Chapter 28: Meeting a Rival on the First Day in the Military Community

“A girl from the countryside? What the heck?!” A woman with a head full of curly hair voiced what everyone was thinking.

All eyes immediately turned sharply toward Bai Qiuning.

Bai Qiuning’s husband, Liao Qing, was the regiment’s political commissar and worked alongside Lu Chen. He was eight years older than Lu Chen and thirty-five years old this year.

Bai Qiuning was ten years younger than her husband and also came from the countryside.

Liao Qing worked at the unit during the day, and Bai Qiuning took care of the household chores. Because of her good temperament and hardworking nature, she kept the home well organized and was especially popular among the military wives.

Bai Qiuning and her husband were a love match.

Liao Qing’s first wife died during childbirth, mother and child both lost. Bai Qiuning and Liao Qing were from the same village and neighbors. They were introduced by their families and ended up together.

Seeing everyone waiting for her to speak, Bai Qiuning smiled and said, “I’m not too sure myself. I heard it from my husband, Old Liao. He said Commander Lu’s wife came from the mountainous area and apparently they had a childhood engagement.”

Once the term “childhood engagement” was mentioned, the military wives had their own thoughts.

“A childhood engagement from the village, it probably won’t be anything good. Commander Lu’s standards are high; he didn’t even fancy the female soldiers from the performing troupe. How could he possibly marry a village childhood fiancée?”

“Hmph, you don’t know. When something like this happens, it usually means the woman’s family pushed for it, showing the engagement as leverage, threatening to cause trouble at the unit if he refused to marry her. Commander Lu is who he is—he agreed just to keep his word.”

“Commander Lu is already twenty-seven; that girl from the childhood engagement must be in her late teens, right? Ah, childhood engagements really ruin people!”

“Commander Lu, a fine catch, got ‘rooted’ by a pig from the countryside! If you ask me, he might as well have just married your little sister-in-law! She’s a doctor and pretty too, and she liked Commander Lu so much… sigh.”

Bai Qiuning smiled and said, “Who says you’re wrong? Ever since they found out about this, she’s been crying at home every day.”

“Poor Liao Hong.”

Xu Nuo hadn’t planned to listen to the gossip, but since it all involved her, she couldn’t help but listen for a while.

Not listening would have been better—what she heard shocked her!

Wow!

Looks like she already had many rivals in the military community!

Not just one!

Tsk, tsk!

Xu Nuo was about to leave when suddenly someone called out to her.

“Hey, the one in the red dress, I’m talking to you.”

Xu Nuo turned around and saw the curly-haired woman who spoke—the woman’s hair was so tightly curled it looked like a bowl of instant noodles placed on her head.

“You talking to me?” Xu Nuo asked, turning back.

“Yeah! I haven’t seen you around here before. Where did you come from?” asked the instant noodle-haired woman.

Xu Nuo nodded, “Yes. Did you call me for something?”

“No, nothing. Just didn’t recognize you, so I was asking.”

“Hey, Old Zheng’s wife, stop asking nonsense. Look at that girl—she clearly came from the city. City folks have high standards, there’s no way she’d care about people like us,” muttered another woman.

The instant noodle-haired woman snorted, “Let her have her standards. What’s wrong with me asking?”

Since she spoke to her, Xu Nuo casually asked, “I want to go to the service center in the compound. Could you tell me which way to go?”

“Go straight out from here, then turn left. Whenever you see a road, turn left. After about five minutes, you’ll get there,” Bai Qiuning answered her question.

Xu Nuo thanked her and was about to leave.

“Hey, young lady, you don’t look very old. Are you at least eighteen?”

Bai Qiuning immediately sized her up and thought she looked pretty good. Her own younger brother, thanks to her husband Liao Qing, was serving in the military and had just been promoted to squad leader last year. She wanted to introduce this girl to her brother.

Xu Nuo smiled slightly, the dimples on both sides of her mouth gently deepening: “No, I just turned eighteen!”

“Oh, so fresh and lively!” Bai Qiuning complimented her with a smile.

“Thank you, Sister-in-law. You all keep busy; I’ll go now!”

After leaving them, Xu Nuo went straight to the service center. First, she got a few pieces of cloth at the counter. Only Lu Chen’s bedroom had curtains; the other windows were bare, and at night you could see right inside. She felt there was no privacy at all.

Some of the cloth could be used as tablecloths—both pretty and dustproof.

The fabrics were colorful and would add a lot of life to the home.

After choosing the cloth, Xu Nuo saw some flower vases for sale at reasonable prices. She liked flowers, so she picked two vases.

After paying for those, she noticed colored glass paper displayed in the window. She selected all the pink and red sheets, paid, and headed out.

Just as she reached the door, a young woman rushed in hurriedly from outside, almost crashing into her.

Xu Nuo instinctively tried to dodge, but carrying so many things slowed her down, and they collided spectacularly.

There was a clear crash and clatter sound; the two vases she held shattered into pieces, glass shards flying everywhere.

Frowning, Xu Nuo was about to speak when the young woman started complaining first, “Can’t you watch where you’re going? Didn’t you see someone coming in? Didn’t you know to dodge?”

After insulting Xu Nuo, the woman crouched down and began picking up things from the floor.

Xu Nuo looked down and saw that the woman had dropped a small box.

In front of Xu Nuo, the woman opened the box to reveal a men’s watch inside.

Unfortunately, the watch’s face had a noticeable crack.

“Ah, it’s broken!” The woman sounded visibly upset. “My watch is broken! It’s all your fault for not watching where you’re going! You pay me for my watch! You pay!”

Xu Nuo was stunned by the woman’s audacity. It was clearly the woman who barged in and collided with her, but the woman was now accusing Xu Nuo and acting like the victim!

“That’s not my fault; you hit me first. I haven’t asked you to compensate me for anything. The things you dropped that weren’t broken don’t need to be compensated for. You only need to pay for my two vases, which isn’t much—just five yuan,” Xu Nuo said calmly.

“Me compensate you? In your dreams!” The woman laughed as if hearing a joke. “Go ask around in this compound who I, Liao Hong, am…”

She stopped mid-sentence, realizing she had seen most of the military families in the compound, but this girl was unfamiliar.

She didn’t know which family she belonged to.

After a pause, she asked, “Who’s your family? How come I haven’t seen you before?”

Liao Hong?

Hearing that name, Xu Nuo almost laughed inwardly.

Damn!

Meeting a rival on her very first day living with the army!

“Liao Hong, huh?” Xu Nuo glanced at her briefly and retorted bluntly, “Why do you want to know whose family I’m from? If my family’s position isn’t as high as your brother’s, does that mean you can bully the smaller with the bigger, the low with the high?”