Chapter 79 - First Update

Qin Yao knew that Xiao Pan was keen on catching enemy spies. She deliberately and casually revealed, "Nurse Xu has been behaving oddly these past few days..."

She hesitated, her expression mysterious, and didn’t elaborate. Despite repeated questioning, she refused to elaborate—sure enough, Xiao Pan fell for it.

Xiao Pan silently observed Nurse Xu, and he indeed found something amiss. This Nurse Xu, who had an excellent reputation in the hospital, was revered as a model wife and mother, known for her loving and harmonious marriage, a kind and affable demeanor, and an elegant temperament, earning her great respect.

However, this nurse, who was gentle and warm in front of others, actually revealed a shocking, eerie grin behind their backs.

Witnessing Nurse Xu's "changing face" made Xiao Pan’s skin crawl, and at the same time, he felt extremely excited.

If this woman isn’t an enemy agent, I’ll spell my name backwards.

To catch a thief, you need proof; to catch an adulterer, you need a pair.

Xiao Pan began to secretly observe and quietly follow Nurse Xu. The more he observed, the more he found discrepancies. This Nurse Xu was sneaky, with a duplicitous nature, smiling eerily behind people’s backs.

Xiao Pan went to his girlfriend, Jiang Xiaomiao. He asked her to get close to Nurse Xu.

Jiang Xiaomiao was a lazy woman, but the prospect of catching enemy agents and earning a reward intrigued her. Though Jiang Xiaomiao was lazy, she was quite clever. She casually took a ‘note’ from Nurse Xu and discovered that Nurse Xu and her husband were involved in trafficking and misappropriating hospital medical supplies.

Although not enemy agents, this was still a big catch—"We’ve really hit the jackpot!"

Xiao Pan and Jiang Xiaomiao jointly reported Nurse Xu and her husband.

This led to the arrest of two major parasites.

First, Nurse Xu’s husband was secretly taken away for questioning, and soon after, Xu was arrested. When she was taken from her home, she was unaware that her husband’s activities had been exposed.

Nurse Xu remained defiant, believing that as long as she didn’t confess, she would be safe. She had already prepared her defense on this point.

However, the investigators didn’t ask about her haunting behavior in the hospital.

"How much do you know about your husband's activities?"

...

A series of questions left Nurse Xu in a cold sweat. It turned out that her husband's affairs had been exposed, catching her off guard.

But Nurse Xu was very cunning and quickly adjusted her mindset. She and her husband had agreed that if something happened on his side, he would take all the blame, and she would act as if she knew nothing.

Over the years, Nurse Xu had carefully cultivated her image. Everyone in the hospital knew her as a gentle and harmless white lotus. How could she possibly be involved in her husband’s crimes?

She had been deceived!

"I know nothing. I had no idea what he was doing. If I had known, I would have stopped him!"

Nurse Xu wiped her tears with a timid expression, a pitiful and lovable appearance, knowing that a weak woman would evoke sympathy.

In places unseen by others, Nurse Xu confidently curved her lips upwards. "Weakness" was her best shield.

However, before long, the interrogator asked again:

"Many people in the hospital have testified that they often saw you showing eerie and malicious smiles."

"Xu Yun, you’re not as simple as you appear."

"Did you instigate your husband to commit these crimes?"

Xu Yun panicked. How is it possible? "I've never laughed inappropriately in the hospital. This must be Qin Yao falsely accusing me out of personal vendetta!"

"At least three witnesses said you often showed a cruel smile behind people's backs."

"Xu Yun, what exactly are you plotting behind the scenes? Because of your suspicious behavior, many people have long suspected you of being a spy. What exactly do you want to do? How were you contacting the other side?"

Xu Yun's eyes widened. A spy? She had been branded as a spy. Xu Yun shuddered involuntarily. Compared to the charge of being a spy, pretending to be supernatural was nothing.

"I didn't. Qin Yao can testify. All I did was intimidate her. I'm not a spy."

"Intimidation? Why would you intimidate her?"

"She got my niece sentenced. My niece stole something and was identified by her. I just wanted to teach her a small lesson. I really didn't mean to do anything serious, waah." Tears of regret streamed down Xu Yun's face.

Xu Yun was dismissed from the hospital for engaging in feudal superstitions and pretending to be supernatural, and her husband was also investigated, dismissed, and reassigned for illegal activities.

Although Xiao Pan didn't catch a spy, he was praised by the hospital, which gave him a lot of attention and an eighty-yuan bonus.

After this incident, Qin Yao told the story to Gu Cheng as if it were a joke. Qin Yao hadn't expected that Xu Yun's family situation would be so severe. She had thought they would only find out that Xu Yun was engaging in superstitious practices and pretending to be supernatural, but it turned out her husband had been secretly embezzling materials.

This couple was really bold. Like attracts like.

At that time, although the atmosphere was strict, some people were still very bold. Sister-in-law Xie Hongni had once told her that in the hospital where her father worked, there had been several cases of nurses being mysteriously assaulted while working the night shift. Now, without cameras, they couldn't catch the person, but many people knew who was behind it and didn't dare to speak up.

There were even more incidents in the countryside.

Qin Yao thought gratefully that in this era, staying in staff residences and family compounds was actually the safest place. Everyone in the neighborhood knew each other, and it was safer to stay indoors at night.

"Why didn't you tell me about this sooner?" Gu Cheng, after hearing about Xu Yun's situation, couldn't laugh. His face was filled with anger. "You didn't tell me about such a serious matter?"

Gu Cheng felt an immense hatred. As a husband, his wife had encountered such a thing, and he couldn't protect her personally, nor could he go to her unit to defend her. Instead, she had been harassed by a deceitful and unstable woman.

And he had been completely unaware of it.

Gu Cheng tightly held the woman in his arms. His hands were trembling. Qin Yao pushed his chest, "You're hurting me."

Qin Yao hadn't expected such a big reaction from Gu Cheng.

Qin Yao looked up at Gu Cheng and was startled to see the fiery anger in his eyes.

She had never seen him this angry before.

"I can't bear to see anyone bully you." Gu Cheng held her tightly. The more he thought about it, the more terrifying it became. This time it was a woman pretending to be supernatural, but what if next time it was a despicable man trying to harm his Yaoyao? And Qin Yao hadn't told him.

Being away in the military for so long, it was not uncommon for wives to be unfaithfully approached by others.

Gu Cheng thought about the window of the second-floor bedroom at home. If I can climb through the window, so can anyone else. Although the family compound was patrolled at night, it wasn't entirely safe. Sometimes, these incidents involved people you knew.

Many women adhered to moral principles and had much stronger self-control than men. Men, constrained by their physiology, had poor self-control. They often acted on their base instincts, and when impulses came, they lost control.

There had been a major incident when a female family member came to visit. Even when people encountered such things, they didn't dare to speak up and mostly endured it silently.

"What made you think all these things? No one harmed me." Qin Yao held the man in front of her. Strangely, even though he was so furious, she didn't feel any fear. Instead, she deeply sensed his anxiety and unease.

Gu Cheng was afraid and uneasy.

The first time she met Captain Gu, he seemed overly confident and arrogant, giving the impression that he had everything under control.

Now that she has known him for a while, Qin Yao increasingly feels that men are fragile creatures, like porcelain. They appear hard on the outside but are actually fragile. Women, however, seem delicate but are very resilient. Females have a greater capacity for endurance.

"I'm afraid you'll be bullied and I'll be powerless to help," Gu Cheng said through gritted teeth. "Right now, you're not being bullied, but if the day comes when you really are, even if I took a knife to the person, it would be too late."

"Yaoyao, you're too thin. Gain some weight."

Qin Yao: "?"

What is this now?

Gu Cheng began to miss the time when he first met Qin Yao and she was pleasantly plump. Compared to then, the current Qin Yao seemed weak and fragile.

"If I gain weight, you’ll think I’m ugly, like all men do." Qin Yao really didn't want to drag around a body full of fat. She found it exhausting. When she first arrived, she weighed 140 pounds and found it tiring to walk with so much extra weight, a natural "burden."

Don’t assume that fat people are just covered in fat. Anyone who carries extra weight must build muscle.

After losing weight, walking became much easier.

Qin Yao clicked her tongue. "If your wife becomes ugly, you'll feel more at ease, right?"

"The first time I met you, I didn’t think you were ugly. You were very beautiful." Gu Cheng stroked her hair. It could be said that beauty is in the eye of the beholder. When he fell for Qin Yao, she was a 140-pound chubby girl, and he had never minded her weight.

"Being heavier provides strength."

Captain Gu was a pragmatist.

Qin Yao: "..." Was this man going to force her to learn boxing and fighting techniques?

"Do you want me to be able to fight men?"

Without bragging, among the women in this family compound, no one could beat her. Qin Yao had been overweight and had slimmed down through exercise. She had strength. A slim man of 1.7 meters might not even match her strength.

"Stop dreaming." Gu Cheng grabbed Qin Yao's wrist. "Don’t make futile attempts. The disparity in strength between men and women is significant. I can easily control you. Your struggles are like tickles to me."

Qin Yao: "This is sexism."

"It’s not exactly sexism. If you were taller and stronger than me, I'd acknowledge your strength. If you work hard to reach 200 pounds, prove it to me, Yaoyao."

"Your weight loss is reducing your strength."

"Don’t worry about the extra fat. It can help you live longer. In extreme situations, the thinnest people die quickest."

Qin Yao: "..."

At this moment, Comrade Qin deeply felt the difference in how men and women think.

But she also reflected on whether she had been overly influenced by the ‘white, young, and thin’ beauty standards of the future. She always thought that being thin was the key to beauty.

"Gain some weight and give me a little tiger girl."

Qin Yao furrowed her brow, dissatisfied. "Don’t keep talking about a little tiger girl. It makes me feel uncomfortable, like I’m just a baby-making machine. Are all these things you’re doing just so I’ll give birth to a daughter for you? After we have a daughter..."

Qin Yao didn't continue, but perhaps in her mind, she also thought this was incorrect. She did want a daughter, but she was afraid that once the child was born, everyone—Gu Cheng, her parents, and her in-laws—would focus more on the child than on her.

Of course, this daughter could be replaced by a son.

This thought was like competing with the children for affection. Maybe she was a selfish person, afraid of losing the love of her family. She was especially afraid that Gu Cheng would pay more attention to someone else, even if that person was their child.

She had worked hard to achieve all of this. She had only been here for a year, and she had close girlfriends, a lover, her parents’ affection, the concern of her brother and sister-in-law, and even her mother-in-law doted on her.

Qin Yao didn’t want anyone to come and take away the love she had so soon.

"That’s not what I meant," Gu Cheng was startled for a moment, "Yaoyao, I didn’t think about it much. The idea of having a child is still unclear to me."

Qin Yao said with annoyance, "You just need to speak, but it’s me who suffers."

"Then I won’t bring it up. We don’t need a little tiger girl," Gu Cheng smiled faintly, "It should be like this, Yaoyao. If you’re uncomfortable, just tell me. A lot of what I say is unintentional. Having a little tiger girl isn’t that important."

"I’m not really opposed to it. I just need you to show some consideration," Qin Yao grabbed his palm. Gu Cheng’s hands were very warm, and his words warmed her heart.

Gu Cheng lowered his head and kissed her forehead, not letting go of Qin Yao’s hand. He felt uneasy because he was going on a mission soon, and he wouldn’t return for at least two or three months. Qin Yao would be alone at home and had recently faced such an issue, which made him panic.

He felt both resentment and guilt, resenting his own helplessness, feeling guilty for not being able to stay by her side.

Before he left, Gu Cheng planned to seal half of the bedroom window and told Qin Yao to sleep in the same room with Chen Baozhen and Gao Yingzi at night, even if it meant sharing a bed with them. They could look out for each other.

"Let’s wait two years before having a child." That night, Gu Cheng dutifully wore a condom, and he suddenly felt relieved that they had plenty at home, enough for a while.

Qin Yao looked at him, wanting to speak but held back. Her last period hadn’t been long ago, and although it wasn’t confirmed yet, she always felt that it was already late.