Chapter 12

After dinner, Lu Yu put away the bowls and chopsticks in the kitchen, washed them clean, and then heated a pot of hot water for Jiang Nian to use for bathing.

Jiang Nian stayed quietly in the room, sitting at the end of the bed, stretching his neck to secretly look outside, with a piece of milk candy in her mouth, tasting sweet.

These candies are not rare in the new century, but in this era, being able to eat a piece of milk candy is a very satisfying thing.

Seeing Lu Yu carrying a water bucket over, Jiang Nian quickly moved to the head of the bed, her hands placed rigidly on her lap, head lowered, gaze on the ground. She saw a tall and straight shadow enter the room first.

Immediately afterwards, Lu Yu came in carrying a bucket of water, and the sound of splashing water rang out in the room.

Lu Yu poured two buckets of water into the large basin, still not daring to lift his head to look at his sister-in-law sitting by the bed. He walked to the door before speaking to Jiang Nian, “I’ll move to the dormitory in a couple of days. I’ll come back every day to eat.”

He paused for a moment, his voice somewhat unnatural, “I’ll also pour out the water before leaving.”

Listening to the footsteps growing distant outside, Jiang Nian relaxed her sitting posture.

She didn’t feel much about whether Lu Yu would move out or not. Even if he stayed, he wasn’t home during the day, only coming back to eat. They only lived under the same roof at night.

After running around outside all day, feeling sticky all over, she felt refreshed after her bath.

Putting on a vest, she thought of calling Lu Yu in to pour out the water.

Suddenly, she remembered how he had told her to put on her clothes yesterday. So she put on another short-sleeved shirt on top of the vest. She went outside and called out to Lu Yu, “I’m done with my bath.”

Lu Yu came out of the house, wearing a white double-breasted coat, with water dripping from his hair. He walked past Jiang Nian and she caught a faint scent of soap on him.

He must have just showered.

But it was definitely with cold water.

A faint soapy scent lingered in the room, permeating the air.

Lu Yu held his breath and poured the water basin in the yard. “It’s getting late. Go to sleep.”

After saying that, he placed the basin in the second room to the east and went straight back to his own room.

Watching Lu Yu disappear from the doorway, Jiang Nian felt a bit unsettled.

She returned to her room and lay on the bed. She had slept too much during the day and now couldn’t sleep at night, tossing and turning for more than two hours before slowly falling asleep.

In her dream, she found herself back home, with her father preparing a feast. Her grandparents and mother asked her where she had been. Later, she returned to her room, picked up the novel she had been reading before, and tried to continue from where she had left off.

The page she had folded happened to be the scene where the male and female lead were preparing to get married.

But what surprised Jiang Nian was that starting from where she had folded the page, every page afterwards was blank.

Blank?!

Wide-eyed, Jiang Nian flipped to the last page—it was all blank too!

She anxiously flipped backward, finding the previous plot intact, but stuck at the point just before the male and female lead were preparing to get married, with all subsequent content vanished!

Jiang Nian was sweating with anxiety, rubbing her fingers on the paper as if trying to coax the words out, but even after rubbing her fingers raw, nothing changed.

The bugle call from the barracks shattered the quiet morning.

She thought she heard Lu Yu’s voice, deep and magnetic, with urgency in his tone.

“Sister-in-law.”

“Wake up, don’t sleep anymore.”

Frowning, Lu Yu watched Jiang Nian sobbing on the bed, her hands clenched tightly, tears soaking the pillow.

He called out to her for a while, but she still didn’t wake up.

Grabbing her wrist, he was about to take her to the hospital when her eyelashes fluttered, and she slowly opened her eyes, her wet and helpless gaze unexpectedly meeting Lu Yu’s.

The man’s breath hitched for a moment. He let go of Jiang Nian’s wrist, furrowing his brows as he asked, “What’s wrong?”

Jiang Nian’s mind was slow to react. Looking at Lu Yu before her, she realized belatedly that she was still in this book, never having returned home at all. Everything that had just happened was merely a dream.

Waking up, she was back here again.

Moments ago, she had been talking with her parents and grandparents over a meal, then returned to her room, where she had slept for more than twenty years. The familiar feeling had yet to fully envelop her senses when suddenly she was pulled back to this era, living once again as another Jiang Nian.

Sniffling, Jiang Nian’s voice trembled as she said, “I-I miss your elder brother.”

She lowered her eyelashes, sitting up and hugging her knees. “I dreamed of your elder brother and father. They asked me to take care of you well, to make you listen to me, and to worry more about your marriage, hoping you would marry soon.”

Lu Yu…

He secretly sighed in relief. When his tension had eased a bit, he noticed Jiang Nian was only wearing  a small vest and shorts. Bending over with her back slightly exposed. Her waist was so slender that he could fit it in one hand. Her little feet were together, and her skin was snow-white.

The intermittent sobbing continued in the room.

Lu Yu’s ears turned red. He swiftly turned around and walked out of the house. Taking in a breath of the morning air, he said to Jiang Nian who was inside the house, “Since you’re fine, I’ll go to the team first. Breakfast is ready and warming in the pot. I’ll be in the fields at noon and won’t be back for lunch.”

With that, he hurried away.

Jiang Nian was stunned for a moment, staring blankly at the disappearing figure outside the window.

“…!”

After mulling it over for a while, she decided that in a few days, she would go to the hospital and find an excuse to bring him and the female lead together.

Why did he run off like that?

Jiang Nian got up to wash and freshen up. After breakfast, she swept the courtyard, her mind still full of thoughts regarding the dream from last night.

The plot was stuck on the day where the male and female lead were preparing to get married, and the rest of the plot is blank.

She tapped her head in frustration, regretting why she hadn’t finished the book the night before she transmigrated. If only she had stayed awake and persisted in reading, perhaps none of this “entering the book” nonsense would have happened.

After cleaning the yard, she went through each room again.

Approaching noon, Jiang Nian entered the kitchen. Lunch was potato stew with pork, garlic-flavored eggplant, and seven corn pancakes sprinkled with salt and green onions on them. All the dishes smelled delicious.

Jiang Nian placed the food in a basket, covered it with a cloth, and headed towards the field.

Today was hotter than yesterday. Jiang Nian raised her hand to shield her eyes from the glaring sunlight, walking to the field where Lu Yu, who was only wearing a vest and plowing the soil with a hoe. Half of the land had been plowed.

She called out to him from under the shade of a tree, “Come over and eat.”

Jiang Nian put the basket on the ground, opened the thermos lid, and watched Lu Yu stride over. “Wash your hands first.”

“Mm.”

Lu Yu bent his back and washed his hands with water from the thermos. After washing his hands, he washed his face. He turned his back to Jiang Nian, lifted up his clothes and wiped the water off his face.

Jiang Nian…

She had wanted to steal a glance at his abs.

Under the shade of the tree, Jiang Nian and Lu Yu squatted on the ground.

Jiang Nian spread out the cloth, setting out the potato stew with pork and garlic-flavored eggplant. She then lifted the cloth covering the basket, letting the scent of green onions and corn mix together.

Lu Yu’s hunger intensified.

Jiang Nian had brought seven corn pancakes, afraid that bringing fewer wouldn’t be enough for Lu Yu.

Each pancake was as big as a small bowl. Jiang Nian was full after eating two pancakes. She thought Lu Yu might eat four pancakes at most. Unexpectedly, he finished all five remaining pancakes and even ate up all the vegetable dishes.

Jiang Nian was secretly amazed.

Unexpectedly, Lu Yu had a surprisingly huge appetite.

Putting the plates away into the basket, Lu Yu poured water from the thermos into the lid and handed it to Jiang Nian. She gently shook her head, “I’ll drink warm water when I get back. The well water is too cold.”

Lu Yu didn’t say anything. He drank two lidfuls of water in a row and handed the thermos back to Jiang Nian. “You can go back now. I’ll finish up the rest of the field today, and I’ll plow it over again tomorrow. After a couple of days, we can start planting the vegetables.”

Jiang Nian lifted the basket with her left hand and the thermos with her right, nodding quietly. “Okay.”

Facing the sun which was originally glaring, Lu Yu’s tall figure stood opposite of her, perfectly blocking the sunlight for her. As he turned to go back to the field, the sunlight suddenly pierced into Jiang Nian’s eyes, making her blink uncomfortably.

After dinner that evening, Lu Yu carried a water bucket to fill the water into the kitchen jar.

Jiang Nian sat by the stove, boiling the water. Leaning against the earthen wall, she held a dry twig in her hand, watching the fire in the stove and listening to the gurgling sound of water disappearing into the darkness of the night. Then, she softly asked, “Will you take a day off tomorrow morning to take me to the hospital?”

Lu Yu’s hand, holding the water bucket, stiffened momentarily. He lowered his eyes to look at Jiang Nian and hesitated for a moment. “I’ll go find Sister Feng later. I’ll ask her to accompany you to the hospital tomorrow.”

Jiang Nian: ??

If he didn’t go, what was the point of her going to the hospital?

Jiang Nian looked up at him. The flickering firelight illuminated the pleading look in her eyes, as she nervously scratched the twig against the earthen wall, imitating the original Jiang Nian’s awkwardness and timidity around Lu Yu.

“Could you accompany me?”

Her voice was soft and low, filled with embarrassment and self-deprecation, afraid of being rejected.

She played the role perfectly.

This was the first time Lu Yu had seen a plea in Jiang Nian’s eyes.

She had never asked him for anything before, always sitting silently in the corner whenever she saw him.

He lowered his gaze, and his deep voice became slightly more hoarse.

“I’ll take the morning off tomorrow to accompany you.”

“Mm.”

Jiang Nian lowered her head, fingers squeezing the dry twig, suppressing the urge to smile.

When Lu Yu turned away, she covered her mouth to stifle a laugh.

As long as she could get the male lead to the hospital and meet the female lead, it would be a great success. Perhaps then, she could retire gracefully.

Thinking of this, Jiang Nian touched her forehead. It didn’t hurt anymore.

Jiang Nian took a bath and went to bed early.

Perhaps because the male and female leads were about to meet tomorrow, she slept extremely well tonight.

She slept dreamlessly until dawn. As soon as the trumpet sounded, Jiang Nian got up.

After she finished washing up and preparing breakfast, Lu Yu returned from the team. He went to the well to fetch water, washed his hands clean, and sat at the table to eat. Today’s breakfast was simple—just one dish and soup, with a few corn pancakes.

After breakfast, Jiang Nian went to change clothes, while Lu Yu took the dishes and utensils to the stove to wash them.

The two of them went to the hospital. The morning sun wasn’t too harsh yet.

At the hospital gate, there weren’t many people coming and going. Lu Yu led Jiang Nian to the second floor to find the doctor they had seen last time. Jiang Nian followed behind Lu Yu, her eyes wandering around, hoping to catch a glimpse of the female lead.

The author had spent considerable effort describing the female lead’s appearance. Her name was Sun Ying. She is fair-skinned, with a small red mole below her right eye, commonly known as a beauty mark, making her smile look charming and attractive.

Such distinctive features made her easily recognizable.

Entering the doctor’s office, they didn’t find the female lead. Jiang Nian anxiously sat on the long wooden bench, staring at the ground, tugging at the hem of her clothes to hide her inner anxiety. Seeing Jiang Nian continuously tugging at her clothes, Lu Yu thought she was nervous because of the crowd. He comforted her in a low voice, “We’ll go back after the doctor finishes with the check up.”

Jiang Nian nodded softly.

She couldn’t help sighing in her heart: Sun Ying, Sun Ying, Sun Ying, please come out quickly!

And as if on cue, the doctor checked Jiang Nian’s forehead and confirmed that there were no problems. He said to Lu Yu, “I’ll prescribe a cream for her to apply at home.”

Then, he called out to the nurse who had just arrived that day, “Come take this prescription to the pharmacy and get the medicine.”