlessness rose from her lower abdomen to her chest, and her heart trembled.
Lin Manrou knew that she was aroused. In her previous life, she had undergone a lot of training in order to better serve men. After her rebirth, her easily aroused physique also came with her.
Several times when she met Gong Xubo in private, she almost couldn't control herself.
But now the man in front of her is her legal husband, and Lin Manrou no longer wants to suppress her body's instincts.
She softened her tone: "Han Shen, you are really back, I thought I was dreaming~~"
The voice was so gentle that Jiang Youtao, who was eavesdropping, felt her heart tremble.
Gu Nianwei and the others didn't have the blessing of the golden finger, so they couldn't hear anything and had already been eating sweet potatoes and chatting.
Lin Manrou's trick always works. Whenever the men she had met before saw her look like this, they would turn into wolves.
Lin Manrou was ready for the coming storm, but she didn't expect that Gu Hanshen would grab her neck and throw her onto the kang: "Elk, the drama of the prodigal son returning home, the drama of the female prostitute becoming a good woman, is it fun?"