When Gu Yueji woke up in the morning, her first feeling was that her head and body were at two different temperatures.
The first wave of cold air this year was strong enough that the face exposed outside the blanket was icy cold, while the down comforter that was changed last night was emitting bursts of warmth. Even though she and Ren Jin were lying naked under the blanket, they could not feel a chill.
Especially since Ren Jin had a high body temperature, being embraced by a body that felt like a natural hot water bottle, Gu Yueji comfortably buried her head in that constantly warm chest and rubbed against it. As soon as she moved, Ren Jin fell asleep and instinctively hugged her even tighter.
Gu Yueji was feeling drowsy from the warmth when her phone suddenly rang.
It was her phone ringing. Gu Yueji groaned. It was too cold outside the blanket. She struggled to listen to the ringing a few times before reaching for her phone. However, before she could even touch it, a shadow loomed over her head, and her outstretched hand was pulled back under the blanket. She was wrapped up in the warm blanket, and then the still-ringing phone was tucked under the blanket.
Ren Jin, who had been drowsy with his eyes closed the whole time, lay down and hugged the person, muttering in annoyance, "Who called so early..."
Gu Yueji hadn't had enough sleep yet, and the phone kept ringing. Annoyed, she picked up her phone to hang up, but stopped when she saw the name on the screen.
Ren Jin was half asleep with one hand on Gu Yueji's waist. He could only hear her making muffled noises on the phone for a while without uttering a complete sentence.
Ren Jin, who was about to fall asleep, found it increasingly strange. He couldn't help but half-open his eyes to look at Gu Yueji, who had a tense face, furrowed brows, and pursed lips.
After a short conversation, she said "I understand" without any expression and hung up the phone.
Ren Jin was about to ask her what was wrong when she suddenly turned to look at him, leaned down and kissed him, then abruptly said, "I might have to go home for a bit."
Ren Jin was still not fully awake; his first thought was, "Which home are you going back to? Besides this place, which other home do you have?"
Gu Yueji's tense expression, which had been tense since she answered the phone, broke into a smile because of his domineering CEO-like question.
Neither of them had a good relationship with their families of origin, and they didn't usually keep in touch. In their minds, home was just the home of the two of them.
Simple and clear.
She stroked his face and explained, "I'm going back to my parents' hometown. My mom just called and said my grandpa isn't feeling well, so she wants me to go back and check on him."
Gu Yueji was also surprised to see her mother He Laidi's phone call, because her mother had never called her on her own initiative.
The moment the call connected, the first thing the person on the other end said was, "If you don't come back soon, you'll never see your grandpa again."
Before Gu Yueji could even ask what was going on, her mother launched into a tirade about how her grandfather had been suffering from headaches for a month, saying that the town hospital couldn't find the cause, and then went on to say a long string of hurtful things like how the family was poor and couldn't afford to take her grandfather to a bigger hospital, and that she should come back to see him one last time.
Gu Yueji was both angry and helpless when she heard this. Back then, her grandfather was the only one who supported her to go to university, and he even gave her all his savings to study. However, in their family, her parents made the decisions, especially her domineering mother. After learning that her grandfather had given her money, her mother not only scolded him but also confiscated all the money.
Gu Yueji was always grateful to her grandfather, so although she had doubts about what her mother said, she was still afraid that something might have really happened to her grandfather. She didn't even get to see him one last time. Moreover, she hadn't been home for many years since starting university, and she really wanted to go back and visit him.
Ren Jin paused for two seconds before reacting, rubbing his eyes as he sat up and said, "Oh, when do we leave? I'll arrange the time."
He was already thinking about how to arrange the work at the construction site, but Gu Yueji shook her head, "You don't need to arrange anything, I can go back and take a look myself."
Ren Jin put down his hand that was rubbing his eyes, looked up at her for a moment, and seeing that she wasn't joking, asked her seriously, "Tell me the truth, have you already gotten married and had children back in your hometown, which is why you've been preventing me from going back with you?"
Since they got married, he has asked Gu Yueji more than once if she wants to go back to her hometown to meet his parents, but she always makes various excuses to say no.
Gu Yueji exchanged a glance with him and nodded readily, "Yes, I'm not only married back in my hometown, but I also have several children. I'm afraid you wouldn't be able to handle it if you went back and saw them."
Ren Jin raised an eyebrow and chuckled, "What's there for me to not be able to stand? They don't need me to support them. I'd be happy to answer if they called me 'Dad.'"
Gu Yueji pinched him under the covers, and Ren Jin burst out laughing. He hugged her and laughed for a while, then looked down at her seriously and asked, "Why don't you want me to go back?"
Gu Yueji recalled the last time she called home to tell her parents she was getting married, and how she was scolded for almost the entire call. "If I go back, there will likely be unpleasantness, and I don't want you to be unhappy along with me."
When her mother heard on the phone that she had secretly married someone, she immediately started scolding her, calling her an ingrate, saying she didn't care about the family, that she only told her parents after they died, and that she had no reason to call them.
Gu Yueji listened silently, neither refuting nor responding.
When her mother asked about Ren Jin's family situation, Gu Yueji deliberately concealed some details, only saying that Ren Jin was from the countryside, worked on a construction site, and that her parents were divorced and she hadn't asked for a dowry. Upon hearing this, her mother scolded her even more harshly and rudely, saying that she had worked so hard to go out and study, but she was still unsuccessful and couldn't earn much money. Now that she had found a husband from the countryside, she should have just married someone from the village. At that time, someone would have supported her studies, and she would have lived closer to home. Maybe she would be a mother of several children by now.
In the eyes of older women in my hometown, a woman's greatest skill is bearing children; the more children she has, the greater her skill.
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