Chapter 76

After finishing the bowl of leek dumplings, Ye Qingshui’s stomach was full and her heart was warm. She wiped away her tears, her chest brimming with hope.

Just as the couple happily began sorting through the manuscripts, they stumbled upon an unexpected problem: the manuscripts weren’t just dirty, many pages were missing! If one didn’t carefully flip through, it was really hard to notice.

A surge of uncontrollable anger rose in Ye Qingshui’s chest.

The next day, the couple went back to the publishing house to ask for the missing pages, but came back empty-handed.

The staff righteously insisted:

“How could any be missing? If there are, it must be you who lost them yourselves. Comrades, do you have anything else? We are very busy with our work!”

He tugged at his wife’s hand and said, “Forget it, arguing with them is useless.”

They had little voice or influence, and to those people, these manuscripts were worthless, so naturally they wouldn’t treat them carefully.

Back home, Xie Tingyu flipped through what was left of the manuscripts and said:

“Let me see if I can restore them.”

Ye Qingshui was furious and heartbroken, wishing she could drag those people out and teach them a lesson. But Xie Tingyu was already cutting kraft paper, picking up a pen, and after pondering a while, he began to write.

Xie Tingyu had an excellent memory. He had read through Zhou Cunren’s manuscripts before, so restoring them wasn’t too difficult.

Ye Qingshui watched him bent over the desk, writing from noon until the sun set and the birds returned to their nests. He still hadn’t finished. After a hasty dinner, Xie Tingyu went back to work.

Relying on memory to reproduce everything exactly was grueling. He often frowned, hesitating as he wrote. Ye Qingshui dared not disturb his train of thought, but her heart ached with guilt.

It was only at bedtime that Xie Tingyu finally stopped. He saw his wife holding a pot of hot water, hovering anxiously, afraid to interrupt him but unwilling to leave. Her eyes brimmed with remorse.

Meeting her gaze, he asked, “Can you help me with something?”

She looked startled. “I… what can I do?”

He finished the last symbol, put down his pen, and, with a sudden playful tone, said:

“You could come help massage my shoulders.”

Ye Qingshui almost dropped the kettle in her hands.

But she thought, after spending the whole day hunched over writing, his body must really be sore.

She set down the kettle and began massaging his shoulders. Since Grandma had mild arthritis, Ye Qingshui often did massages for her, and her technique wasn’t bad.

Xie Tingyu relaxed completely, leaning back in the chair.

The stiff muscles in his shoulders softened under her touch. The soreness gave way to comfort. After a while, it felt like sparks ran up his spine, a restless heat spreading through his body, as though a hidden fire had been lit.

When Ye Qingshui’s hands moved down toward his waist, Xie Tingyu suddenly sprang up as if burned.

He turned his head away awkwardly. “That’s enough. I feel much better.”

A little smile crept onto Ye Qingshui’s lips.

When Xie Tingyu turned back and saw his little wife smirking, he pressed her down against the desk and bit her lips hard in a kiss.

“What are you laughing at?”

Ye Qingshui touched his right hand, where a deep red groove had been pressed into his skin from gripping the pen all day. She looked at it tenderly and whispered, “You’ve worked so hard.”

“If I had known this would happen, I never would have gone to them.”

Hearing this, Xie Tingyu’s expression softened. He held her head firmly and after a moment said:

“There’s no ‘if.’ It was their fault. Besides… didn’t I fix it? What are you guilty about?”

“Foolish girl,” he said lightly.

Ye Qingshui hugged his waist, her eyes burning, her heart aching. She murmured:

“You’re so awful, always…”

Always making her want to cry.

That day, Xie Tingyu had forced himself to rewrite tens of thousands of words, scattering them back into Zhou Cunren’s manuscript of hundreds of pages. The effort it took to restore them was beyond measure.

If she had to show them to the ailing old master in that state, Ye Qingshui would have burst into tears.

She was deeply moved. Holding Xie Tingyu close, she felt an overwhelming urge to treat him as well as possible, no matter what, as if nothing she did could ever repay him.

Xie Tingyu saw the way his little wife was looking at him—with that burning intensity—and his heart pounded wildly.

Feeling her warmth, he wondered if he was misreading things again?

But remembering the past, he knew he couldn’t risk another misunderstanding.

After a long struggle with himself, his body restless, Xie Tingyu let go of Ye Qingshui and went out into the chilly night. He spent an hour under icy water, calming himself down.

…

After finishing the missing portions of Zhou’s manuscript, Xie Tingyu didn’t stop. He carefully repaired the moldy, blurry, and torn pages too, easing the reviewers’ burden.

When it was done, he joked:

“Revisiting all the high school knowledge again—it feels fulfilling.”

Ye Qingshui didn’t believe his nonsense for a second. In her previous life, Xie Tingyu had scored the highest in the entire province on the college entrance exams, after only briefly glancing at his books. He hardly needed to review high school knowledge now.

She was the one who needed tutoring!

From New Year until now, she had been so busy that she hadn’t had time to study. She resolved that once this matter was settled, she would catch up on her studies.

She wanted to go to university together with Xie Tingyu.

The couple later went into the county and mailed the rest of Zhou Cunren’s manuscripts to the capital.

Watching the post office staff carefully pack them, Ye Qingshui finally felt as if a great weight had lifted from her heart.

She breathed a sigh of relief.

After mailing the manuscripts, she and Xie Tingyu brought two jin of eggs to visit Zhou Cunren at the People’s Hospital.

Even in his hospital bed, Zhou was still writing, faster and faster, as if racing against the last remaining moments of his life.

Ye Qingshui cracked an egg into a bowl, poured in boiling water, and the egg quickly cooked in the heat. This kind of soft-boiled egg made with hot water was called a tangshui egg , tender and delicate to the taste.

The fragrance of the egg soon spread through the ward, making the other patients look on with envy.

“Have one of these every day—it’ll help nourish your body,” Ye Qingshui said.

For a patient to eat one egg a day was an unusual privilege. In these times, food was precious; eggs were practically a lifeline. Normally only expectant mothers in a household could enjoy such treatment. Who would waste it on an old man, frail and ailing at the end of his years?

Smiling, Ye Qingshui shared a piece of good news with Zhou Cunren.

“Teacher Zhou, if all goes smoothly, your book could be published in less than half a year.”

At first, Zhou Cunren’s ears seemed to play tricks on him. The first time she said it, he didn’t respond.

So Ye Qingshui repeated herself, her face beaming: “Your book can be published.”

This time, Zhou Cunren heard clearly. Though aged, his ears were far from dull—if anything, they were sharp. For a moment, emotions surged in his heart, overwhelming him.

All Ye Qingshui saw was the stubborn old man before her, with messy white hair and a scraggly beard, suddenly shedding tears.

“R-Really?”

Xie Tingyu said, “Really. We’ve already sent out the manuscript.”

Zhou Cunren couldn’t even describe the feeling. So this… this was what it meant to endure the darkness before dawn and finally glimpse hope. He had never dared to imagine… never thought his life’s work would be treated with such reverence.

When he began writing it, Zhou Cunren had still been a spirited middle-aged man.

By the time he was halfway through, he had become a despised “stinking intellectual.”

And now, nearing the end, he finally saw hope for his work to see the light of day. If in this lifetime he could no longer return to the lectern, could no longer teach and nurture students, then these books would fulfill his wish in his stead. His writing had not been in vain…

Suppressing his emotions, he wiped away his tears, managed a smile, then tremblingly got out of bed. Facing the two young people, he gave them a deep, solemn bow.

When Ye Qingshui and Xie Tingyu walked out of the hospital shoulder to shoulder, her heart was full of mixed emotions.

She couldn’t help but imagine—what kind of scene would it be when this series of books was finally published?

Not long after this matter was settled, the lively bustle of spring plowing began in the countryside.

Having spent the whole winter eating well and living in comfort, Ye Qingshui had filled out a little; compared with her once thin frame, her appearance was much more pleasing, even the elderly villagers said she looked blessed.

She was bright and graceful now—when she bent over to transplant rice seedlings, the skin revealed was as tender as the tofu sold in the county town.

Her curves were her curves, her figure soft and round like dough rising in the spring wind.

The village men secretly admitted that Xie Tingyu had chosen well. Otherwise, why would he have turned down so many educated women and instead married a plain village girl?

The unmarried young men of the village regretted it so much they practically pounded their chests.

Now that she was eating her fill, Ye Qingshui no longer fainted from hunger, and she worked the fields with ease and energy.

But only a few days into the spring plowing, Xie Tingyu began finishing his own tasks early every day so he could come help with hers.

Ye Qingshui had never expected such treatment. Her cheeks flushed red. “Don’t… don’t do this. You’re making me lose face.”

In the village, only women carrying children in their bellies were doted on like this by their husbands.

Fieldwork was hard; women in early pregnancy risked bleeding from overexertion.

Turning her head, Ye Qingshui saw her younger uncle working himself to exhaustion for his wife, sweat pouring down his face. Then she looked back at herself and thought… what on earth was this situation?

Xie Tingyu glanced at the silly girl before him, then at the covetous looks of others. Secretly, he ground his teeth.

How much better things had been when she was a scrawny little girl, not like now—grown up into someone everyone’s eyes followed.

He said nothing, only quietly took her seedlings, planting them swiftly and steadily with practiced ease. When the work was done, he quickly pulled her away, bringing her home for supper.

For more than ten days of spring plowing, the couple carried on like this, until others truly began to believe Ye Qingshui was “with child.” They envied the pair, saying their relationship was enviably strong.

“Best to marry a man like Comrade Xie—he loves his wife and works hard.”

“Even with such a good family background, he still works without any airs.”

But some women muttered: “That’s only because Shui’ya is young and pretty. Let’s see if he’s the same once she’s an old housewife.”

After gossiping with envy, the married women pulled Ye Qingshui aside to warn her:

“Comrade Xie looks sturdy, full of energy. If he wants it, don’t always give in to him. The one in your belly is what matters.”

“Don’t let a moment’s pleasure harm yourself.”

At lunch, Ye Qingshui couldn’t help glancing at Xie Tingyu. Somehow, her “pregnancy” had become the wildest rumor in the village.

Xie Tingyu also glanced at her—his gaze briefly landing on her chest before quickly shifting away.

He himself didn’t know why, after just one winter, his wife seemed to have suddenly “plumped up.”

With benefits like this, even he was starting to feel overwhelmed.

Support Sansukini on Ko-fi

Thanks for visiting. If you like this story, then I’m shamelessly asking you to visit NovelUpdates and give a 5⭐ review. (人❛ᴗ❛)♪тнайк　чоц♪(❛ᴗ❛*人)

You can also check out my other translations Here