Qin Lian's mouth parted slightly in surprise. 'So this man is… her husband? The father of three children?'
'So handsome? Was the original host blind, chasing after Lin Chengyan and leaving a man like this behind?' She stared at him in daze.
"Ah…" she stammered, quickly regaining her composure and said, "So… are you here to pick me up?"
Xu Yinchen nodded stiffly.
"But I was supposed to reach here earlier. However, I'm already so late. How can you still be here…." She hesitated, her thoughts racing. Could it be that he waited for her this long?
"Did you… Wait for me all this while?"
Xu Yinchen pursed his lips and shook his head. "I was going home and coincidentally found you here."
She smiled awkwardly, a flicker of disappointment in her eyes. But really, what was she expecting? That he'd wait for her?
Her voice dropped slightly. "Oh… I see."
Xu Yinchen said nothing, and she didn't press further.
"Alright," she said softly, adjusting the bag on her shoulder. "Shall we go then?"
Xu Yinchen didn't answer her. Instead, he held his cycle with one hand as he walked toward her. Without a word, he took her bag from her shoulder before she could protest.
Caught off guard, she blinked at him, but he didn't give her a chance to object.
"Be careful," he said calmly. "The road here is uneven, and there are stones everywhere." He said and switched on the small flashlight he had been carrying.
After a few steps, he suddenly stopped again, removed his brown shirt, and handed it to her.
His gaze briefly flicked to her bare arms, which she had been wrapping around herself to keep warm.
It was autumn, though the days remained hot and humid, the nights were starting to get cooler.
"Help me hold it," he said indifferently.
Qin Lian stared at him in confusion, unsure of his intentions. But before she could respond, he had already resumed walking, balancing the bicycle with one hand, holding the flashlight in the other, and carrying her bag over his shoulder.
'Did... did he just give me his shirt because I was cold?' she wondered, uncertainly. Was she overthinking it, or was he genuinely caring for her?
The thought caught her off guard, and a subtle smile tugged at her lips. Draping the shirt over her shoulders, she felt a comforting warmth.
With a soft smile tugging at her lips, she pulled the shirt tighter around her shoulders and followed him silently.
…..
As they walked along the village path, a couple approached from the opposite direction.
The man squinted as he recognized Xu Yinchen. He asked in surprise. "Xu Yinchen? Are you heading home already? Don't you usually stay at the pig farm till late?"
Then his gaze shifted to the young woman walking a few steps behind, who was wearing Xu Yinchen's shirt. The moment he saw Qin Lian, he froze, clearly stunned.
There wasn't a woman this beautiful in their village. No, forget this village; even the neighboring ones had never seen someone like her.
His wife was quicker to recover.
Her eyes narrowed as she studied Qin Lian, curiosity already flaring with a spark of gossip in her eyes. "Eh? Who's this pretty girl?" she asked bluntly, not bothering to lower her voice.
"Xu Yinchen, what's going on? Weren't you engaged to that girl from the Mu family? Didn't that engagement get cancelled?"
Before Xu Yinchen could get a word in, the woman clicked her tongue and crossed her arms.
"No, no, that can't be right," she said, shaking her head.
"I've seen the Mu family's daughter before, and she wasn't this good-looking. One look at this one, and you can tell she's got vixen looks. Don't tell me… You brought another woman home already?"
The man beside her stiffened, clearly embarrassed by his wife's bold tongue. Still, he couldn't deny his own curiosity.
Even so, he knew his boundaries and quickly scolded her. "Gu Lin! Watch what you say!"
But the woman was completely unbothered and waved him off. "Why are you yelling at me? I'm just asking! We live in a decent village, and he's a single man raising children on his own."
She turned her sharp gaze back to Xu Yinchen and Qin Lian with a disgusted look in her eyes. "Xu Yinchen, I know you're desperate and still unmarried, but that doesn't mean you can just bring home any woman you like!"
"At least have some shame!"
She scoffed, then added with a dramatic sigh, "If you were in such a hurry to get married, you should've taken up my proposal back then."
"I told you to marry my cousin! Yes, she's five years older than you and once divorced, but that's no reason to look down on her. She's a good and virtuous woman!"
"It would've been your gain, not hers! She doesn't have any children, and you…" she said, pointing her chin at him, her voice rising, " you already have three bast…. I mean, children to raise!"
Ever since Xu Yinchen rejected her proposal to marry her cousin, Gu Lin had been holding a grudge.
Though her cousin had been divorced for having an affair outside the marriage, she was still better than Xu Yinchen, who had three children to raise.
She had been doing him a favor, and not only was he ungrateful, but he had the nerve to reject her cousin on the spot. What right did he have to act all high and mighty?
Now, seeing such a beautiful girl walking behind him, Gu Lin couldn't hold back. Her anger surged again, and she finally found a perfect excuse to mock him.
Xu Yinchen's expression turned cold. His sharp gaze cut through the night air like a blade, making the woman shrink slightly.
Before he could speak, Qin Lian stepped forward. She crossed her arms and looked Gu Lin straight in the eye; her voice was cold and sharp.
"I'm sorry to interrupt, but if your cousin is truly a virtuous woman, as you say, then why would you try to marry her off to a man you think isn't good enough? Do you hate your cousin that much?"
Gu Lin, who had just been spewing fire a second ago, suddenly froze. The girl's face looked soft and pleasant, but her words cut like a knife.
It caught her completely off guard.