It’s a Stepmother, Not a Sister [70s] - Chapter 16

“No need, I won’t go in.”

Yao Pinglang looked at the woman standing in front of him. She had a shiny black braid hanging down her chest, her celestial face full and her almond-shaped eyes watery, looking exceptionally moist and charming. At first glance, she appeared to be a fortunate person.

Despite being a country girl, she lacked any trace of rusticity. When Yao Pinglang saw her photo for the first time, he felt that she had the appearance of a woman who would bring luck to her husband.

He always remembered her appearance, praising her. Later, when Qi Heng’s mother complained to her, saying that Qi Heng never cared about her marriage, asking her to help arrange a match, Yao Pinglang suddenly thought of this girl. Tentatively mentioning her in front of Qi Heng, she didn’t expect that this marriage would actually happen.

Yao Pinglang was doing this unreliable matchmaker thing for the first time.

After all, she hadn’t even seen the girl’s face, didn’t know much about her family’s current situation, and didn’t know what her personality was like.

Qi Heng, who acted decisively, just brought the girl back.

Her family’s Lao Zhou blamed her for meddling, making a mess of things. She didn’t know how many times he had scolded her recently, making Yao Pinglang feel uneasy.

Seeing this girl today, Yao Pinglang’s heart finally settled down a lot.

“How’s your relationship with Qi Heng… you two as a couple?” As soon as these words came out, even Yao Pinglang herself felt strange. She could actually imagine Qi Heng with a woman.

The organization had arranged matches before. Those nurses, teachers, and cultural workers were all very enthusiastic, but he didn’t show any interest in those pretty, flowery girls, remaining cold and indifferent, not even saying a kind word to them face to face.

After being deceived into meeting someone, he would leave with a black face, angering Lao Zhou, who said he should become a monk.

With his temperament, it was fortunate that he had a handsome face that attracted women; otherwise, those proud girls wouldn’t lower themselves to try to get close to him.

Once, a rather infatuated girl chased after him. He scolded her in the tone of a drill sergeant, and she was so frightened that she cried like a tearful person in the camp, but he just left without looking back.

This incident was widely circulated.

Qi Heng… he also had some “merits” in their unit.

Lao Zhou always felt that Qi Heng should marry a tough and experienced woman who could match him evenly. Only such a woman could control him, could conquer him. And this Jiang family girl in front of them was so pretty, speaking in such a soft and sweet tone…

“Ah? Our relationship…” Jiang Shuangling hesitated for a moment. They were currently just a plastic couple, so they still had to conceal it in front of others, right? “Teacher Yao, we’re doing fine.”

“Fine” was a universal word.

Yao Pinglang stared at her face for a moment, noticing that there was not a hint of difficulty or fear on her face, and her response was very candid.

To make her words more convincing, Jiang Shuangling put on a very bright smile, sweetly and happily saying, “Qi Heng is a good person!”

—A good person who brought her a vegetable garden.

She genuinely meant to give him a ‘good person’ badge, so her smile appeared particularly sincere.

Yao Pinglang was dazzled by her smile. Was this girl smiling too sweetly and happily? The slightly startled Teacher Yao was filled with question marks.

Qi Heng was a good person?

What kind of good person!?

Yao Pinglang: “…”

It was the first time she had heard such an evaluation of Qi Heng from a girl’s mouth.

Could it be that Qi Heng has really changed his ways, and this couple is actually getting along… fine?

Thinking back to the girl’s smile when she looked at the laundry hanging out just now, a storm surge in her heart.

Maybe Qi Heng really did meet a girl he liked…

The more Yao Pinglang thought about it, the more possible it seemed. When he went to see someone before, he was silent, but later, he actually broke his silence to ask her what was needed for marriage. Yao Pinglang listed off the essentials…

Would he have cared about such things before?

Yao Pinglang smiled, thinking it would be great if it were true. “Xiao Jiang, in the future, advises him to relax a bit by his side, not to push himself too hard. People aren’t made of steel. Occasionally, he should take a break, take care of the family, enjoy the pleasures of marriage, don’t you think…”

Was she hitting the nail on the head?

“…”

Feeling guilty, Jiang Shuangling casually nodded twice and bowed her head, raising her hand to rub her face, making her cheeks artificially blush.

At this moment, Yao Pinglang’s gaze passed over her body and into the yard, where she saw the desolate vegetable garden, the pitifully few crooked melons and cracked dates trembling in the wind, looking particularly bleak.

“Xiao Jiang, why don’t you go with Teacher Yao to my house and get some vegetable seeds? I just nurtured some seedlings a few days ago, and it’s time to transplant them.”

“Well, isn’t that a bit inappropriate?”

“What’s inappropriate about it? The sooner you plant, the sooner you’ll harvest.” Yao Pinglang took her wrist and led her into the yard of her own house.

“I have a lot of vegetable seeds at home. My son and daughter have all moved out, and it’s just me and Lao Zhou who can’t finish eating them all. There are already too many vegetable seeds.”

Jiang Shuangling looked at the lush green vegetable garden in Yao Pinglang’s yard, as well as the various tendrils twining around. She couldn’t help but sigh.

She wondered when her own yard would become like this, with fresh vegetables to pick and eat every day.

“Come on, take these. Radishes, greens, cucumbers, string beans, tomatoes…”

“These things are worth very little, just take them as you please. It saves you the trouble of going elsewhere.”

In the corner of the yard, there was a large wooden box, with two or three chickens fenced in beside it—two roosters and a hen. One of the roosters was particularly majestic, with a tall, red comb that stood proudly upright. It crowed a few times upon seeing the newcomers.

Jiang Shuangling’s gaze couldn’t help but follow the chickens, realizing that she might also need to raise a few chickens at home… While thinking about it, she suddenly caught sight of a white lump inside the wooden box.

Walking over to take a look, she found that there were actually three rabbits inside the box.

“Teacher Yao, you’re also raising rabbits?” Rabbits were cute little creatures with high aesthetics, and rabbit meat was delicious. Jiang Shuangling couldn’t help but walk over and touch the soft white fur of the little fellows.

The lazy rabbits nestled in the wooden box without moving.

Jiang Shuangling felt that the big-eyed rabbit resembled her younger brother, Jiang Che.

The other two rabbits were also soft and floppy, their eyes seemingly adorned with red-colored contacts, their long ears drooping backward.

She thought that the rabbits Yao Pinglang raised were all very cute, unlike the meat rabbits she saw decades later, each one fattened to a terrifying extent.

“Yes, it’s suitable to raise rabbits here. Several families raise two or three of them, saving up some rabbit fur to make warm clothes for winter.”

“Then I’ll also raise a few later.”

As Yao Pinglang rummaged around for things for her, she kept chattering away about things related to Qi Heng, clearly wanting to fulfill her role as a matchmaker to the fullest, even though the two matchmakers were already married.

Jiang Shuangling: “…”

After receiving the other party’s matchmaker after-sales service, she already had a rough idea of Qi Heng’s resume—where he graduated from, what he was like. It was mostly Yao Pinglang doing the talking while she listened on the side.

Occasionally, she would ask a question or two. “Teacher Yao, which unit does Qi Heng belong to?”

The first unit? Second unit? Or the third unit?…

“Hmm?” Yao Pinglang was stunned for a moment. “Didn’t he tell you? The battalion he leads belongs to a special category, an independent battalion with special missions, directly under the command of the higher-ups. We women don’t know the specifics of what they do, so don’t ask too much.”

Jiang Shuangling nodded, thinking it was best not to ask anything and not to know anything.

But she couldn’t help feeling a little strange. If she asked too many questions and people suspected her of being a spy, wouldn’t that be a wrongful death?

“Don’t worry, your man’s abilities far exceed his appearance.”

“His individual quality is high, always coming first in competitions, and his commanding ability surpasses…” Yao Pinglang trailed off, realizing the strange expression on the other’s face. It seemed to be a kind of “I’ll just quietly watch you brag” expression.

For a moment, she felt like an unreliable matchmaker.

“You’re quite an interesting kid,” Yao Pinglang said.

Jiang Shuangling looked at the lush green bok choy and suddenly asked, as if remembering something, “Teacher Yao, do you have a radio at home?”

“Yes, I do. Do you want to listen? Come inside with me.”

“Great, Teacher Yao, could you teach me how to use it?”

Jiang Shuangling followed Yao Pinglang into the house and saw the silver-gray bulky radio. Yao Pinglang turned on the radio and showed her how to tune it.

The radio immediately emitted pleasant music, albeit with some static.

“…It’s quite simple to use like this.”

Jiang Shuangling nodded, but as she looked at Yao Pinglang’s radio, she felt that it seemed different from the one at her home.

She pointed to the brand logo on it and asked softly, “Is this the Peony brand?”

“Yes, it is,” Yao Pinglang replied.

Jiang Shuangling thought that perhaps it was because of the different brands. She had a rough idea of the principle behind it, but she still felt a bit puzzled.

The radio at Yao Pinglang’s home was very easy to use, unlike the one she had seen before, which didn’t seem to have any branding, and she couldn’t even find the power switch.

She would explore it further when she got back.

“Oh, by the way, if you need to buy meat, you can go to the auxiliary food store over there. But they don’t have much there; they purchase from the canteen, and it’s not available every day. If you need anything else, you’ll have to go to the town.”

“Okay, thank you, Teacher Yao.”

Jiang Shuangling returned home with vegetable seeds and a lot of green seedlings. She planned to plant the seeds tomorrow and casually planted the seedlings—she really did plant them casually, with the seedlings crooked and twisted but still looking neatly arranged.

When they grew up later, it would be a free-spirited vegetable garden.

Though arranged by human hands, they didn’t look rigid or artificially arranged.

The reason Jiang Shuangling planted them like this was that she had played a survival planting game before. She meticulously planned out patches of vegetable gardens, but in the end, they all caught fire in the summer and burned down, leaving nothing but scorched earth. She had patches missing here and there.

After that, she began to plant haphazardly.

Now that the yard was so big, just as Yao Pinglang had said, there were only four of them in total—two adults and two children. They might not be able to eat all these vegetables, so there was no need for detailed planning.

Growing two tomatoes here, two loofahs there—it should look pretty good.

“I’m not planting greenhouse vegetables anyway. It’s better for them to be crooked and twisted like this, it’s more humane, or should I say, vegetable-like, letting them grow freely.”

Jiang Shuangling found an excuse for herself.

This random choice of freedom was the essence of beauty.