Chapter 15

When Sister Yang turned around and saw Lin Xixi staring straight ahead, she turned her head and found her gaze fixed on Yan Lei and Qiao Wei.

Sister Yang slowed down, waited for Lin Xixi to approach, and nudged her arm. “What are you looking at?”

Lin Xixi suddenly came to her senses and covered up. “Nothing.”

Sister Yang became even more suspicious that her niece had taken a liking to a married man.

Indeed, Captain Yan was a handsome young man. Anyone who encountered him would give him an extra look.

However, there couldn’t be such misconduct in the military, which could ruin the reputation of the girl and even implicate her uncle. Sister Yang deliberately said, “Look at the couple; the love between Yan and his wife has always been so good. It’s just that they have only one child. They should have three or four children to be enough.”

As she spoke, she glanced sideways at Lin Xixi. But Lin Xixi’s expression was strange, and Sister Yang couldn’t tell what it meant.

In fact, Lin Xixi’s attraction to Yan Lei wasn’t because he was handsome. Lin Xixi died when she was already a worldly and weathered woman, far from being a young and romantic girl. In her heart, a man’s face was just a passing cloud.

Back then, she married a young man because of his face, stubbornly clinging to him even when she was pregnant before marriage.

After a brief glory when she returned to the city with her young husband, she faced an endless series of hardships. The urban mother-in-law looked down on her, and her husband was embarrassed by her. Other young couples who returned to the city for marriage were all marrying city girls, but he had to marry her, a country girl. Returning to the city, he straightened up, bossing her around and giving orders.

A village flower transplanted into the city was polished to be frosty and dusty.

And the man, still in middle age, was laid off, poor enough that she had to lower her head and borrow money from her in-laws next door.

Just living a humiliated life.

The middle-aged woman, full of hardships and sorrows, returned to her youth and knew that a man’s face was of no use. Yan Lei being handsome was an unexpected delight; it was his promising future that she truly valued.

Lin Xixi wanted to defy fate this time. She wanted to choose the right person.

Lin Xixi asked Sister Yang in a low voice, “Aunt, have Captain Yan and his wife always been so good?”

Sister Yang hesitated.

Actually, Sister Yang was a bit puzzled. Captain Yan’s couple has always had a bad relationship, known to everyone in the neighborhood. Indeed, looking at it now, why does it suddenly seem like their relationship has improved?

But this is someone else’s business; gossiping a bit when there’s nothing to do is harmless. However, the premise is that one’s own family should not have any embarrassing things for others to gossip about.

She insisted, “They’ve always been good! Look at them; one is a cadre, and the other is an intellectual. Such a match is bound to be good.”

Lin Xixi pursed her lips, and her eyes revealed an emotion that couldn’t be expressed.

Sister Yang saw it, and her brows furrowed slightly.

Arriving at the large courtyard, there were men wearing sleeveless undershirts and slippers carrying basins and women with children heading to the bathhouse. They were all going to take a bath.

Usually, factories would have bathhouses for workers and their families, and they would be free. But the town’s economy wasn’t good, with no factories. There were two factories in the county.

So, in a small town, families that appeared to be in better spirits and had better hygiene conditions were probably those with family members working in the county. For those without such conditions, they could only wash at home by burning water and wouldn’t do so as frequently.

In addition, the family members of the military are all spirited and neat, and their clothes are mostly decent. The family of Yan Lei, Qiao Wei, and their daughter Yan Xiang is a typical military officer’s family.

The man looks sharp, the woman is beautiful, and they are dressed in neat clothes; even the child’s clothes and shoes look almost new.

At the entrance of the bathhouse, Yan Lei was about to hand the clothes for Yan Xiang to Qiao Wei when Qiao Wei pushed Yan Xiang from behind, saying, “Go with daddy.”

If Yan Lei refused or was questioned, Qiao Wei had already prepared a set of arguments, telling him that children need to be nurtured with gender awareness from a young age. Boys shouldn’t go into the women’s bathhouse.

However, to her surprise, Yan Lei didn’t say anything. He just handed over the bath tickets and led Yan Xiang into the men’s bathhouse.

This left Qiao Wei with the feeling of having the power but nowhere to use it.

She stood in place, watching the father and son go in.

Originally, Captain Zhao’s family was led by Sister Yang. When Junzi saw that Yan Xiang had gone to the men’s bathhouse, he broke free from his mother’s hand, saying, “I’ll go there too.”

Sister Yang didn’t stop him; she just gave him his clothes and let her husband take him inside. Captain Zhao handed Wu Nier, who was sitting on his neck, to his wife and took his three sons inside.

The women went in together.

In the bathhouse, there weren’t many boys, and those there were quite young, generally acceptable in age. There are almost no older boys.

While undressing, Qiao Wei gradually understood. In this era, families had five or six children, not like in the future, where they would only have one. Children raised in a more relaxed way were much more self-reliant. Even boys around seven or eight years old in this era were comparable to the white-haired old men doing dozens of pull-ups on the parallel bars in Qiao Wei’s future.

Qiao Wei had initially assumed a sense of temporal superiority. In this bathhouse setting, she thought something would happen as she imagined, and she was even prepared to enlighten these old folks with her future perspective. However, it turned out that things remained the same, and she couldn’t help but laugh when she thought about Yan Lei being a park enthusiast in her time.

Of course, considering Yan Lei’s later status, he was more likely to be a vigorous old man in a high-end nursing home, contemplating the chessboard with a security guard and a dedicated nurse behind him.

But Qiao Wei couldn’t help but imagine Yan Lei as the elderly man doing morning exercises in the park. The thought made her burst into laughter.

Sister Yang undressed, turned to look at her, and wondered, “Why are you laughing? What’s so funny?”

“Oh, I just suddenly thought of a joke,” Qiao Wei said.

Sister Yang insisted on hearing it. With so many jokes in the future, Qiao Wei picked a safe one without temporal or political context and made Sister Yang burst into laughter.

In the large bathhouse, everyone quickly undressed. Sister Yang bent down to help Wu Nier undress, revealing Lin Xixi next to her.

Closing the cabinet door, Lin Xixi looked Qiao Wei up and down, then suddenly exclaimed, pretending to be surprised, “Aunt Qiao, what’s on your belly?”

Qiao Wei, having gone through the ordeals of her body in the hospital, had no shame about her body. She lowered her head to take a look.

This body she inherited was healthier than her original sick body, but according to the standards of the future, it could only be considered slim and slender, not very athletic. Qiao Wei, who had been tortured to be as thin as a rail, longed for a strong and athletic body.

She touched her abdomen, which was flat but not firm. “This?” After careful inspection, she confidently said, “These are… stretch marks.”

Lin Xixi covered her mouth, pretending to be amazed. “It’s scary; I thought you had some skin disease. Isn’t your husband disgusted?”

Lin Xixi certainly knew what stretch marks were. She had given birth to three children: stretch marks, mastitis, sagging, urinary incontinence, back pain, heel pain—she experienced them all.

She did it on purpose.

Reborn with the goal of “marrying the later high-ranking official Yan Lei,” she never expected that Yan Lei’s ex-wife, who was supposed to be dead, was still alive.

How could she achieve her goal of a wealthy life?

Lin Xixi hated it so much that she gritted her teeth.

Wanting to catch Qiao Wei’s “elopement” evidence and having no evidence, when her mood was already bad, seeing Qiao Wei’s body and then looking at her own, she suddenly built confidence—

I’m young, I’m pretty, and I’m a beautiful young lady!

I still have the perspective of the 1980s and 1990s, which people from this era can’t compare with.

Suddenly she straightened her chest and first launched an attack on Qiao Wei—body shaming.

If she attacked the original Qiao Wei, it might have worked. The original Qiao Wei was somewhat melancholic and self-pitying.

But Qiao Wei didn’t care at all.

Qiao Wei didn’t even feel ashamed to be naked in front of the opposite sex, let alone care about a few stretch marks.

But she keenly felt the malice from Lin Xixi—body shaming from one woman to another and age-shaming implied by stretch marks.

She smiled slightly. “Don’t worry, you’ll have them too. Well… probably a lot.”

Just the plain truth.

In this era, remaining unmarried and childless was not popular, and Lin Xixi, holding a heart eager to marry Yan Lei, believed that being a second wife in a remarried family and giving birth to more children would firmly bind him to her.

Stories about stepmothers often revolved around the protagonists having many children.

Especially after calculating the ages of Yan Xiang and Yan Lei, Qiao Wei realized that although Lin Xixi died in middle age, if she had lived until Qiao Wei’s time, she would be an old lady in her eighties.

So, although Qiao Wei saw a young girl with a youthful and beautiful face in front of her, through Lin Xixi’s appearance, she perceived mental aging and staleness.

Sister Yang happened to stand up straight at this moment, massaging her lower back, asking, “What are you two talking about?”

Lin Xixi immediately raised her voice to complain, “Aunt, Aunt Qiao says I’ll have those marks on my belly. Aunt, isn’t it ugly? I’m not even eighteen yet; why would Aunt Qiao say that about a young girl like me?”

Now she was starting to act all cute, calling her “Aunt Qiao” repeatedly.

She was trying to preemptively tarnish Qiao Wei’s image in front of others.

In her understanding, if everyone around a person said bad things about her, it would definitely have a negative impact on her and the people around her.

Qiao Wei, however, casually responded, “Everyone will have them. Look at everyone here; who doesn’t have stretch marks on their bellies?”

The women who came to bathe were all military dependents. Among military families, military wives refer to the wives of military personnel.

In this era, married women almost always had children. Two or three were considered normal, and four or five weren’t considered too many. Who didn’t have a belly full of stretch marks—those brownish streaks where the skin had ruptured?

There were also sagging breasts.

The bathhouse had constant background noise, and people initially didn’t pay attention to what they were saying. However, when Lin Xixi and Qiao Wei raised their voices, the people around them also looked over.

Qiao Wei continued, “I know you’re a young girl, but don’t look down on us married women just because we have given birth. What’s wrong with stretch marks? Who gave birth to children without their stomachs getting stretched? We endure pregnancy for ten months, our bellies stretched out, and their men don’t share the burden with us. Why should they despise the stretch marks on our stomachs? Besides, what’s the point of married men despising their wives? Do they want to be with young girls like you?”

Lin Xixi was the village beauty—young and beautiful.

Moreover, she was the female lead. Protagonists had their own auras.

Lin Xixi, a rural girl, had the “doesn’t get tanned” buff bestowed by her worldview, making her entire body fair. Next to her, Sister Yang looked like a piece of charcoal by comparison.

And Lin Xixi did real physical labor in the countryside, her strenuous work giving her a balanced and firm body. She was very athletic.

No wonder she felt superior upon seeing Qiao Wei’s stretch marks.

With many families having multiple children, many of the women here were rural women as well.

Now that they were well-off, with their men still young and strong, they were at a restless age. They had to guard against these young girls.

After Qiao Wei said this, several sharp glances immediately swept towards Lin Xixi.

Lin Xixi: Attack!

Qiao Wei: Counterattack!