First Night with the Army: The Stoic Big Shot Is Done Pretending

Yu Qing bit her lip. "I didn’t bring any gifts. Is it really okay for us to stay at Mr. Huo’s grandfather’s house just like this? Maybe we should go to a department store and buy something for him."

"There’s no one here."

"Huh?"

Yu Qing blinked. After a brief pause, she understood what Wen Ci meant and began to openly survey the yard.

Her eyes landed on the pavilion in the yard.

She finally understood why Wen Ci had wanted to build a pavilion in their assigned courtyard back at the Northwest Military Region. It turned out there was a beautiful precedent.

The pavilion before them was larger and more luxurious, with a stone-carved chessboard set in the center. The benches on either side could seat five or six people.

Wen Ci said, "I’ll use the one upstairs. You take the one downstairs."

"There are two bathrooms?!"

Wen Ci led her inside. Seeing the signs that the living room had been recently tidied, she smiled brightly. "Looks like we’re in luck. We won’t have to clean the place after we wash up."

Most of the furniture was solid wood, possessing a classical Chinese opulence that was perfectly normal for the 1980s.

At the time, Chinese-style furniture still had its own unique, traditional aesthetic, just before foreign designs entered the market.

Half an hour later, Wen Ci emerged from her shower, towel-drying the ends of her damp hair. She carried a lounge chair into the middle of the yard, where the sun was shining perfectly.

Hearing the water stop on the first floor, Wen Ci leaned back lazily in her chair, basking in the sunlight. "Qingqing," she called out to Yu Qing, "come out to the yard and soak up some sun before you rest!"

A moment later, Yu Qing came out of the first-floor bathroom holding a hairdryer. She asked quizzically, "Is this one of those legendary blow-dryers that can dry your hair?"

Being from the Northwest, she hadn’t seen such modern gadgets.

After becoming a doctor at the Northwest Military Region, she’d heard people talk about how quickly the Southern regions were developing. They said you didn’t have to wait for your hair to air-dry; with a blow-dryer, it would be dry in minutes.

Wen Ci leaned back in her lounge chair and looked at the device in Yu Qing’s hand. It had a protrusion at the back with something that resembled a small spinning top. After a closer look, she nodded. "That should be a blow-dryer."

She had never used a blow-dryer from the eighties, either.

She was just judging by its appearance.

Yu Qing decided against using the blow-dryer. She also moved a lounge chair out into the yard. The surroundings were quiet and pleasant, and every so often, the fragrance of flowers drifted by.

「Meanwhile, at the Jiang residence.」

Su Guilan was fidgeting on the sofa, unable to sit still. She kept getting up to look toward the door. When she heard the sound of the courtyard gate opening, a smile instantly spread across her face.

"You’re ba—"

Before she could finish the word, Su Guilan noticed only her son had returned. Her brow furrowed. "Why didn’t your sister come back with you?"

"She didn’t want to come back."

"Why?"

Jiang Chen crossed to his mother’s side in a few strides. His voice was flat, calm, and cold. "Mom, I’d advise you to stop deluding yourself. Wen—"

He was about to say the name "Wen Ci," but seeing his mother’s expression shift, he corrected himself. "Jiang Ci. She may be your own flesh and blood, but you never raised her. You brought her back only to force her into a marriage meant for someone else."

"If you were in her shoes, would you come back?"

"Huo Jingyuan is such an outstanding man. What’s she not satisfied with?"

At this, Jiang Chen scoffed. From a family status perspective, marrying into Old Commander Huo’s family was a step up. But ever since the old commander passed away, the Jiang Family had made inquiries about Huo Jingyuan.

They learned that Huo Jingyuan was just a grunt in the Northwest and had even been crippled.

So they decided to just ignore the marriage arrangement.

Later, Huo Jingyuan wrote from the Northwest, expressing his wish to fulfill the engagement. On top of that, Jiang Ye threatened to go on a hunger strike.

So, they brought back their biological daughter to be the substitute bride.

Who would have known? Huo Jingyuan wasn’t crippled. In fact, he was the youngest and most exceptional officer in the Northwest. For a man of his talent, rising to a high position in the future would be effortless.

"Jiang Ci just got lucky. Otherwise, the choices you made were tantamount to picking her up from the dirt just to hurl her back down into hell."

Jiang Chen’s words pierced her heart like daggers. Su Guilan pointed at him, her finger trembling with rage. "Get out! You, get out!"

Jiang Chen shrugged nonchalantly. "Fine, I’m out."

He had become eligible for work-assigned housing a few years ago, but he’d found the apartment too small and had stayed at the Jiang residence. Now, the family’s only ray of sunshine was gone.

It didn’t matter to him whether he stayed or left.

·

「Nearing noon.」

After a great deal of pleading, Xue Li finally got his parents’ permission to leave the house.

He borrowed his older cousin’s SUV when he left. His cousin was a director at the military hospital, so his vehicle was registered with the military region and had unrestricted access.

After driving into the Beijing Military Region, Xue Li suddenly remembered that he didn’t know where his sister-in-law and Yu Qing were staying. ’Are they at the Wen Family’s place, or Old Commander Huo’s?’ he wondered.

Suddenly, he saw a man he recognized as his sister-in-law’s brother storming furiously out of a courtyard. Xue Li quickly turned the car around, but by the time he did, the man had vanished.

Xue Li blinked in confusion, muttering to himself, "Did they get into a fight?!"

After getting out of the car, Xue Li lingered at the gate for a moment. He saw a woman in the courtyard who bore a striking resemblance to his sister-in-law. Putting on a polite air, he knocked.

"Ma’am, excuse me, is my sister-in-law here?"

Su Guilan was still seething, but she composed herself upon hearing Xue Li’s voice. "Who are you?" she asked.

"I’m a subordinate of Mr. Huo, Huo Jingyuan."

Su Guilan gave a slight nod.

’This young man must be part of the escort assigned from the Northwest Military Region,’ she thought.

Su Guilan asked, "What can I do for you?"

"I’m looking for Doctor Yu, the one who returned with my sister-in-law."

A thought suddenly occurred to Su Guilan. She smiled and said, "Ah Ci isn’t staying here. She’s at Old Commander Huo’s residence. Why don’t I take you there?"

’This would give her an excuse to see her biological daughter.’

"That would be great, thank you, ma’am!"

Xue Li proactively opened the rear car door for her.

Su Guilan’s gaze fell on the license plate. She had a clear memory of the plate numbers for vehicles with unrestricted military region access. "Isn’t this Director Xue’s car?"

"That’s my cousin."

"And your father is?"

Xue Li replied, "Xue Zepeng."

Upon hearing this, a hint of admiration entered Su Guilan’s eyes. She smiled. "Oh, so you’re the eldest young master of the Xue Family, the one who became a soldier."

Xue Li scratched the back of his head, looking a little embarrassed.

The two compounds weren’t far apart, and with Su Guilan giving directions, they arrived in just a few minutes.

Normally, no one ever came to disturb the house. The outer gate to the courtyard wasn’t locked; you could simply reach through and open it from the outside.

"So, this is the place?"

"Yes."

A flicker of anxiety crossed Su Guilan’s eyes. Recalling her son’s earlier words, she stopped in her tracks, suddenly hesitant to go any closer.

"What’s wrong, ma’am?" Xue Li asked with concern.

"It’s... it’s nothing."

Xue Li didn’t think much of it. Peeking through the metal bar gate, he saw the two lounge chairs in the middle of the yard and shouted excitedly, "Sister-in-law! I’m here to get Doctor Yu!"

He had just gotten home that morning and was about to take a shower. He was only in there for about fifteen minutes, but when he came out, several young women had mysteriously appeared at his house, all under the pretext of being there for a blind date with him.