TFRLTOP Chapter 35 Part 1

Chapter 35 – The Educated Youth’s Humble Wife (VIII)

“The late emperor’s great work was unfinished, and he fell midway…”

Yan Junsheng couldn’t sleep. Quietly, he went into the outer room and covered the dishes of food on the table, long since gone cold. The large sack Ming Ming had brought back sat piled in the corner. Standing in the dark, he stared at it for a while, then finally gave in and opened it.

Inside were just ordinary little things—cheap trinkets, small snacks. At the bottom were two old high school textbooks, one for politics and one for Chinese. He glanced at them but didn’t flip them open, then put everything back the way it was.

Back in his room, he lit the oil lamp and began writing a letter. By the time he finished, dawn was breaking. He tidied up and got ready to do the laundry.

A rooster in the yard began to crow. From the back room came a muffled sound of someone disturbed in their sleep. Yan Junsheng went outside and scattered a handful of wheat bran; the rooster immediately stopped crowing and busied itself pecking at the feed.

When Ming Ming finally woke, it was nearly noon. She sat up holding her head, hair a mess, still dazed, and stayed sitting motionless on the bed for a long while.

“You’re up? Come eat,” Yan Junsheng said flatly, leaning against the doorframe.

“Oh.” Ming Ming scratched her head and asked the system what had happened last night.

The system’s reply was cool: “Don’t ask me. I don’t know anything.”

That startled her. Usually, when the system said that, it meant it had been thrown into the “little black room.” And that usually only happened when…

“Wait—we… last night, did we…?” Ming Ming’s face froze in horror. “Didn’t he say he was saving himself for his precious Yuehua?”

“Why don’t you admit you were the one who tried to seduce him?”

“I tried, and he just went along with it? That proves he’s trash at heart! If he were really decent, he would’ve shoved me away!” Ming Ming burrowed under the quilt, voice muffled. “No, something’s off—you’re messing with me!”

“So, did it happen or not?”

“…It didn’t.”

Ming Ming let out a sigh of relief. “Good. He really looks like some old-school cadre—I’d have misjudged him otherwise.”

The system, recalling last night in silence, didn’t want to say another word. It had a bad feeling this world was about to collapse.

Ming Ming got up and washed. A pile of laundry was hanging in the yard—clothes she’d let pile up for too long. She felt a little embarrassed. Turns out Yan Junsheng wasn’t so bad after all.

At the table, Yan Junsheng had set out the food, rice served, just waiting for her. He looked at Ming Ming and said, almost deliberately, “The dishes are leftovers from yesterday. I just reheated them, so make do.”

Ming Ming blinked, thought for two seconds, then caught on. “Wait—you were waiting for me to eat last night, weren’t you?”

Yan Junsheng said nothing. Waited for you to eat? That’s the least of what I did.

But Ming Ming’s polite voice broke his thought: “Oh gosh, you don’t need to wait for me to eat in the future—”

Before she could finish, Yan Junsheng lifted his eyelids and gave her a look. Ming Ming swore she caught a flash of resentment in it.

“…I can always go eat at my dad’s,” she mumbled, voice growing smaller.

He didn’t respond. Instead, he pushed a small plate toward her. “This one I made today.”

Ming Ming glanced down. It was garlic mashed eggs.

“You don’t like it?” he asked when she hesitated.

“No, no, it’s not that.” She quickly picked up a piece, took a bite, and praised, “Delicious!”

Only then did Yan Junsheng relax.

In the countryside, every family raised chickens, but eggs were precious. People usually save them to sell at the market. Even a woman in confinement after childbirth might not get one egg a day. Yet Yan Junsheng had boiled three or four, chopped them up, and mixed them into this dish. Extravagant.

Ming Ming asked the system, “What really happened last night? Why is he acting so weird today? It’s kind of scary…”

“I told you, I don’t know. Maybe today’s a special day for him, and he’s just celebrating alone.”

That explanation actually made Ming Ming feel guilty—especially when she remembered the big meal she’d just had in town with Wang Hu yesterday.

“System, I didn’t brag to him about my feast in town when I got back, did I?”

“No.”

Good. She decided she’d never let that slip.

Ming Ming pushed the garlic eggs toward Yan Junsheng. “Here, you eat more.”

He pushed them back. “I made them for you.”

Made them just for me?

Ming Ming’s head started spinning. She hesitated, then asked, “Is today some kind of special day?”

Yan Junsheng snorted. “Was it some special day when you brought back meat? Or when you went into town yesterday?”

Ming Ming: “…”

“Why is he suddenly so passive-aggressive with me?”

“Did I take advantage of him last night or something?”

The system snapped, “I don’t know! And I don’t want to know!”

Uneasy, Ming Ming stuffed herself with sweet potatoes, but she couldn’t ignore Yan Junsheng’s burning stare. Only when she picked up a piece of garlic egg did the heat in his eyes subside, just a little.

Her whole body went numb.

She couldn’t hold back and blurted, “Nothing happened last night, right?”

His chopsticks froze midair. He stared at her for two seconds, as if weighing her words. Then came his double-edged questions:

“You don’t remember?”

“What do you want to have happened?”

Ming Ming instantly lost all curiosity. She clamped her lips shut.

This man was no good!

That afternoon, Ming Ming lugged her sack around the village until she found where the kids were playing. She began handing out candy and toys.