"Ugh, stop coming! I'm yours, okay?"
"No, we need the front too. You can't escape!"
Ling Huanwu chased after Zhou Jiuzhen, who was running ahead, dizzy and disoriented, holding a sweet potato print smeared with ink.
Just as her fingertips were about to touch the hem of Zhou Jiuzhen's clothes, she saw Zhou Jiuzhen, under the influence of alcohol, slip and fall heavily backward into the pile of fishing nets in the corner of the room.
The fishing net, under pressure, swayed softly outwards, then instantly tightened, like a gentle net, wrapping Zhou Jiuzhen halfway around.
Ling Huanwu gasped and pounced on him, pressing her entire body against his chest, her nose bumping against his warm chest first.
The knots in the fishing net dug into my arm, but they carried the salty scent of the sea breeze, mixed with the soapy smell on Zhou Jiuzhen's body, and all of them entered my nostrils.
Zhou Jiuzhen's face was stern, but he hurriedly wrapped his arms around her waist to prevent her from falling: "Can we not stamp it? Otherwise, how am I supposed to go out and face people tomorrow?"
Ling Huanwu, panting, shook her head with a half-smile, then held up the sweet potato and pressed it against his tightly pursed lips.
Zhou Jiuzhen looked hesitant and stammering, with the words "Exclusive to Big Girl" still etched on his lips. As he struggled, his thumb gently brushed against her chin.
The fishing net was still swaying gently, and the fine strands of rope brushed against the tips of her ears, tickling her so much that she instinctively snuggled closer to him.
With that pull, her lips collided with his.
His mouth was covered in ink, and he even scribbled the four big characters "Big Girl's Exclusive" on it.
Ling Huanwu raised her hand in a daze and touched her mouth with red mud, as if she had touched a hand full of blood.
Upon seeing Zhou Jiuzhen's successful gaze, she instinctively screamed in anger.
"Ah...you bastard..."
Unfortunately, he blocked all the sounds in the next second.
At the entrance.
Chu Mei cooked a pot of duck soup at the educated youth settlement. It was a local duck that she specially went to the countryside to buy when she went to the city today to stop Ling Huanwu from bringing over a batch of sewing machine parts.
She remembered that Er Gou loved her stewed duck when he was little, so she specially simmered the duck soup over low heat for an afternoon, just so that her precious son, whom she had just found, could have a taste.
To my surprise, I heard these unbearable sounds as soon as I arrived.
She was so startled by Ling Huanwu's scream that she almost spilled the soup in her hand.
Chu Mei cursed inwardly, thinking that young people these days just don't know how to control themselves.
I was unwilling to let the soup in my hand get cold from being passed around so many times.
She stood there, clutching the duck soup wrapped in her cotton-padded coat, for an hour, two hours, until three hours...
Finally, Chu Mei couldn't wait any longer.
She felt the sea breeze making her legs go numb, and her blood pressure was soaring.
She took a deep breath, listened to the endless noise inside, and gritted her teeth as she knocked on the door...
Inside the house.
Zhou Jiuzhen removed Ling Huanwu's arm from his eyes.
Staring at the tears streaming from the corners of her eyes, he traced three marks on his chest with her trembling fingertips.
"I've made up my mind. From now on, I'll call you Glutinous Rice Ball, okay?"
Looking at the three clearly visible scratch marks on her chest and listening to the shameless words of the man in front of her, Ling Huanwu shook her head repeatedly, "I'm not Yuanzi, I'm not round, but your name suits you perfectly!"
"My name?"
Zhou Jiuzhen pretended not to know, and teased her with a furrowed brow, "You mean Jiuzhen?"
Ling Huanwu was speechless, pointing to her lips with a face full of reproach, "I'm saying you're a real dog, you bite, you idiot, you idiot..."
Zhou Jiuzhen quickly grabbed one of the few White Rabbit milk candies on the table and stuffed it into her mouth, making her shut up immediately.
Seeing that she had calmed down, he smiled and carried her out of the pile of fishing nets.
I had just picked her up and put her on the table, and she had just taken a bite of a warm White Rabbit milk candy, when there was a rapid knocking at the door.
"Who...who is it..."
The two agreed verbally, but when they got out of the fishing net and saw the ink stain on each other's lips that looked like lipstick, they couldn't help but laugh.
"Okay, okay, this stuff is poisonous, you should go wash it off right away."
Zhou Jiuzhen gently wiped the ink off her lips with his fingertips, gave her a few words of advice, and then turned to open the door.
The smile was still on his face the moment the door opened.
The smile on Zhou Jiuzhen's face slowly faded when he saw Chu Mei standing straight at the door, clutching a bundle of cotton-padded clothes and with a dark expression.
"What are you doing here? I already told you I don't welcome you here!"
Zhou Jiuzhen spoke without any mercy.
Remembering her ugly face in the hospital and the harm she caused Ling Huanwu, he couldn't bring himself to give her a kind look.
Chu Mei took a deep breath, gritted her teeth, and said the words she least wanted to say, her eyes red.
"I came here tonight to apologize to your daughter-in-law. I've always owed her an apology. I shouldn't have taken her blood without her consent at the hospital..."
Chu Mei lowered her stance and tried her best to show her sincerity.
She had been on the island for a few days, hoping to mend her relationship with Zhou Jiuzhen, but she couldn't get a word in with him.
The women in the family compound gave her advice: she needed to resolve Zhou Jiuzhen's inner conflict so that he would accept her.
She knew that his unresolved issue was his inability to forgive her for hurting his wife.
Forced into a corner, she had no choice but to appease her daughter-in-law, who had caused her to lose face, just so that her beloved son would acknowledge her.
Seeing her like this, Zhou Jiuzhen didn't say anything more and let her in.
Looking at the messy scene in the room, Chu Mei's expression grew even more somber.
Her husband, Old Zhao, is a gentleman, and she doesn't believe their son would be so shameless and lacking in manners.
She thought, "My son is like this because of that woman, Ling Huanwu!"
Thinking of this, she glared fiercely at Ling Huanwu from a corner where Zhou Jiuzhen couldn't see her.
Ling Huanwu was washing her face and didn't notice Chu Mei's approach at all.
"Nuomi Yuanzi, Aunt Chu is here to apologize to you. Here, quickly wipe your face!"
Zhou Jiuzhen naturally picked up a towel from the shelf and wiped Ling Huanwu's face.
It was as if I had done it countless times before.
Chu Mei's face grew increasingly grim.
Calling his own wife "glutinous rice ball"?
Instead, they call her "Aunt Chu"?
She had originally thought that Ling Huanwu would take the easy way out and generously say that there was no need to apologize.
To everyone's surprise, the daughter-in-law jumped up with a look of joy, excitedly grabbed Zhou Jiuzhen's hand, and asked expectantly, "Apologize? Really? Aunt Chu is going to apologize to me?"
Ling Huan smiled and shifted her gaze from Zhou Jiuzhen's face to Chu Mei, her large eyes fixed on her, waiting for her to apologize.
Chu Mei hadn't even shown her maternal love while serving the duck soup, and now she was being forced to apologize, feeling like she'd lost both face and substance.
In this world, what kind of logic is there for a mother-in-law to apologize to her daughter-in-law?
Chu Mei stared at Ling Huanwu and forced a smile, finally squeezing out the words "I'm sorry" through her teeth.
She breathed a sigh of relief, thinking that the matter was finally over.
To everyone's surprise, Ling Huanwu's face instantly turned cold, and she shook her head at her, "Aunt Chu, the person you should apologize to the most is not me!"
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