Inside the pitch-black Mongolian tent, heat waves rolled.
From Jiang Wanwan's full lips came an unbearable murmur, "... P...pain... Let go of me..."
Wasn't she dead?
Why would she still feel pain?
She felt heavy, so hard, as if suffocating in a deep abyss of water and fire.
Perhaps due to her words, the hands roaming her body abruptly halted. The man's heavy gasping intensified, with his hot breath blazing on her ear.
A cold gust of wind blew in, lifting the curtain.
Jiang Wanwan became somewhat lucid, prying her eyes open.
She saw a figure in front of her, vague, tall, muscular, with unkempt long hair.
Th- th- this...
How could it be so familiar?
The man bit his teeth as if to suppress a bloody taste, resisting the urge to hold Jiang Wanwan tightly, his entire body trembling.
The wind blew stronger, and Jiang Wanwan became more alert.
Once lucid, her mind was flooded with complex emotions.
She had been reborn!
She reincarnated a year after her family was broken and everyone had died. Her father was gone, her mother had remarried her uncle, and her brother and she went their separate ways, being sent off to different parts of the world.
Her assigned location was a remote area in Inner Mongolia, Chakar production team.
What burdened her was a mute man from the poorest family in the Chakar production team. He was specifically sought out for her by her cousin, Jiang Lian.
After the drugs were distributed, people immediately came to arrest them for adultery. Someone would also find aphrodisiacs in her pack. She, an educated youth exiled from the capital, was soon to carry the reputation of seduction and drugging people.
The twist was the mute man would take the blame for her, admitting that he distributed and hid the drugs, doing all these just to marry Jiang Wanwan.
Having lost her innocence, Jiang Wanwan was forced to marry him. After their marriage, she couldn't help but fall for Zhang Zhiqing.
Zhang Zhiqing said he had a way to take her far away and lead a good life. She was moved.
And ran away!
But no sooner had she run away than she was sold by Zhang Zhiqing for prostitution!
She fought desperately for her liberation, bit her tongue, disfigured her face, but people despised her. They broke her limbs and left her to beg for money, with nothing to eat but rotten rice and endless slop water.
She lived like this for more than a decade until she was close to death.
Before her death, Jiang Wanwan felt that she had lived her life...in the most inhumane way, worse than an animal!
But not long after her remorse, her cousin, Jiang Lian, found her.
And told her a fact.
Actually, Jiang Wanwan should not have ended up like this.
Not only should she not have ended up like this, but she should also have been wealthy and highly esteemed!
The situation as it stands resulted from Jiang Lian's extreme cunning and formidable means; she somehow managed to swap their fates using some secretive method.
Jiang Wanwan is bearing Jiang Lian's destiny.
Jiang Lian has stolen her kindness, wealth, betrothed, and wisdom!
Jiang Lian has not only stolen everything from her but also managed to win over Jiang Wanwan's mother for her father.
In simpler terms, the man whom Jiang Wanwan's mother remarried is her biological uncle, Jiang Lian's father.
Merely stealing from her was not enough for Jiang Lian, she even planned a life of begging for Jiang Wanwan for over a decade.
But when she saw Jiang Wanwan was on the verge of death, she was still not satisfied.
Because despite everything, there was still someone who cared about Jiang Wanwan.
Yes, the mute husband whom Jiang Wanwan had abandoned.
That man is a person of great significance.
In less than two decades, from a bumpkin who herded sheep and planted rice, he joined the army for two years and became a group leader, and in recent years, he has become a multinational CEO, his financial network reaching the four corners of the city, doing hundreds of times better than Jiang Lian's man.
A man like him, unmarried his entire life, always trying to locate his beloved wife Jiang Wanwan in every interview.
Despite the dissatisfaction, it was Jiang Lian who ultimately won in the end!
Jiang Lian flashed a triumphant smile at Jiang Wanwan, sending her off with a wave.
How could...this happen...
He...had been looking for her all along?
Upon hearing this, Jiang Wanwan spat out a mouthful of metaphorical old blood, dying from sheer anger!
...
Perhaps the heavens saw her misery and decided to give her a second chance at life.
Jiang Wanwan laughed, gradually dissolving into sobs.
Jiang Lian!
In this lifetime!
You won't get the chance to covet my good fortune!
What you seeded yesterday, you will taste personally today!
Jiang Wanwan's voice was exceptionally soft. Her weeping carried a frailty, a pitiful tone. More so, she was genuinely heartbroken. Her cries conveying endless sorrow.
The man on top of her was startled and hurried to move away.
But Jiang Wanwan grasped him, haphazardly leaning over to kiss him.
She started at his throat, his slightly sharp chin, the area between his eyebrows, and finally landing on his lips, pressing herself into him.
The man was stunned!
His firm and bulging muscles were tensed to the limit, harder than a rock.
It was as if he had been struck by lightning.
But he was a man, unable to resist such a tease, quickly turned the tables, and kissed Jiang Wanwan until she was panting.
...In the crucial moment, the man slowed down, paused at the threshold, nudged his waist, and used action to ask Jiang Wanwan, was it really okay?
Jiang Wanwan, clinging to his shoulders, said emphatically: "...I want you."
One sentence.
Jiang Wanwan experienced pleasure that lasted longer than even in her past life.
Afterwards, the outside was beginning to brighten.
The man was holding Jiang Wanwan tightly in his arms, as if cradling the most precious treasure in the world.
Sweat trickled from Jiang Wanwan's forehead, moistening the hair at her temples that stuck onto her face. She panted lightly, her cheeks flushing like a Sari flower blooming on the grassland, enchanting the man.
With her last strength, she demanded recognition: "I'm already yours, you have to take responsibility for me."
Unsaid, of course he would take responsibility.
The difference between saying and not saying was that Jiang Wanwan wanted to prove it was her own choice.
The man stiffened as he held her.
Jiang Wanwan didn't plan to wait for his response. After all, he was a mute, she couldn't make things hard for him.
She lifted her head, wanting to see his expression. Was he shocked or was he happy?
Just as she was about to lift her head, she heard the man's low, raspy voice: "Guilt, guilt, guilt... I'm guilty!"
Jiang Wanwan: "?"
Now it was her turn to be taken aback.
"Aren't you a mute?"
The question was straight to the point.
The man... Shen Xingjiang, he gently rubbed Jiang Wanwan's hair, saying, "I... am not... mute..."
Jiang Wanwan: "..."
"Then why were you pretending to be mute? That day when I was sent down, it was you who drove the tractor to pick us up. I asked if you wanted water, but you didn't respond."
"Later, the roof of our youth brigade collapsed, and when you went to fix it, you ignored me too."
"Last night, Lin Youshuang tricked us into coming here, and when I asked what happened, you still didn't speak. I've known you for over a month and have seen you no less than eight or ten times, but you've never spoken to me!"
This wasn't just a matter of a few times. In her understanding of more than a decade, Shen Xingjiang was a mute.
Jiang Wanwan pushed him away. Shen Xingjiang eased up a bit, but didn't completely let go.
Slowly, Jiang Wanwan propped up her body with her elbows. With Shen Xingjiang lying on the quilt, she looked at him from above, her eyes intense as she decided to burst the bubble and get to the bottom of it.
She had the confidence to ask.
Because no matter what, before and after their marriage, Shen Xingjiang was always compliant towards her.
If this wasn't the year 1975, but instead the Shang Dynasty, Shen Xingjiang would undoubtedly be a notorious tyrant.
Far off in the prairie, the sky began to show the white of a fish's belly, growing increasingly bright in the blink of an eye. The light, which was previously a blend of blue, white, and black, was now bathed in lunar white.
It was bright enough to see the color of the skin, the shapes, and contours.
Shen Xingjiang glanced at the area below Jiang Wanwan's collarbone, his throat bobbing a little.
Continuing to pretend to be a mute.
Jiang Wanwan:"?"
She bit her lower lip, with temptingly sweet smile: "Shen Xingjiang, tell me why you're pretending to be mute?"
