Chapter 65: The Fierce and Rugged Man Who Was Abandoned After Being Wooed (17)

"Aren't you happy?"

Shu Yao asked knowingly, watching Pei Zhi's tightly set jaw, feeling a quiet surge of satisfaction deep within her.

Pei Zhi remained silent, simply picking up his hoe once again.

He couldn't even tell whether he should be happy or not.

Shu Yao left him to struggle with his thoughts, saying nothing more.

Having spent some time together, she had pretty much figured out Pei Zhi's temperament.

He looked rugged and rough on the outside, but was actually sensitive and delicate on the inside, holding a sense of inferiority beneath his pure-hearted nature.

He felt he was not worthy of the original host. Therefore, ever since they got together, he had given her almost the absolute best of everything he could possibly offer.

He was afraid she would drop if he held her in his hands, or melt if he kept her in his mouth, and he hadn't even let the original host wash a single bowl.

Ordinary methods would find it hard to make him lower his guard, unless someone capable of provoking him appeared on the scene.

Shu Yao suddenly thought of the male educated youth from the plot. After the original host ran away with him, Pei Zhi had been angered to the point of seeking death.

If she could use him to both advance the plotline and guide Pei Zhi into seeing his own heart clearly, wouldn't that kill two birds with one stone?

-

The Hope Primary School was soon completed and opened. The village party secretary, the village chief, and other respected elders all attended the ceremony.

The entire production brigade turned out, unable to conceal their excitement.

School starting meant they wouldn't have to do farm work anymore, but the teaching slots were limited and basically already filled.

Aside from those with connections or deep knowledge foundations, the rest would simply go back to whatever they had been doing before.

Though called a Hope Primary School, it was actually just a temporarily constructed mud-brick house.

It wasn't large, and it didn't take in many students—only a few dozen.

Stone Cliff Village was backward and feudalistic; to them, studying for a few years was far less practical than working early to make money. Very few families possessed such enlightenment.

The village chief had lobbied in the village for several days without managing to persuade anyone. Three yuan per semester for tuition was a massive sum of money for peasant workers who faced the yellow earth and backed the sky.

It was considered completely pointless expenditure.

" Educated Youth Jiang?"

Shu Yao snapped out of her thoughts and looked at the refined man standing before her in a blue shirt and glasses.

He was the original host's future husband, a textbook abusive man—Xu Yuze.

"Shall we go eat together after class?"

Just like in the original plot, the moment he laid eyes on Shu Yao, he developed a romantic attraction, taking the initiative to strike up a conversation and help her with her teaching.

As soon as the morning lessons concluded, he had hurried over without stopping to invite Shu Yao to lunch.

Shu Yao acted completely oblivious to his intentions, leisurely packing up her textbooks.

"Alright, let's go."

To be honest, Xu Yuze's looks were not bad; he could be considered handsome, though of a completely different type from Pei Zhi.

Quite a few young girls in the brigade liked him, and he accepted all comers—a trait that actually matched the original host quite well.

-

Pei Zhi hadn't seen Shu Yao for two days.

Even though he had long prepared himself for the end of their connection, when this day truly arrived, it still hurt so much that he couldn't catch his breath.

He could only throw himself harder into his work, covering himself in grime and dirt in a vain attempt to excise the familiar figure from his mind.

Yet the more exhausted he became, the clearer that face grew; the more tired he felt, the more intense the fragrance lingering at the tip of his nose became.

He relived every single moment they had spent together without a single moment of rest.

The woman's sweet, soft voice, her gentle and serene smile, her soft black hair.

Every single inch, every tiny detail, was steadily eroding his mind.

He dreamed of her constantly, and damn it, those dreams were entirely unspeakable.

Pei Zhi felt like he was about to suffocate.

He desperately wanted to muster up the courage to grab her hand and ask for a clear explanation.

Why hadn't she come to find him anymore? Was it because she lacked the time, or had she found a new target?

It was not until this very moment, witnessed with his own eyes—

"What would Educated Youth Jiang like to eat? I'll go get it for you."

Educated Youth Jiang...

Pei Zhi's body tensed up instinctively the moment he heard those three words.

He raised his head with a tremor, his gaze landing on the backs of the man and woman walking close together ahead of him.

He didn't know the man, but the woman—he recognized her instantly.

It was her.

It really was her.

After just a few days apart, she seemed even thinner, and fairer too.

Wearing a vibrant red floral dress, her wrist bones were delicate, her waist slender enough to be spanned by two hands.

The moment she appeared, the attention of more than half the people in the cafeteria was drawn to her.

Shu Yao looked down at the dishes in the cafeteria. Perhaps because the term had just started and it was a rare happy occasion for the village, the spread was actually quite abundant.

Without standing on ceremony, she ordered three dishes.

Seeing that she showed no hesitation or avoidance regarding his physical proximity, Xu Yuze hooked the corner of his lips and used his spoon to serve food into her bowl.

The bowl piled high, Xu Yuze looked at Shu Yao with concern and asked in a gentle voice, "Is there anything else you want to eat?"

"You're so thin, you should eat more to nourish your body. Being too thin isn't good for your health."

Shu Yao shook her head. "No need, let's go find a place to sit."

"Let's... sit over there."

Xu Yuze looked in the direction she pointed and quickly noticed Pei Zhi.

As luck would have it, he was right beside that spot.

The young man was even more tanned than when they first met, exuding an even stronger masculine aura. His solid shoulders gave him a maturity unfitting for a seventeen-year-old.

The children of the poor mature early.

In the village, people Pei Zhi's age already had children of their own.

Xu Yuze knew about Pei Zhi; just a few days ago, the gossip linking him and Jiang Shu Yao had been flying wildly around the village.

Yet what of it?

Jiang Shu Yao had chosen him without a moment's hesitation.

Lowly rural folk should possess some self-awareness.

With this thought, Xu Yuze lifted his chin proudly and cast a provocative look toward Pei Zhi.

Only to find that the latter paid him no mind at all, keeping his eyes fixed entirely on Jiang Shu Yao without even blinking.

Shu Yao ignored Pei Zhi's burning gaze, walking obediently behind Xu Yuze as they approached.

Her expression remained calm and light, without the slightest awkwardness of someone caught in the act.

Not far away, Ye Xiu and Yang Rongrong were also eating.

"Bitch. It's only been a few days, and she's already changed men again. Truly shameless."

Ye Xiu was chewing on a cabbage root. Hearing this, she swallowed it before speaking in a calm tone.

"She has her ways. Naturally, it's not something we can compare with."

Yang Rongrong clenched her chopsticks in anger, her expression filled with indignation.

"I just feel it's such a waste for the men whose hearts she's toyed with. Such a vile woman must be completely blind for anyone to fancy her."

"Pei Zhi was like that, and now Xu Yuze too. One after another, they've lost their minds."

That cheap woman Jiang Shu Yao actually had the nerve to bring her new lover and purposely sit right next to Pei Zhi, not even afraid of being beaten to death by him.

One of Pei Zhi's fists was bigger than her head.

At first, upon hearing Ye Xiu say that Jiang Shu Yao and Pei Zhi were getting closer and closer, she had been ecstatic, wishing the two of them would hurry up and jump into bed to pop out a baby.

That way, Jiang Shu Yao's life would be completely ruined.

Yet she had unexpectedly hooked up with Xu Yuze in no time at all.

Xu Yuze was the most sought-after catch in the entire brigade; how on earth had Jiang Shu Yao managed to sink her claws into him!

The more Yang Rongrong thought about it, the more baffled she became. She stared at Shu Yao's smiling face, looking left and right without finding anything special about her.

She was pretentious, delicate by nature, and without that face and a good family background, who would ever look twice at her?

Yang Rongrong curled her lip, biting down hard on the tough cabbage root, her teeth aching.

Looking back at Pei Zhi, the moment Shu Yao appeared, his eyes had uncontrollably glued themselves to her.

His ink-black pupils trembled violently, and the color of his lips turned pale of its own accord.

Yet from beginning to end, Shu Yao didn't even glance at him, as though everything that had happened before was nothing more than a dream he had dreamed.

Now, the dream had awakened, and it was all over.

This realization dealt a heavy, stunning blow to Pei Zhi. His body trembled at a rate visible to the naked eye.

His face turned defeated and ashen, and a crushing sense of inferiority surged into his heart, making him dare not look any longer.

Yet, even when his eyes could not see, the sounds of the two of them chatting, laughing, and acting intimately drilled relentlessly into his ears, trapping him securely and suffocating him further with every breath.

A strange, unfamiliar lump rose in his throat—so unfamiliar that it chilled Pei Zhi to the bone.

He swallowed with immense difficulty against the bitter astringency, his heart aching so violently that he couldn't even hold his chopsticks steady.

His mind uncontrollably wondered if Educated Youth Jiang was angry because of his aloofness over the past few days, which was why she refused to pay him any mind.

No, that wasn't it. He didn't want this.