Chapter 51

When he got close to her, a warm floral scent wafted from her body.

It was sweet, like the smell of gardenias in summer.

After the kiss, Xie Tingyu froze. He took a deep breath, turned his face away, and after a moment of silence, he asked, “Not going to slap me this time?”

Ye Qingshui felt a burning sensation on her eyelid, like a branding iron—impossible to ignore.

She was overwhelmed with uncontrollable irritation, mixed with disgust, grievance—an entanglement of emotions. She glanced at Xie Tingyu inexplicably, suppressing the urge to curse him out.

She lifted her hand and roughly wiped her eyes, then turned and left.

Ye Qingshui thought angrily: What the hell am I even pitying him for!

Xie Tingyu, this bastard, lived a carefree life without ever worrying about food or clothing—he probably never suffered a day in his life. The moment things got a little unfair, he couldn’t handle it.

She, on the other hand, had never even seen her biological father since birth. Her family had been dirt poor—she was the one who truly deserved pity.

Ye Qingshui bit her lip, eyes glaring furiously.

Just as Xie Tingyu finished speaking and turned his face back, his gaze casually swept across and he slightly curved his lips.

His earlier gloom had already been eased quite a bit. Xie Tingyu bent down and picked up the jade cricket from the floor, gently pinching its two antennae with his thumb.

His lips moved for a moment. All the thousands of words he wanted to say ended up condensed into a single sentence:

“Thank you.”

Thank you… for choosing to fold a cricket for me at a time like this.

Ye Qingshui didn’t respond.

She was thinking: That “thank you” sure came easy.

In this life, she had earned his thanks so effortlessly. In her previous life, Ye Qingshui had racked her brains, folding cricket after cricket, until her hands were swollen, just to comfort him.

She folded one and carefully told him, “Tingyu’s birth gift.”

Then another: “A reward for one-year-old Tingyu who can speak now.”

…

She folded all the way to the twentieth cricket before the indifference in Xie Tingyu’s eyes finally softened just a little.

Looking back now, Ye Qingshui just felt she’d been utterly foolish.

Before bed, she fetched a basin of hot water to soak her feet. While doing so, she saw Xie Tingyu sitting at the desk, playing with the cricket as if it were a rare treasure—playing with it for quite a while.

Ye Qingshui: “……”

—

When the Mid-Autumn Festival came around, the Ye and Du families finally reached an agreement on the marriage.

Granny Ye took out the allowance her youngest son had saved up while stationed away. She added a few dozen more yuan of her own, scraping together a betrothal gift of 300 yuan. Though 300 wasn’t a huge amount, it was still a considerable expense.

In this area, when couples discussed marriage, sometimes the bride’s family didn’t even ask for a bride price. Among equally struggling families, if they liked each other, a bag of millet and a basket of eggs could be enough to seal the deal.

Because of this, Granny Ye felt a bit resentful about this 300-yuan daughter-in-law.

Sometimes, she’d mutter in private, feeling sorry for her granddaughter: “Shuiya’s so good, and she didn’t even get a dowry.”

In Granny Ye’s eyes, her granddaughter was tall and fair, tender and fresh like the crisp little cabbages growing in the fields. She was undoubtedly the prettiest girl for miles around—hardworking and resilient too. If she stayed unmarried for another year, the bride price would be outrageously high.

Hearing this, Ye Qingshui couldn’t help but choke a little.

Her face flushed red as she tugged on her grandmother’s sleeve.

Xie Tingyu calmly said, “When New Year comes, I’ll bring Shuiya home for my parents to see. Once they’ve met her, there’s no way they won’t offer a generous bride price. Granny, would you like to come along?”

Granny Ye had never left the deep mountains her whole life, let alone traveled to the faraway capital.

She asked excitedly, “Is that the capital where you can see \ and Chairman M?”

Xie Tingyu nodded.

Granny Ye was tempted but also hesitant. She even stopped eating, deep in troubled thought.

Ye Qingshui recalled Xie Tingyu’s cold and rigid family, and the strict discipline of the military. She didn’t want her grandmother to go through all that only to be met with indifference and cold shoulders.

Ye Qingshui said, “Granny, the capital is very far. You have to sit on the train for several days, and it’s very cold. Don’t you hate the cold the most?”

Hearing it was far and cold, Granny Ye immediately gave up the idea. She shook her head repeatedly. “Granny… Granny won’t go.”

“My old bones can’t handle all that trouble.”

When Xie Tingyu heard Ye Qingshui’s gentle and tactful refusal, the smile on his face froze.

…

The Ye family’s house had been under construction for over three months.

But winter had already arrived in Ye Village. Snow had started falling on the highest peaks. The persimmons on the trees were dusted with thick snow and had frozen, no longer edible.

Experienced farmers had intentionally left them there as winter food for the birds.

At the beginning of winter, Ye Qingshui had already picked the fresh persimmons, turning them into sweet persimmon jam. The rest were dried into persimmon cakes, strung one by one on straw ropes and hung in rows on bamboo poles to air-dry, glowing a bright red.

As winter came, Ye Qingshui’s quilt became thicker, and she started using a fire brazier in the house.

Xie Tingyu often teased her, “You’re wearing so many layers, you’re round like a ball.”

Ye Qingshui ignored him and cupped her hands together, breathing warm air into them.

She wasn’t as strong as he was. Even in winter, Xie Tingyu still slept on a makeshift bed on the ground, not even using a proper little bed. Despite the heavy chill coming from the floor, he could bear it.

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