I was reborn after my cousin stole my life.

Chapter 14: If you're a man, you have to take responsibility.

Deputy Battalion Commander Zhou was too embarrassed to talk about his affair with Yuan Juan in front of everyone, so he took his mother back to their room.

Soon after, the old woman's loud and clear voice of protest came from inside.

"No!"

"That girl has a bad heart!"

"I disagree!"

"How could you fall for her trick! She's lying to you!"

The noise inside was so loud that it could be faintly heard from the doorway, but Yuan Juan didn't show any extra expression. Instead, she looked at Yuan Xiu with a smug expression.

Yuan Juan had changed her clothes; they weren't the ones she wore yesterday. Plus, she hadn't been home all night, and as soon as she returned, someone said they wanted to marry her. That person was none other than Deputy Battalion Commander Zhou, who had argued with his mother at the guesthouse yesterday afternoon.

Almost everyone in the guesthouse knew that Deputy Battalion Commander Zhou's wife had died, and that his mother had come to the army to take him back to find a husband and get married.

He's single, a battalion-level officer, and aside from being a little older and having a daughter, he has almost no other flaws.

In the marriage market, people like Deputy Battalion Commander Zhou are still very popular.

Even a fool could guess that Yuan Juan and Deputy Battalion Commander Zhou must have done something that night that forced him to take responsibility for her.

Yuan Xiu didn't know exactly what it was, but she had to admit that Yuan Juan was quite willing to go to great lengths to marry a man who was a cadre and to avoid going back to her hometown to farm.

Since Yuan Juan was going to marry Deputy Battalion Commander Zhou, there was naturally no need to send her off to the train station.

Jiang Zhou dismissed the people who came to pick up Yuan Juan, and after Deputy Battalion Commander Zhou came out, the two went aside to chat for a while.

"...Battalion Commander Jiang, I'm sorry, I've heard about your situation from Yuan Juan. She was also forced by her parents. If I hadn't happened to be passing by and saved her last night, she would have drowned in the lake."

The deputy battalion commander, Zhou Lei, was around thirty years old. He came from a rural area in northern China and had been in the army for over ten years. He seemed like a very honest person.

"I'm a grown man, and I was hugging and cuddling that young girl..." Deputy Battalion Commander Zhou blushed slightly as he said this. "Girls are shy, I really... We're men, we have to be responsible for them, don't you think?"

Jiang Zhou neither answered yes nor no, but simply said "Congratulations".

After Jiang Zhou arrived, he told Yuan Xiu about it.

"He fell into the lake, but was rescued by Deputy Battalion Commander Zhou."

Yuan Xiu twitched the corner of her mouth: "That's quite a coincidence."

Everyone knows how this happened.

Doesn't Deputy Battalion Commander Zhou understand?

Not always.

A widower in his thirties meets an eighteen-year-old unmarried girl. If the girl is pretty, she might even marry him.

Of course he's willing to take on this responsibility.

"Sister Chunhua invited us to her house for dinner tonight," Jiang Zhou said.

Yuan Xiu snapped out of her reverie and nodded. "Should we buy something?"

Jiang Zhou: "Before we go, let's buy some cookies at the convenience store. She has a seven-year-old son."

Yuan Xiu agreed.

"We've got the house keys, want to go take a look?"

"go."

Yuan Xiu thought she would see an old courtyard that needed cleaning and tidying up, but the courtyard didn't look old at all.

The inside was very clean, and there wasn't even a spider web to be seen.

If you furnish it, you can move in immediately.

The courtyard was quite spacious, and the path leading from the gate to the house was paved with red bricks.

"Is this what you call an old courtyard?"

Yuan Xiu glanced at Jiang Zhou.

"It's been built for over thirty years. When the area was later planned as a residential compound, this area was included, and it was renovated. Initially, houses like these were for regimental-level officers. Now, regimental-level officers live in smaller buildings."

When talking about the regimental-level cadres living in small buildings, Jiang Zhou glanced at Yuan Xiu, wanting to say that he could also live in a small building in the future, but he thought about it and didn't say anything.

Yuan Xiu pointed to a corner and asked, "What's this place for?"

There was a hole dug there, and a hoe was placed next to it.

"I'm planning to build a toilet, but I don't have enough materials, so I asked someone to buy some. I'll have to wait two more days."

Yuan Xiu's eyes lit up; she hadn't expected this person to be so thoughtful.

She had been thinking that if the location was right, she might be able to build a toilet in the yard.

Yuan Juan said he was cold. Apart from the cold look on his face when he spoke to Yuan Juan yesterday, she didn't find him to be cold in the following interactions.

He seems like a very amiable person.

This house has three rooms, two large and one small. The small one is the kitchen, which has a stove and a row of countertops along the window.

Yuan Xiu was quite satisfied with the workbench; it was convenient for chopping vegetables and kneading dough, allowing her to work freely.

The well is close to the kitchen, and the wellhead is covered by a stone slab with a water pump installed on it.

"I tried it yesterday, and it still works. The water inside is quite clear," Jiang Zhou said.

Yuan Xiu looked in that direction, and he explained it to her.

"furniture……"

"The logistics department will send it over in a couple of days."

Yuan Xiu nodded. That's great, she doesn't have to spend her own money to buy it.

"Can I grow vegetables in the yard? I won't grow too many, and I won't use farmyard manure, just enough for my own family."

Jiang Zhou is a city dweller, and he might not be used to growing vegetables in the yard. This house was allocated to him by the army, so naturally, we should ask him what to do with it.

"Sure, you can plan however you like. If you can't solve it, just tell me."

Yuan Xiu smiled and said, "Okay, thank you."

Jiang Zhou raised his eyelids slightly. "You don't have to be so polite. I can't expect to thank you every time you cook something after we're married, can I?"

Yuan Xiu waved her hand, "Of course not."

"That's good."

Yuan Xiu felt a little awkward, and the best way to ease the awkwardness was to keep herself busy.

She walked around the yard with her hands behind her back, measuring the land with her feet to see how big a plot of land the vegetable garden would need.

As she walked to the corner, Yuan Xiu sniffed and smelled a medicinal fragrance.

When she came over just now, she saw that people lived next door, and it seemed that the two houses were connected by a wall.

This smell must be coming from next door.

It doesn't smell like brewing medicine; it smells more like the aroma of herbs being dried in the sun. There are several kinds of aromas.

Yuan Xiu's maternal grandfather was an old traditional Chinese medicine doctor. He only had one daughter, Yuan Xiu's mother. He was originally a very capable man, but later, due to the political movement, he lost his medical qualifications and passed away early. Yuan's mother was in poor health from a young age and did not learn any skills. Yuan Xiu, however, was exposed to medicine from a young age and knew a lot about medicinal herbs.

After her family became financially well-off in her previous life, she bought many books related to traditional Chinese medicine. The fact that the elderly couple were able to live to their nineties and still be in such good spirits is undoubtedly due to her long-term care and conditioning.

"The Liu family lives next door. You met his wife yesterday; she's quite tall."

"Is that Sister-in-law Guiying?" Yuan Xiu had a deep impression of her.

"Yes, it's her."

Yuan Xiu nodded, not asking why her family was drying medicinal herbs. She would naturally find out as they got to know each other better.