Female Lead?

Female Lead?

Zhou Chenglei came to the bedside and looked down at Jiang Xia. His tall, upright frame, nearly six foot three, made him seem like a mountain—cold, stern, imposing, and intensely aggressive.

Jiang Xia looked at him too.

The original owner had liked fair, refined, gentle men, but she did not. She liked this kind—aggressive in both features and temperament, cold, abstinent, and overwhelmingly powerful.

Just look at that body: broad shoulders, narrow waist, long legs. Even the white shirt could not hide the faintly visible lines beneath it...

That body was absolutely incredible! Zhou Chenglei noticed that Jiang Xia was looking at him differently. Before, her eyes had been full of disgust. Now...

She was only one step short of drooling.

Sure enough, her brain had been fried by the fever! "I'll take you to the Health Clinic," he said coldly.

"Oh, all right. Thank you." Jiang Xia did not force herself to be strong. This body was probably still running a fever, and it hurt all over.

Since she had already transmigrated here, she could not just lie there and wait to die. If she was ill, she needed treatment as soon as possible.

She lifted the blanket and got out of bed. The moment her feet touched the ground, her vision went black and the world spun around her...

Then a powerful arm swept her into a solid chest.

Jiang Xia was sprawled against him. Even though the dizziness had not passed, she could clearly feel what a wall of bronze and rampart of iron was.

This chest was far too solid, wasn't it? These arms were far too strong, weren't they? How did he train?

She instinctively pushed at him, but had no strength. It felt more like she had merely pressed him once.

Zhou Chenglei: "..."

He simply picked her up in his arms and placed her back on the bed.

"I'm going to borrow a tractor from the Production Team." His voice was glacial.

Jiang Xia watched his tall figure stride away, looking rather like he was fleeing in defeat.

She covered her face!

Just now, it was like she had teased him!

This was already the second time she had frightened him into fleeing in defeat.

Just ten minutes ago, when she had first awakened and thought she was dreaming, she had already "gotten handsy" with him and teased him once.

Zhou Chenglei strode out of the house as if the wind were beneath his feet, not even hearing Mother Zhou ask where he was going.

That woman really was seriously ill. The fever had turned her stupid!

*Ten minutes later, Jiang Xia sat on the rumbling tractor, wrapped up tightly in a thin quilt.

Zhou Chenglei had wrapped the quilt around her, and Zhou Chenglei had carried her onto the tractor too.

Watching Zhou Chenglei bustle around her, Tian Caihua pursed her lips and thought, She does not even care for him, yet he treats her like a treasure. He is practically asking for it! Still, she could not keep her mouth shut and said, "Jiang Xia looks quite energetic to me. Does she really need to go to the hospital? Who has not had a fever? She can just tough it out and it'll pass. Why waste that money going to the hospital?"

Leaning weakly against the side of the tractor bed, Jiang Xia said, "Eldest Sister-in-Law is right. There is no need to go to the hospital for a fever. If you tough it out, it might get better. If you are lucky, you can save ten or twenty yuan. If you are unlucky, the fever turns you into an idiot, and then Eldest Sister-in-Law can support me for the rest of my life. If I am even more unlucky and burn to death, Eldest Sister-in-Law can support my parents in my place."

Tian Caihua: "...Looks like she really is seriously ill. Go on, then! Hurry up and go. Don't come back unless she's cured!"

It was not her money being spent anyway!

The tractor rumbled and jolted along the bumpy country road.

Along the way, they met several women carrying hoes, baskets of vegetables, or shoulder poles with buckets. Seeing Zhou Chenglei driving a tractor with Jiang Xia, they asked curiously, "Chenglei, where are you two going so late?"

"Taking the tractor out? Are you going into the city?"

Everyone's gaze could not help falling on Jiang Xia.

Jiang Xia did not know any of them, so she did not greet them, merely maintaining a polite smile.

"Going out for a bit," Zhou Chenglei replied, and the tractor chugged away.

The women behind them could not help discussing it.

"Do you think Zhou Chenglei is sending her away overnight?"

"One hundred percent! Jiang Xia ran off with another man. Zhou Chenglei's head is so green it could drip oil—how could he still want her? If it were me, I would have driven her out long ago!"

"You can tell just by looking at that woman that she is not one to stay in her place. They are probably going to get divorced."

"The Zhou family is doing pretty well too. They have even built a New House, and they have a boat. Zhou Chenglei is capable too, so why does she look down on him?"

"What does the Zhou family amount to? It would have been all right if Zhou Chenglei had not given his job to his Second Brother, but now he is just a fisherman. Jiang Xia is a city girl. I heard her father is an official, her mother is a Factory Director, and she herself is educated. Her family has money too, so naturally she looks down on Zhou Chenglei."

"That is why you should marry someone of equal social standing. What business does a fisherman have marrying an educated woman? Educated women do not look like the sort who know how to run a household. Even if you marry one, you cannot keep her. And if they divorce, who knows whether the Betrothal Gifts can be recovered?"

"I heard those Betrothal Gifts were more than two thousand yuan, weren't they?"

"Who the hell knows?"

The tractor rumbled on, and Jiang Xia did not hear the village women's gossip. She lay against the edge of the tractor bed, admiring the vast fields stretching along both sides of the village road beneath the lingering glow of the setting sun.

The air was so good. Even the wind was incomparably gentle, carrying a faint scent of the sea.

Jiang Xia had learned from the book that this was a fishing village close to the ocean, and most of the villagers made their living by fishing.

Suddenly, the tractor stopped. A strong, strange odor drifted over on the wind, along with a chorus of sheep bleating.

She leaned out to look and saw a young woman in a white floral dress holding back a flock of black sheep on the small road, keeping them from crossing it.

After stopping the flock, the young woman smiled sweetly at Zhou Chenglei. "Brother Zhou, you go first."

Zhou Chenglei stopped the tractor. He had not heard what she said, but he guessed it. Pointing toward the other end of the small road, he said, "You go first."

After saying that, he instinctively turned around and glanced back.

He had nearly forgotten!

Jiang Xia hated encountering flocks of sheep most of all. Wherever they passed, they left black sheep droppings all over the ground, pellet after pellet, leaving nowhere to step. The sheep also smelled strong.

The last time they had returned from visiting her family, after getting off at the Bus Station, he had walked her home and they had encountered a flock once. She had nearly thrown up.

But the current Jiang Xia had grown up following Grandmother around the Vegetable Market since she was three. What smell had she not encountered? She did not find it unpleasant at all. Instead, she curiously studied the girl tending the sheep before her.

In the book, the female lead was a girl who tended sheep.

Her family kept a flock of black sheep.

Every day after school, she had to come home and tend the sheep. If she failed to look after them properly, her stepmother would beat her viciously.

So this fair-skinned, sweet-looking girl who did not resemble a rural girl at all was Wen Wan, the female lead in the book? Worthy of being the female lead, she was quite beautiful—delicate and slender, with an otherworldly air as still as a maiden.

A flock of black goats, a girl in a white dress, endless green fields behind her, and brilliant evening clouds on the horizon formed a beautiful pastoral painting all on their own.

Even Jiang Xia found the scene breathtaking.

However, Jiang Xia knew that she herself was even prettier.

Because in the book, the original owner had believed she was prettier than the female lead and had a better figure. After suffering domestic violence, she regretted it and turned back to seek Zhou Chenglei, convinced he would surely change his mind. Instead, the female lead slapped her in the face again and again.

Jiang Xia was sizing Wen Wan up, and Wen Wan was sizing Jiang Xia up as well.

She had been reborn yesterday and had happened to witness Jiang Xia running away with Wu Qizhi, only to be caught by Zhou Chenglei.

She knew Zhou Chenglei would divorce Jiang Xia.

After all, what man could tolerate his wife putting a green hat on his head?

In her previous life, Zhou Chenglei had been the richest man, so she had heard quite a few stories about him.

She also knew that after their divorce, Zhou Chenglei never remarried and remained single until old age.

But last night, she had actually dreamed that she married Zhou Chenglei.

She became the richest man's wife, living the life of a wealthy woman everyone envied—living in a Western-style house, raising foreign dogs, and riding in luxury cars.

She felt that dream was her golden finger.

Today, she had deliberately changed where she grazed her sheep, intending to bring them around Zhou Family Village to see whether she might run into Zhou Chenglei.

She had not expected to really meet him.

That proved she and Zhou Chenglei were fated.

Seeing that Wen Wan was not moving, Zhou Chenglei worried Jiang Xia would not be able to stand the sheep's stench, so he drove the tractor away.

Wen Wan watched the departing tractor. Once Zhou Chenglei and Jiang Xia divorced tomorrow, she could openly pursue her own happiness.

That man was hers!