When She Stops Being Dramatic

Chapter 352: Chapter 131: The Green Tea Female Supporting Character in a Period Novel (18)

At this, she pressed her lips together, a joyful smile spreading across her face.

Just a moment ago, Jiang Yihua had been a little disappointed that she’d stopped short instead of throwing herself into his arms. Now, he raised an eyebrow and curiously followed her lead.

"You were being made fun of. How come you’re so happy instead of looking all miserable?"

"You..." he asked, a sliver of hope in his voice, "are you happy that people are pairing us up?"

To his surprise, Chi Yun’er nodded. Just as his heart skipped a beat, she said with a laugh, "They said a partner as devoted as you is a rare species, the kind you’d have to dig three feet down to find. Even a son isn’t that attentive..."

After she spoke, she bit her sleeve and burst into uncontrollable laughter.

’Oh my, from a father figure to a son in just a matter of hours...’

Jiang Yihua narrowed his eyes. He grabbed her by the wrist, pulled her into the room, and slammed the door shut, pinning her hard against it. "Chi Yun’er, who’s the son?"

They were so close their breaths mingled. An intense, hormonal scent enveloped them.

They both froze, staring blankly at each other.

Jiang Yihua’s gaze drifted from her beautiful, dazed, fox-like eyes, down the bridge of her nose, and came to rest on her ruby lips, which were slightly parted as if in invitation.

His Adam’s apple bobbed. A searing heat spread through his body, an itchy, painful sensation like a curse warning him not to do evil, as if he were being fried in a wok of hot oil.

He closed his eyes, then opened them again. Taking a step back, he let her go and ruffled her hair, sighing. "Silly girl, don’t say things like that anymore."

"Hurry up and eat while it’s hot. I’ll go get you some water..."

Watching him leave, Chi Yun’er’s lips curved downward.

Her hearing was good. While the tools were being distributed that afternoon, she’d heard the gossip ripple through the bustling crowd.

About Jiang Yihua’s gynophobia, and the birthmark on her body!

’Heh, no matter the era, you can never underestimate the speed at which gossip travels.’

There were no cell phones or internet here, but the news that someone had spied on her last night—and that she had a heart-shaped birthmark on her chest—had already started to spread across the farm.

Once again, Chi Yun’er felt the malice of the crowd.

If she guessed correctly, some of the female comrades would be enthusiastically inviting her to the bathhouse any minute now!

Chi Yun’er smiled faintly, calmly taking something out of her bag.

She was the warehouse manager. She could freely take many things from the storeroom; a tiny amount could easily be written off as spoilage. It was an unspoken rule of the job.

She poured a cup of plain boiled water, fiddled with the item for a moment, and then applied it to the birthmark on her body. In just two or three minutes, the crimson, heart-shaped birthmark seemed to have vanished!

Even when she leaned close to the mirror, she couldn’t see the slightest trace of it. When she rubbed the spot with her hand, only a faint, grayish residue came off.

Chi Yun’er calmly pulled her collar back into place, put her things away neatly, and began to eat.

Because the double rush harvest was exhausting, everyone worked around the clock like spinning tops. Even the logistics staff were busy from morning till night. As a result, the food in the cafeteria was much better than usual.

A serving of pork belly stir-fried with cucumber slices, a serving of tofu skin stir-fried with bean sprouts, a fried egg, a mixed-flour steamed bun, and a bowl of loofah and egg drop soup.

Chi Yun’er might look slender, but she had a healthy appetite. Plus, it was her first time doing so much manual labor, and she was starving. She managed to stuff all that food into her stomach.

Jiang Yihua returned with the water. After saying he’d get her food for her again tomorrow, he left in a hurry.

After Chi Yun’er had finished washing her meal box, a group of girls from the logistics department walked over, carrying washbasins and chatting and laughing. When they saw her, they exchanged glances, gave her a cryptic smile, and then extended a very enthusiastic invitation:

"Chi, let’s go bathe together! There’s strength in numbers; we can grab a good spot."

"Yeah, we should hurry. We’ll still have a lot to do after our bath. The people in the fields aren’t back to rest yet, so we have to stay on duty at our logistics posts..."

"Chi, go get your clothes. We’ll wait for you here..."

Their enthusiasm made it hard to refuse.

Chi Yun’er hesitated. Under their constant urging, she could only bite her lip and agree with a soft "Okay." She quickly put down her meal box, hastily gathered her things, grabbed her basin, locked the door, and headed off with the large group toward the bathhouse.

In their eyes, this hesitation was because she was afraid of exposing the birthmark on her body.

However, Chi Yun’er probably never expected that on her very first day at the farm, the rumor would have already swept through half of it.

The women exchanged glances. Looking at this pretty, delicate young woman, they felt a pang of pity.

"Is... is this really okay?" one woman, lagging behind, whispered as she tugged on the person next to her. "A woman’s reputation is so important. If something bad happens to Chi, we’ll... we’ll be accomplices!"

The women on either side of her scoffed. "She’s the one with loose morals. How can you blame us? Was she not going to the bathhouse if we didn’t invite her?"

"How come all of us go to the bathhouse, but we’ve never heard about anyone’s birthmark becoming a topic of gossip? Tsk tsk, yet as soon as she arrives, all sorts of rumors are flying everywhere?"

"Exactly. How could a woman like that be worthy of Mr. Jiang? So what if she’s pretty? I don’t believe Mr. Jiang is that shallow! When people get old, their faces are covered in wrinkles and age spots. Who’s prettier than who then?"

After this exchange, they all felt they were doing the right thing.

They were just onlookers, the first to witness the scene.

The bathhouse was large. At the entrance was a small supply cooperative with two or three attendants. Not only did they manage the locker keys and maintain order, but they also sold towels, soap, washbasins, and other related items.

After receiving a numbered key, Chi Yun’er copied the others, slipping the key’s strap onto her wrist and heading toward the women’s bathing area.

As soon as she pushed aside the heavy, thick curtain, she was met with a wall of wooden lockers. The blast of hot, humid air was suffocating.

Chi Yun’er’s eyes darted slightly as she rubbed her chest and frowned.

Since everyone’s attention was on her, someone asked, "What’s wrong, Chi? Are you not feeling well?"

Chi Yun’er chuckled, then nodded and shook her head. "It’s nothing. I haven’t been to a public bathhouse in a long time. I used to go with my mom when I was little, but since growing up, I’ve always bathed at home."

"I just can’t quite handle this stuffy feeling. I don’t know if it’s because I’m weak, or if everyone feels this way."

The group laughed. "You’ll get used to it! We all went through the same thing."

With that, they took their keys, found their lockers, and started to undress.

They had on few clothes since it was summer, so they were undressed in a flash. Then, holding their basins, they waited for Chi Yun’er.

The young woman, however, was frowning and meticulously wiping down the inside of her locker with a handkerchief...

"Chi, your clothes are going to be washed anyway, you can just use them to line the bottom."

"People use these lockers every day, they can’t be that dirty..."

The women commented, speechless. One even rolled her eyes behind her back. ’She’s really putting on a show, acting like she’s never been to a public bathhouse. What’s she trying to prove? Aren’t we all from the city!’

But as they finished speaking, Chi Yun’er stood frozen in place, repeating in a trembling voice, "People use these lockers... every day?"

She looked at the locker, then back at the women. The sense of her composure cracking, the utter collapse conveyed in her stunned expression, was perfectly clear to everyone watching.

’Alright, seeing her, they were finally reminded that they too had once been city girls. They remembered all the things they couldn’t get used to when they first came to the countryside, that fussy attitude that had been slowly ground away by reality.’

Before the group could say anything more, Chi Yun’er bit her lip, closed her eyes, and began to undress with feigned fortitude.

Every eye in the room widened and stared fixedly at her chest. It wasn’t just the girls from the logistics department who had come with her; many others who recognized her also dawdled and detoured to get a better look.

’What does it feel like to have dozens of people blatantly staring at your chest?’ Chi Yun’er was cursing up a storm in her head. ’Even someone with the strongest nerves would go ballistic, right?’

But to debunk the rumor, she had to keep up the act, deliberately and meticulously unbuttoning her shirt one button at a time.