Rebirth: Saving the Lovely Girl from the Start

「The fifth day of the Lunar New Year.」

"Fangfang, you’re so good at mahjong," Zhao Lizhen said, holding Ren Qunfang’s hand as they chatted in the courtyard. They were like best friends who had known each other for years.

"Hardly. I’ve been playing for years, but you’ve already learned how to draw tiles after only three or four days." Ren Qunfang sighed. ’The techniques I spent years painstakingly perfecting, Zhao Lizhen picked up in just a few days,’ she thought.

She couldn’t help but lament how vast the difference between people could be.

"Everyone in the village keeps asking if we’re related," Zhao Lizhen said, covering her mouth with a light chuckle.

Due to Gu Qingshan’s choice, a strange twist of fate had caused the three women’s appearances to become quite similar, leading the villagers to mistake them for family.

And as for her, though she was younger than Ren Qunfang, she always felt Ren Qunfang was like a sweet, innocent younger sister, which she found very endearing.

"Well..." Hearing this, Ren Qunfang suddenly felt a pang of guilt.

It would be wonderful if their two families could be joined by marriage, but her rascal of a son was two-timing, and she had no idea who he would ultimately choose.

The Gu Family’s daughter was wonderful, but in her heart, she was actually partial to Lin Ruoxi...

"What’s wrong?"

Zhao Lizhen sensed that something was off. It seemed her new best friend was hiding something from her.

Ren Qunfang took a deep breath. She really wanted to give Xue Rui a good beating, but she knew it would be pointless...

She changed the subject. "Let’s go see the neighbors’ baby. It’s his one-month celebration today. I heard he was over ten pounds when he was born! I’ve never seen such a big baby."

Zhao Lizhen was startled too. "Over ten pounds... His poor mother must have had a rough time."

...

「Outside Xue Rui’s house.」

Gu Muxue and Xue Yao were playing with bang snaps by the side of the road.

For the past few days, aside from a quick trip to his grandmother’s house, he had been stuck in his rural hometown, entertaining a myriad of relatives. It was exhausting.

"Xue Rui!" Qiu Mengze snuck up behind Xue Rui and slapped him hard on the shoulder.

Xue Rui jumped. Hearing the familiar voice, he instantly knew who it was. He cursed with a laugh, "You brat, what are you doing here?"

"I’m here for the feast," Qiu Mengze said.

Xue Rui looked at the dining tables and chairs filling the alley, and childhood memories instantly flooded back.

One of his neighbors in the village was a relative of Qiu Mengze’s. Qiu Mengze would occasionally visit, which was how the two of them met. They later discovered they went to the same school, and they had grown closer ever since.

So, it wasn’t strange at all to see Qiu Mengze in the village every now and then.

"School’s about to start again." Qiu Mengze looked glum. "Senior year is brutal."

"Qiu Mengze?" Gu Muxue said in surprise. ’Fancy running into a classmate here of all places.’

Qiu Mengze froze. "Gu Muxue?"

He didn’t even recognize her at first. She was wearing a sleek tracksuit, a stark contrast to her usual style.

’And what is she holding? Bang snaps? Is that really something a goddess should be playing with?’

"Xue Rui, what’s she doing here?" Qiu Mengze whispered.

"Muxue’s from the next village over. She and her mom came to visit today," Xue Rui said with a smile.

Qiu Mengze shot Xue Rui an admiring glance. ’Isn’t this basically a ’meet the parents’ session?’

"So what about Lin Ruoxi?" Qiu Mengze whispered.

"Keep it down. Switch to the dialect," Xue Rui whispered back.

Xue Yao was two years younger than him. Plus, Xie Jianfeng had raised her differently, exposing her only to high-end circles in the city. She could understand a little of the dialect but couldn’t speak it herself.

As for Gu Muxue, she couldn’t understand it at all and could only guess what they were saying based on their tones.

On top of that, the dialect Xue Rui was speaking was from an older generation. Many of the words hadn’t been used in years. Even Qiu Mengze, who had grown up in the countryside, had to take a moment to understand. As a result, both Xue Yao and Gu Muxue were completely lost.

Gu Muxue felt the two of them were doing it on purpose. It was like they were speaking in code; she couldn’t understand a word.

She knew English, Japanese, and Portuguese, and even understood a little Korean, but the one language she couldn’t speak was the village dialect...

Suddenly, she felt as if the two of them were ganging up on her.

"Xiaorui, teach me the dialect," Gu Muxue said, walking up to them.

Both boys were stunned by her request. Before Xue Rui could even speak, Qiu Mengze’s eyes went wide. "You want to learn the dialect?"

He pictured it in his mind: the lofty, high-class heiress chatting with him in the coarse local dialect...

Qiu Mengze and Xue Rui glanced at each other, saw the same thought in the other’s eyes, and burst out laughing.

"Muxue, are you sure you want to learn?" Xue Rui asked with a grin.

He knew that from spending years abroad and having access to excellent education, Gu Muxue had developed a remarkable talent for languages.

But a dialect was a different beast altogether. Although Hedong City was in Jin Province, it wasn’t part of the Jin Language Area. The Southern Jinnan Dialect was a hodgepodge of usages from several different regions...

Without the experience of growing up here, it’s incredibly difficult to master the pronunciation of certain words, because the sounds simply don’t exist in standard Mandarin...

Xue Rui decided to teach Gu Muxue something simple.

"Muxue, see this table? In the dialect, we say ’table-table.’" Xue Rui then pointed to a chair. "And this is called a ’chair-chair.’"

"Table-table? Chair-chair?" Gu Muxue repeated.

"That’s right." Xue Rui nodded with a grin. ’Girls always sound so cute when they use reduplication,’ he thought.

Qiu Mengze was blown away. ’Xue Rui is a goddamn genius,’ he thought. ’He doesn’t teach her anything useful, just the reduplicated words.’

Gu Muxue felt like Xue Rui was playing her for a fool, tricking her into acting all cutesy.

However, she noticed that only Xue Rui was stifling a laugh. Qiu Mengze just looked stunned, while Xue Yao seemed lost in thought.

’Could he actually be telling the truth?’

Feeling a little uncertain, she turned to Xue Yao. "Yaoyao, is your brother messing with me?"

Xue Yao thought for a moment. Her brother was right; that was indeed how you said it in the dialect. It’s just that she’d never really noticed when other people said it.

But when Gu Muxue said the words with her perfect, standard Mandarin accent, it sounded like she was trying to be cute...

"My brother’s not lying," Xue Yao answered honestly.

The villagers spoke broken Mandarin, and Gu Muxue spoke broken dialect...

Xue Yao felt like the world had gone mad.

Xue Rui grinned, pointed at the hat on Xue Yao’s head, and said, "That’s called a ’hat-hat.’"

After that, Gu Muxue’s mind was filled with all sorts of reduplicated words: a stick was a "stick-stick," a box was a "box-box," a wardrobe was a "wardrobe-wardrobe"...

She was deeply suspicious. ’How can there be so many reduplicated words?’

"Xue Rui, the feast is about to start," said Qiu Mengze.

"Come on, I’ll take you to the village feast," Xue Rui said with a laugh. His family had also been invited, so bringing one extra person was no big deal.

"Can I go too? Do I need to bring a gift?"

Gu Muxue hesitated, then pulled out a thick wad of cash. "This is all I have on me. Should I go home and get more...?"

Xue Rui’s eye twitched. "In the countryside, a hundred-yuan gift is plenty."

Qiu Mengze gasped. ’It’s the baby’s one-month celebration,’ he thought. ’His own aunt only gave two thousand yuan. How much was an outsider like Gu Muxue planning to give?’

"What good is a hundred yuan?" Gu Muxue asked, confused. ’Is Xue Rui tricking me again?’ she wondered.

"Two hundred, then." With a smile, Xue Rui plucked two red 100-yuan bills from Gu Muxue’s hand and headed for the gift collection table.

As it turned out, the old man recording the gifts asked for his name.

Xue Rui thought for a moment. Using his or Gu Muxue’s name wouldn’t be appropriate, nor would using one of their elders’ names. They wouldn’t have any contact with this family in the future.

With rising education levels, the younger generation rarely stayed in the countryside after growing up. The tight-knit village community was slowly fading, and with it, the sense of personal connection.

Finally, Xue Rui spoke up. "Put it under Qiu Mengze. One thousand."

"Oh? A relative, are you?" the old man exclaimed in surprise.

"That’s right, a relative." Xue Rui pulled out another eight hundred yuan to make it an even thousand.

It wouldn’t be right for a relative to only give one or two hundred. Besides, the money would eventually find its way back into his childhood friend’s hands anyway.

When he returned to the banquet, Xue Rui found that Gu Muxue had already saved a seat for him. He sat down to her left.

Gu Muxue was left-handed, so she didn’t want to end up "fighting" for elbow room with a stranger. She felt no such reservation about sitting next to Xue Rui.

The food hadn’t arrived yet. Xue Rui picked up a cup and said, "This is called a ’cup-cup.’"

Gu Muxue couldn’t take it anymore. ’He’s definitely messing with me,’ she thought. Her head was so full of these reduplicated words it felt like she was constantly fawning over him.

Just as she was about to confront him, she heard a burly man at the next table shout, "Bring me a big bowl-bowl! This little cup-cup isn’t enough to drink from!"

Gu Muxue burst out laughing. A big, brawny man actually saying "little cup-cup."

She decided the dialect was actually quite charming.

However, Xue Rui then held up a paper napkin. "Muxue?"

"Don’t say it, I know!" Like an elementary schooler desperate to answer a question, Gu Muxue didn’t wait for Xue Rui to speak and blurted out, "Pa-pa!"

"Yes?" Xue Rui answered.

Everyone at the table burst into laughter. The poor girl had been taken advantage of and was completely oblivious.

Gu Muxue was quick on the uptake. Realizing she’d been had, she pinched Xue Rui’s thigh under the table. "Is this called a ’leg-leg’?"

"Nope. My leg is just a leg." Xue Rui gritted his teeth. He kicked the table leg. "*This* is a ’leg-leg.’"

"I’m done learning," Gu Muxue said, pouting. The dialect had no discernible rules, and Xue Rui just kept taking advantage of her.

Soon enough, the dishes began to arrive, most of them local specialties.

Gu Muxue picked up her chopsticks, but faced with a table full of food, she didn’t know what to take. She had seen the cooking setup—right in the alley by the entrance, next to a drainage ditch...

She wondered if eating this would give her a stomachache.

"Go on, eat. The hygiene standards are no worse than a restaurant," Xue Rui said, serving some food onto Gu Muxue’s plate.

"Why?" Gu Muxue asked, unconvinced. It didn’t look sanitary at all.

"Everyone eating is a neighbor or a relative. It might be open-air, but if anyone gets sick, the host will lose face for life. Didn’t you see the host supervising the cooks the whole time?" Xue Rui explained.

Village banquets might not always be the most delicious, but the hygiene was always up to par. From the ingredients to the cooks, everything was out in the open for public scrutiny. No one would dare to pull any tricks, which made it a hundred times better than some shady restaurant.

"Muxue, here’s a life hack for you. When you’re traveling and want to eat authentic local food, just crash a village banquet. Just give a gift of a few hundred yuan. It’s cheap and authentic," Xue Rui said with a smile.

Gu Muxue thought about it and realized it made sense. She tentatively took a bite. It was actually quite good.

"You eat too," Gu Muxue said, reaching out to put a few choice morsels on Xue Rui’s plate.

Gu Qingshan, who had come to pick up Gu Muxue for dinner, was surprised to find his daughter eating at a village banquet.

’So there are some benefits to her hanging out with this kid.’

Gu Qingshan smiled, gratified. His daughter would never have come to a place like this before.

But when he saw her serving food to Xue Rui, his heart soured...

"Has Xue’er ever served me food like that?" Gu Qingshan asked.

Zhao Lizhen, who was beside him, said, "She has."

"Really? How come I don’t remember?" Gu Qingshan was puzzled.