Chapter 19: Outburst

After taking a deep breath, he hoarsely spoke, “That’s enough. You should get up and take a hot bath. I’ve already heated the water.”

Li Yiyi reluctantly climbed out of bed, her voice soft and delicate as she replied, “Alright, I’ll go take a bath. You watch the kids for me.”

What she didn’t know was that her voice made the man beside her feel restless.

By the time she had already left the room, if she turned around, she would have noticed a burning gaze on her back.

Fifteen minutes later, after a hot bath, Li Yiyi felt refreshed, and the exhaustion from before seemed to have vanished entirely.

When she came out of the bathroom, her eyes immediately landed on the man doing push-ups in the yard.

Seeing him still doing this exercise late at night, Li Yiyi couldn’t help but sigh, “Only a soldier would be like this, always training without forgetting.”

“The water’s still warm in the pot, you can go ahead and take a bath. And don’t forget your back injury, don’t let it get wet,” she called out from the doorway.

Before he could reply, she wiped her hair and turned to go back into the room.

At that moment, after sweating from his push-ups, Jiang Hong heard her footsteps fade away and finally stopped. He raised his sharp eyes like a wolf, staring into the room.

He thought doing push-ups would help cool the fire inside him, but instead, it seemed to make the flames burn hotter.

Inside the room, Li Yiyi had finished drying her hair and picked up one of the books she planned to read today.

Whether it was because she’d run around a bit too much today or the reading was just boring, she barely managed to read a few pages before her eyelids grew heavy, and soon enough, she was asleep.

When Jiang Hong finished his bath, he smiled faintly and came to the door. As he gently pushed the door open, the smile on his face froze.

This woman! She had locked him out again.

Jiang Hong’s face turned green with anger. He raised his hand as if to knock but quickly let it drop and turned angrily toward the nearby storage room, where he decided to spend the night once again.

Meanwhile, inside the room, Li Yiyi had already fallen asleep, blissfully unaware that someone was locked out.

After a night of good sleep, Li Yiyi woke up early, read a little, and heard some noises outside before walking out of her room.

She saw Jiang Hong, sweaty from his run.

“Good morning, Comrade Jiang Hong,” she said, unable to resist taking a second glance at his muscular arms.

Jiang Hong shot her a serious look. “Did you sleep well last night?”

Li Yiyi smiled, replying, “Yes, I slept really well. Maybe it’s because of the massage you gave me. I slept through the whole night. It’s been a long time since I slept so well.”

Jiang Hong’s face darkened. “But I didn’t sleep well!”

Li Yiyi interrupted him, concerned, “You couldn’t sleep? Are you okay?”

Jiang Hong’s face grew even darker as he met her gaze. “Do you want to know why I couldn’t sleep? It’s because I slept in the storage room. I spent the whole night swatting mosquitoes. Do you understand now?”

Li Yiyi’s sympathetic expression froze on her face.

Seeing her remain silent, Jiang Hong continued, “Comrade Li Yiyi, I just want to ask—when can I go back to the room and sleep?”

He had come back so eagerly, only to be denied a bed.

Li Yiyi gave a sheepish smile. “Comrade Jiang Hong, actually, I would like you to sleep in the room too, but with two kids in the house, we can’t let them sleep in the storage room. I just can’t bear to do that.”

After hearing this, Jiang Hong raised an eyebrow and immediately thought of a solution. “I can squeeze in with you three.”

After all, he wasn’t going to sleep in the storage room. He wasn’t about to spend his long-awaited return alone.

Li Yiyi hesitated for a moment but finally agreed. “Alright, as long as you don’t mind squeezing, you can sleep in the room.”

She wasn’t worried; after all, there were two kids in the room. She didn’t believe the man would act inappropriately with them there.

With a satisfied smile, Jiang Hong quickly added, “But no locking the door at night.”

Li Yiyi nodded, “Got it, no locking the door.”

After discussing this, Li Yiyi went into the kitchen and found a pot of porridge already cooked on the stove.

Looking at the steaming porridge, she glanced outside and smiled lightly.

She quickly stir-fried some wild vegetables with eggs. It was simple, but the whole family ate with gusto.

After the meal, as the sound of dishwashing filled the kitchen, Li Yiyi quietly sat in the yard, reading her book.

Halfway through a page, a heartbreaking cry suddenly rang out from outside.

Before long, two pairs of eager little eyes looked at her.

“Do you want to go see what’s happening?” she asked the two children.

As soon as the question was out, the two little heads nodded enthusiastically.

Hearing the increasingly loud cries, Li Yiyi decided to put down her book. Holding one child in each hand, she said, “Let’s go see.”

The two kids happily clapped their hands as they followed her out.

Before leaving, Li Yiyi called out to Jiang Hong, who was still washing dishes in the kitchen. “Comrade Jiang Hong, the kids and I are going outside to see what’s going on.”

Not waiting for a reply, she led the children out the door.

Following the sound of the crying, they soon arrived at the village clinic, where a crowd of villagers had already gathered.

Pushing through the crowd with the children, Li Yiyi saw a middle-aged woman kneeling in the center, crying and pleading with the village doctor.

“Doctor, your medical skills are so amazing. You must be able to save my son, right? Please, save him. He hasn’t even married yet. He can’t die!”

Li Yiyi then noticed a man lying beside the woman, trembling and constantly muttering that his whole body hurt.

After taking a closer look, she recognized the man—he was the one she had seen yesterday at the clinic, the one who had been bitten by a dog.

As she observed him, she was certain that this man had rabies. Rabies was always fatal, no matter the time or place.

While she was analyzing this, she suddenly felt someone tap her on the shoulder.

“Third sister-in-law, you’re here too,” came the cheerful voice of Jiang Ersao, standing behind her.

Li Yiyi turned around and smiled. “Ersao.”

“We don’t know what’s wrong with this Him. Yesterday I saw him sneaking around in the fields like nothing was wrong, but now look at him, just one night and he’s like this,” Jiang Ersao said, frowning as she spoke.