“What kind of nonsense is this! What do you mean arranged marriage!”
Elder Feng threw the chess piece in his hand down, his face full of anger. Such a big commotion startled He Anning and Jiang Lekang, who were sitting on the sofa nearby.
“Dad, don’t get angry. Of course we know that our family’s A Xiao and Shushu’s marriage isn’t some arranged marriage. It’s all… a great thing between the two kids, completely mutual consent…”
When He Hong said this, she felt a bit guilty. After all, how could she not know whether it was truly mutual consent between the two kids.
But the truth couldn’t be spoken out loud. And more importantly, she genuinely liked this prospective daughter-in-law of hers now and wished from the bottom of her heart to keep her in the family forever.
That was why she was so eager to call her son back quickly, get the marriage certificate done in a flash, and make sure no one else could covet her family’s prospective daughter-in-law.
“But A Xiao and Shushu haven’t gotten married or registered yet. I’m just afraid that with the night long and full of dreams, something might go wrong. After all, you know how excellent and likable Shushu is…”
Seeing Elder Feng’s expression soften a bit, He Hong continued.
“This very afternoon, everyone in the whole compound knew we had such a beautiful and outstanding daughter-in-law like Shushu. They’re all envious and jealous of our family! And quite a few neighbors with eligible young men at home even came to ask about Shushu. They said if our family’s A Xiao doesn’t agree to the marriage, they could take Shushu home…”
Under He Hong’s barrage of words, Elder Feng’s brows furrowed deeper and deeper. He started to worry in his heart about his grandson not having formally married and registered with Qiao Shu. What if… the daughter-in-law they had in hand really got snatched away!
If such a beautiful granddaughter-in-law, just like a fairy, really got taken away by someone…
Just thinking about it made Elder Feng feel a lump in his chest. He couldn’t accept such an outcome!
“Little He, you’re right. A Xiao and Shushu’s marriage can’t be delayed. We need to get these two kids to handle the wedding and register the certificate quickly…”
Hearing Elder Feng’s words, a smile immediately appeared on He Hong’s face.
“Then Dad, see when you can get A Xiao to come back.”
“I’ll call tomorrow and ask about the current battle situation, see if it’s convenient to let A Xiao return.”
Although Elder Feng was anxious about his grandson’s marriage, he was ultimately an outstanding soldier and still prioritized the troops’ situation.
Seeing that his father hadn’t been swept away by his wife’s words, Feng Shengli breathed a slight sigh of relief.
He had been worried that his father, like He Hong, would get carried away with Qiao Shu and Feng Xiao’s marriage and insist on calling Feng Xiao back regardless.
After all, this was a critical time for his son’s future. Every moment of his son’s performance on the front lines would become medals of honor, leading to commendations and promotions later.
So at such an important time, Feng Shengli truly didn’t want family matters to affect his son.
Although he also liked Qiao Shu as a daughter-in-law, how could a daughter-in-law compare to his son’s future.
Downstairs, Qiao Shu had no idea about the thoughts and plans of the Feng Family members. At this moment, she sat properly at the desk in her room, using the fountain pen and notebook He Yingzi had bought her to outline a fairy tale story.
“Hmm…”
Qiao Shu held the fountain pen filled with ink, but she couldn’t write a single word on the paper.
Her pretty brows were tightly furrowed, her eyes full of bewilderment.
Yes, bewilderment.
She, who had never touched children’s literature before, really didn’t know what to write!!!
She had read quite a few fairy tales, and as a homebody, she had watched plenty of anime too. But… asking her to write a fairy tale story, she truly had no idea where to start.
“Sigh…”
Qiao Shu let out a light sigh and finally doodled a simple sketch of a bob-cut little girl on the blank white paper.
“Wow! Little Aunt, you can draw too! Eh, Little Aunt, did you draw me???”
Just as Qiao Shu stared blankly at the notebook in front of her, holding the pen with lifeless eyes, He Anning’s voice suddenly rang in her ears.
Pulled back by the voice, Qiao Shu turned her head and saw that at some point, He Anning and Jiang Lekang, these two little ones, had come in and were now standing one on each side of her.
“Ningning, Kangkang, when did you two come in???”
Qiao Shu looked at the two little ones in confusion. He Anning, worried that her Little Aunt might think she was rude and ill-mannered, hurriedly explained.
“Little Aunt, I knocked just now, but you didn’t seem to hear and didn’t respond, so I got worried and came right in…”
As she spoke, He Anning smiled ingratiatingly at Qiao Shu and apologized very obediently.
“Little Aunt, sorry. We came in without your permission…”
“Little Aunt, sorry.”
Seeing the two children apologize so obediently, Qiao Shu smiled and shook her head. She simply put down the pen in her hand—anyway, she had no inspiration right now—and took their hands to sit on the bed.
“No need to apologize. It’s not your fault. It’s mine for spacing out and not hearing you knock.”
Seeing that Qiao Shu didn’t blame them, He Anning breathed a sigh of relief, her face restoring its full-of-energy smile.
“Fairy Little Aunt, why were you spacing out earlier? And, and, the little person you drew on the paper—is that me???”
Facing He Anning’s string of questions, Qiao Shu looked amused at this little girl who always seemed so full of energy. Suddenly, her earlier bad mood of lacking inspiration to write a fairy tale eased quite a bit.
“Mm, Little Aunt drew you.”
Hearing Qiao Shu say that the little person on the notebook was really her, He Anning jumped up excitedly, her eyes sparkling as she snatched the notebook Qiao Shu had doodled on.
“Wow! It really is me! Little Aunt, you drew it so well! I love it!”
Facing He Anning hugging the notebook and bouncing around excitedly, Jiang Lekang, who was obediently leaning against Qiao Shu, felt a bit aggrieved.
“Little Aunt, Kangkang wants one too. Draw a Kangkang too.”
Looking at the little bun face puffed up in grievance, Qiao Shu couldn’t help but curve her lips.
“Okay, I’ll draw one for our Kangkang too.”
So Qiao Shu took the notebook and pen, sketched a few strokes, and a simple doodle of little bun Jiang Lekang appeared on the paper.
Qiao Shu had specifically bought professional courses to learn drawing. Though her talent was average and her skill level just okay, simple doodles were very easy for her.
So although these two simple doodle figures were basic, Qiao Shu had captured the two little ones’ features perfectly, so anyone could tell at a glance that they were them.
“Wow! It looks just like Kangkang! Kangkang loves it, thank you Little Aunt!”
The little meatball looked at his own doodle and happily jumped up on the bed, excited just like He Anning.
Seeing the two little ones so happy, the irritation in Qiao Shu’s heart vanished completely, and her mood brightened.
“If you like it, Little Aunt will draw more for you.”
With that, Qiao Shu picked up the pen and drew on the paper again. Thus, Qiao Shu and the two little ones played around with doodles happily.
After Qiao Shu drew about ten drawings, the two little ones gradually fell asleep amid the joyful play.
After they fell asleep, Qiao Shu tucked them in with the blanket and then quietly sat back at the desk.
Just now, while laughing and playing with the two little ones, she had unexpectedly sparked some creative inspiration.
She picked up the pen. Unlike earlier when she had no inspiration and couldn’t put pen to paper, now she wrote as if possessed.
“Swish swish swish!” Qiao Shu wrote the story outline and main character designs on the paper.
Soon, a complete story outline was finished.
Since this was her first submission to a children’s magazine, Qiao Shu planned to write a short story first to test the waters and see if it could pass review.
So she selected one particularly engaging plot from the outline and wrote a short story of about fifteen hundred words.
With inspiration and the outline, Qiao Shu wrote quickly.
After finishing and revising some wording, just as she was about to put down the pen and stretch, a knock sounded at the door.
Qiao Shu glanced at the two little ones sleeping on her bed with flushed faces, sweetly. She knew it must be He Hong coming for the kids.
She quickly went to the door and opened it. Sure enough, He Hong stood there.
“Shushu, are Ningning and Kangkang in your room?”
“Mm, Mom, speak softly. The two little ones are asleep on my bed.”
Qiao Shu nodded and said softly.
Hearing Qiao Shu, He Hong instinctively lowered her voice and tiptoed into the room.
When she saw He Anning and Jiang Lekang sleeping with rosy cheeks, she couldn’t help but sigh inwardly that her two grandchildren really liked Qiao Shu.
Normally, these two little ones were the hardest to coax to sleep, but now they slept so soundly on Qiao Shu’s bed.
“This is…”
Suddenly, He Hong noticed the drawing papers tightly clutched in the two little ones’ hands.
Looking at the papers with simple lines that vividly outlined He Anning and Jiang Lekang’s appearances, He Hong’s face was full of surprise.
“Shushu, you can draw too.”
Although He Hong didn’t know art, she could see. With just a few strokes, she captured her grandchildren’s images perfectly, so she must know some drawing.
“It doesn’t really count. I just love reading books and messing around with what I learned from them.”
Qiao Shu smiled a bit embarrassedly and said softly.
Hearing this, He Hong looked at the doodle figures on the papers and liked her humble and beautiful prospective daughter-in-law even more.
Now she felt even more like they had picked up a treasure and was even more eager for her son to hurry back, get married, and register.
After carrying the five-year-old Jiang Lekang back to her room, He Hong looked at Feng Shengli reading on the bed and sighed deeply as she recounted everything she had seen.
“Our daughter-in-law is really too outstanding. She can draw too, and from what I saw, she draws pretty well. She made our two grandchildren so happy…”
Hearing He Hong’s praise, Feng Shengli put down his book. Though he was a bit surprised that Qiao Shu could draw, what he cared more about was—
“Shushu is indeed a good child, very patient with kids. In the future, when she goes to the small island where A Xiao’s unit is stationed, she’ll get along well with Little Guang and Little Yue too.”
He Hong, who had been praising Qiao Shu, frowned instinctively upon hearing her husband.
“Old Feng, Shushu marrying into our family isn’t to be a stepmother. I say, why not just let Shushu stay here with us all the time. She’s still so young, just a kid herself. How can she be a stepmother? Besides, Little Guang is twelve, only seven years younger than Shushu…”
Truth be told, she had opposed her son adopting those two Martyrs’ Orphans back then. After all, her son wasn’t that old himself, and most importantly, he wasn’t married and was single.
Unfortunately, the whole family supported her son. Even when she offered to have their family adopt the two kids and register them under her name, her son refused.
Now, no matter how she thought about it, she felt they were treating Qiao Shu too unfairly!
A nineteen-year-old girl already becoming stepmother to two kids…
“What nonsense. She’s A Xiao’s wife, so she definitely has to follow A Xiao to his post. How can she live here with us all the time? If others found out, they’d laugh that we didn’t marry a wife but raised another daughter.”
Feng Shengli shook his head disapprovingly. He felt that Qiao Shu could stay with them for a short while, but once his son returned, held the wedding, and obtained the marriage certificate, his daughter-in-law should leave with his son.
If she lived there permanently, that definitely wouldn’t do.
Hearing her husband say this, He Hong sighed lightly. She also understood that Qiao Shu definitely couldn’t stay with them forever.
So she thought for a moment and spoke again: “Then… then let’s bring Xiao Guang and Ningyue here to live with us. The two children were getting older, and the educational resources on the island were ultimately not as good as those in the Capital. Bringing them here would also allow for better development of them…”
He Hong truly loved Qiao Shu dearly. Although she had never been a stepmother before, how could she not understand that being a stepmother was no easy task?
So after pondering it over, she still felt that bringing back those two stepson and stepdaughter whom her youngest son had adopted would separate them from Qiao Shu. That way, there would be no issue of whether being a stepmother was good or bad.
They wouldn’t live together, so even if someone wanted to find fault, there would be nowhere to nitpick.
“Mm… indeed, the educational resources on the small island definitely weren’t as good as in the Capital. However, let’s discuss this matter when A Xiao returns. After all, no matter what, those were his children.”
Feng Shengli also understood his wife’s thinking. If his son agreed, he felt that this approach was indeed quite good.
After all, Qiao Shu was just a nineteen-year-old girl who had only just come of age, and the little girl was so obedient and sensible too. He also hoped that the little girl could live a relaxed and smooth life.
……
—Military Family Courtyard on a Certain Small Island—
“Sister Ma, it’s been so many days now—why hasn’t Regiment Leader Feng’s wife arrived yet???”
Having prepared everything, successfully brainwashed Feng Qiguang and Feng Ningyue, dug all the pits, and just waiting for Regiment Leader Feng’s wife to jump in, Ning Xue waited left and right, stared at the stars and moon in anticipation, but still hadn’t seen the person.
This made her unable to sit still. Feeling both puzzled and delighted, she went to find Commissioner Jiang’s wife, Ma Cuilan.
She wondered if the marriage was fake and there actually was no wife? Or… perhaps the wedding had been canceled???
Otherwise, after all this time, why hadn’t Regiment Leader Feng’s wife come to the small island?
However, reality gave her a heavy blow.
“Ning Xue, little sister, I heard that Regiment Leader Feng’s family really values their family’s daughter-in-law. Regiment Leader Feng’s wife is staying at his parents’ place first. They’ll bring his wife to our small island once Regiment Leader Feng returns.”
Ma Cuilan’s words completely shattered Ning Xue’s hopes, sending her heart plummeting.
“How… how could this be… As Regiment Leader Feng’s wife, shouldn’t she come to our small island to properly take care of Regiment Leader Feng’s children…”
Ning Xue struggled to control the expression on her face, clenching her fists as she muttered.
Ma Cuilan had a straightforward personality by nature and didn’t notice Ning Xue’s true emotions. Instead, she continued marveling at how good the Feng Family was to Regiment Leader Feng’s daughter-in-law-to-be.
“Who says otherwise? But I heard from my old Jiang that the Feng Family particularly pities Regiment Leader Feng’s little wife. She’s only nineteen, so she’s quite pitiable—they took her to the Capital first. They said they’ll have her come to the island after holding the wedding with Regiment Leader Feng. It’s clear that Regiment Leader Feng’s parents really like that little wife…”
Listening to Ma Cuilan’s words, Ning Xue felt furious and jealous as she dug her fingernails into her palm. At that moment, she felt no pain at all—only a stifling discomfort in her heart.