Chapter 11

Gu Juncheng was stunned. What was going on?  

“Why are you crying? Does it hurt a lot?”  

Could it be that she had drunk too much and was having a headache? Or maybe her stomach was upset?  

Lin Qingping looked at him with reddened eyes, her eyes brimming with tears. She had been drinking, and her brows and the area around her eyes were all tinged with a soft pink. Like peach blossoms in the rain… And then came a soft murmur,  

“You’re scolding me again…”  

Gu Juncheng: “…”

“When did I scold you…”  

“You did!”  

“I just… my voice was a little loud, I—”  

Before Gu Juncheng could finish explaining, Lin Qingping stopped listening again.

Her eyes still red, she swayed as she walked toward the bath basin. Gu Juncheng rushed to support her, but before he could even touch her, she began undressing.  

Gu Juncheng immediately pulled his hand back, but she lost her balance, tossed her clothes aside, and fell toward the floor. Gu Juncheng stepped forward at once and caught her. What he held in his arms was soft and delicate, but he dared not lower his head. His head was held high, eyes fixed on the wooden rafters above.  

“If you want to bathe, then let’s do it properly, alright?”  

“Alright…”  

She was surprisingly obedient.  

It was clear that she could not bathe herself in this state. Gu Juncheng hardened his heart—if she was going to cause such a fuss, it would be better to get it over with quickly.  

His hands moved at lightning speed, stripping her clothes in a few swift motions, then he placed her in the bath basin.  

He kept his eyes shut, intending to finish the bath as quickly as possible. But with how uncooperative she was, how could it go smoothly?  

She kept moving about in the basin, and he couldn’t even hold her still.  

His mind was filled with images of peeled eggs—when his eyes were open, they filled his vision; when closed, they were at his fingertips…  

To make matters worse, this person kept singing for a while, then splashing water around, flinging it all over him.  

Then she complained that the basin was uncomfortable, saying a bathtub would be much better, and that ideally there should be a shower too…  

What on earth was a bathtub? And what was a shower?  

She sat upright and used her finger to draw in the air, showing him what she meant. Her slender, fair fingers glistened with droplets of water, and under the faint glow of the oil lamp, those fingers shone brighter than the flame itself…

After she finished drawing the bathtub and the shower in the air, her body went limp again and collapsed softly backward. Both her arms draped over his shoulders as she called his full name,  

“Gu Juncheng, Gu Juncheng…”  

She called it over and over again.  

When he didn’t respond, she just kept calling.  

Left with no choice, he finally asked: “What is it?”  

She suddenly leaned in very close and smiled at him. The faint scent of fruit jam hit him straight in the face.  

“Gu Juncheng, tell me, am I pretty? Am I pretty or not?”  

Gu Juncheng: “…”

Gu Juncheng simply kept his eyes shut and continued bathing her without answering.  

Suddenly, his lips felt a warmth. He snapped his eyes open — her face was pressed tightly against his.  

Forget it!  

That was it! No more bathing!  

He wrapped her up in a large cotton cloth and carried her back to the room. She kept singing along the way with her head resting on his shoulder.  

By the time he finished, he was soaked from head to toe — it was as if he had bathed along with her.  

As for Lin Qingping, this time she finally quieted down. Once he placed her on the bed, she turned over and began muttering as she fell asleep.  

She slept all the way until the next morning.  

Some unknown instinct suddenly jolted her awake. She sat up and saw that the sun was already high in the sky, and she was the only one left in the room.  

Oh no!  

Gu Juncheng was supposed to leave today!  

Could he have just left like that?  

She hurriedly got dressed, jumped out of bed, and rushed out. As expected, there was no sign of Gu Juncheng in the courtyard either.  

Zhiyuan was sweeping the courtyard with a broom almost as tall as he was.  

“Zhiyuan, where’s your Uncle Gu?” she asked anxiously.  

Zhiyuan looked at her in surprise. “He’s gone back to the Military Unit! Just left.”  

As if to say—didn’t you know that?  

“What?”  

Lin Qingping took off running!  

She took all the shortcuts she could, hoping to catch up with him.  

In her previous life, he had also left early in the morning. Not only did she fail to see him off, she even lost her temper with him the night before — all because her maternal family wanted to buy a bicycle. He had agreed to it, but even by the time he returned to the Military Unit, he still hadn’t gotten the ticket for it.

She remembered that she had once said something extremely hurtful—something along the lines of: “Why are you so useless? I could marry anyone and they’d be better than you.”  

Later, he left early that very morning.  

The following week, someone came to deliver a bicycle ticket on his behalf, along with the money to buy the bicycle.  

This incident had been buried under decades of time and even the separation of life and death, yet whenever she thought about it now, she still wanted to slap herself. She could not imagine how stifled he must have felt back then, being scolded like that…  

But fortunately, everything had started over.  

Everything could still be made right.  

She chased after him from the mountain. In the distance, she finally caught sight of him—he was walking along the path that led out of the village, dressed in a dark green short-sleeved uniform.  

“Juncheng—Gu Juncheng—!” she shouted at the top of her lungs.  

He heard her and turned his head in the direction of her voice.  

She waved at him with all her might, sprinting downhill with reckless urgency.  

She could hear him saying something, but the wind in her ears drowned everything out. She couldn’t make out a word—she just kept charging down the mountain.  

He ran up toward her as well.  

The two of them met on the narrow mountain path. Just as they were about to collide, she didn’t even slow down—she simply crashed right into him.  

The two of them collided head-on.  

Gu Juncheng, being well-trained, didn’t let Lin Qingping hurt herself. He took the full impact, allowing Lin Qingping to wrap her arms around him securely.  

“Gu Juncheng…”  

Lin Qingping hugged him tightly and, with the utmost seriousness, said: “Gu Juncheng, you must be careful. You must stay safe.”  

She had chased all this way just to say this one sentence.  

In her previous life, even as his wife, she had never said such words to him—not even once.  

In this life, she must not forget.  

All she wished for—was for Gu Juncheng to be safe and sound.

After speaking, she let go of him.  

“Go ahead, you need to hurry. Don’t waste any time.”  

He found it a bit unbelievable.  

“You chased after me just to say this?”  

“Mm.”  

This was incredibly important to her.  

Gu Juncheng paused for a moment, then nodded: “Alright then, I’m leaving. You should head back.”  

Lin Qingping waved him off.  

“Go ahead.”  

She watched him leave, waiting until his figure became a small dot in the distance before she slowly made her way back to the Gu Family.  

---

At the village entrance, she ran into Chen Xia.  

Chen Xia called out to her first, smiling as she asked: “Were you here to see Chengzi off?”  

Lin Qingping didn’t want to engage with her and just walked straight home.  

However, Chen Xia insisted on following her.  

“I just saw Chengzi off too.” she said.  

Lin Qingping was really annoyed. If she wanted to see him off, fine—why did she have to come flaunt it in front of her? Was she trying to irritate her on purpose?  

Without hesitation, Lin Qingping turned around and snapped: “You’re really strange. You have a husband, yet instead of taking care of your own husband, you come here bothering someone else’s husband every day. What’s wrong with you?”  

Chen Xia’s face immediately turned pale.  

It seemed Lin Qingping had hit a nerve.  

Lin Qingping turned and walked away, ignoring the words Chen Xia was muttering behind her—something about how she and Chengzi had grown up together, like brothers.

Lin Qingping couldn’t be bothered to listen.  

By the time she returned to the Gu Family, she noticed a pile of shavings in the courtyard. This had not been there yesterday.  

“Who’s been doing all this woodwork so early in the morning?” Lin Qingping asked in surprise.  

Zhiyuan looked at her, confused.  

“Uncle Gu did it. Didn’t you ask him to do this?”  

Lin Qingping: ???  

What had she asked him to do?