Chapter 2: It's Flirting Only If You're Good-Looking

The man was fair and clean-cut, the very picture of a pretty boy.

Black-rimmed glasses did nothing to hide his beautiful, upturned phoenix eyes. He had a high-bridged nose, thin lips, and softly angled features that gave him an almost androgynous beauty.

In Xia Xiaoqi’s imagination, he was a gentle puppy of a man, nuzzling up to her and cooing, “Big sis…”

In Qiao Ran’s, he was breathless and coughing up a little blood, all delicate and frail, his devoted phoenix eyes gazing at her with endless longing.

While they each indulged in their private fantasy, the man reached them and stopped his big bicycle, one foot on the ground.

“Why aren’t you home yet?” he asked.

Wow. Even his voice was swoon-worthy.

“Who are you asking?”

For once, Xiaoqi and Qiao Ran spoke in perfect unison.

Lu Xiangnan frowned slightly and addressed Qiao Ran. “You’re soaking wet. Why haven’t you gone home to change?”

With that, he pedaled away.

“Mine.” Qiao Ran raised her brows smugly. “Hands off.”

Clearly, he was the Lu family’s eldest son, Lu Xiangnan, Qiao Ran’s husband.

What a shame. That fair, tender little puppy belonged to her best friend.

Xiaoqi pouted. Still, they were brothers, so surely hers couldn’t be too bad either? Oh, she was starting to look forward to meeting him.

When they reached home, their mother-in-law, Liu Chunhua, was squatting by the stove, feeding the fire as she cooked.

She scowled as they came in one after the other. “Why are you so late? Xiaoli’s hungry and waiting for you to make dinner. Eldest wife, wash the cabbage and put it on to stew. Younger wife, chop some firewood.”

“Good grief! Who do you think you’re talking to?” Qiao Ran blurted before she could stop herself.

Xiaoqi squeezed her palm, signaling her not to charge in headfirst when they’d only just arrived. Know yourself and your enemy, and you’d win every battle; first they needed to understand how things worked here.

“Well, my clothes are wet. I’ll go change first,” Xiaoqi said, heading inside.

“Oh, mine are wet too. I’ll change as well.” Qiao Ran followed her.

A moment later, Xiaoqi emerged from the west room with her head down.

Oops. She didn’t know the layout and had gone into the wrong room. She’d nearly walked in on her brother-in-law undressing.

Liu Chunhua stood in the kitchen, dumbfounded. Before she could even react, both daughters-in-law had vanished.

The younger wife might be fierce, but she wouldn’t dare make a peep in front of her mother-in-law. As for the elder, if Liu Chunhua told her to go east, she wouldn’t dare go west.

What was wrong with them today? Had they stuffed donkey hair in their ears? Couldn’t they hear her?

Lu Xiangnan taught in town and could come home every few days, so the west room had been given to him and his wife. Lu Yanbei was in the army and could go six months or a year without showing his face. Liu Chunhua had therefore put his wife in the side room.

The side room was usually used for storage, leaky in summer and drafty in winter.

A low, narrow kang bed, an old table, a cabinet with peeling paint, and a mirror decorated with a big lotus flower made up all the furnishings in Xiaoqi’s room.

She examined herself in the mirror from every angle.

The original owner might have been a village girl, but she was lovely and fresh-faced. Her skin was fair as jade, her face a perfect oval with almond-shaped eyes and delicate features. Two dark braids hung over her chest. Every feature seemed just right, as if she’d been a figurine sculpted with care.

Ninety-nine points for that face. She’d withhold the last point so she wouldn’t get conceited.

Actually, it looked seventy or eighty percent like her own face, but it was new to her and younger, so Xiaoqi thought it prettier.

After admiring her magnificent beauty, she rummaged through the cabinet for clothes.

What she was wearing was simply hideous: a blue cloth shirt embroidered with huge peonies, tacky beyond belief. It didn’t suit her face in the slightest.

She pulled out one garment after another, then dropped onto the kang in defeat.

They were all so dowdy, each uglier than the last.

The calendar on the wall said October 1978. Reform and opening up hadn’t begun, and Hong Kong fashion hadn’t made its way here yet.

Xiaoqi was miserable. A delicate girl who loved looking pretty, she couldn’t bear these patched, coarse-cloth clothes.

In the kitchen, Liu Chunhua was chopping cabbage as if she were hacking at a person. She brought the knife down so hard that pieces flew everywhere.

“It’s not even dark yet, and she’s already following a man into his room. Doesn’t she have any shame?” she muttered as she chopped.

The words were obviously meant for Qiao Ran in the west room. She was close enough to hear. Liu Chunhua would have liked to make pointed remarks about Xiaoqi too, but the girl was in the side room, out of earshot.

The west room had once been spacious, but a blue curtain hanging across the middle divided it into two cramped sections.

Lu Xiangnan occupied the inner half, where he had a desk and a specially made bookshelf filled with books.

That was how he and his wife normally lived, one on each side of the curtain. Though married, they were like a monk and a nun: close enough to touch, yet miles apart.

Xiangnan was reading when the curtain lifted and Qiao Ran poked her big, fleshy face through.

“What is it?” he asked coldly.

Her behavior displeased him. They’d always kept out of each other’s way, and the original Qiao Ni had never dared cross the boundary without warning.

“I wanted to see you.” Qiao Ran’s peach-blossom eyes were full of flirtatious warmth. “It’s been so long. I’ve missed you terribly.”

He seemed angry. A crease appeared between his brows, and he ground out, “Get out.”

Educated men really did have manners. He hadn’t even told her to get lost.

“Oh, all right.” Taking the hint, Qiao Ran withdrew her chubby face.

She had no idea how the couple had gotten along before, but it looked as though there really wasn’t a scrap of affection between them.

She couldn’t rush the flirting. After all, when a pretty person did it, it was flirting; when an ugly one did it, it was sexual harassment. She’d better work on losing weight first.

As for her fair, tender husband, she was confident she’d win him over. Sooner or later, he’d end up in her arms.

The door to the west room suddenly flew open, startling Qiao Ran, who was changing clothes.

Seeing Liu Chunhua’s furious face, she rolled her eyes. “What? I’m changing. Don’t you knock before coming in? Where are your manners?”

“I’m asking you, are you going to get out there and cook or not?” Liu Chunhua’s booming voice was nearly deafening.

“What, if I don’t cook, none of you can eat?”

“You and Xia Xiaofang have always done the cooking.”

Qiao Ran snorted. “Exactly. Since we’ve always done it, it’s someone else’s turn now. We’re tired and deserve a rest.”

The older woman was completely stunned. She stared at her plump daughter-in-law as though she’d seen a ghost.

Was this really Qiao Ni, who could barely be made to speak?

With a tongue that sharp, had she been possessed by some unclean spirit?