The Guide to Faking Innocence to Win His Wife - Chapter 1

That night,

The evening breeze skimmed across the river surface, winding past gray-tiled white walls, swaying the blooming frangipani flowers. Their elegant fragrance diffused under the dim lamplight, carrying along the voices from inside the house.

“Yes, we’re staying at the Jiang Family Inn by the river.”

“Of course we have available rooms these days.”

“You’re Zhiyi! Why didn’t you say so earlier! How many days will you stay? Just come right over, why be polite with Grandma?”

Hearing the familiar name, Jiang Zhongmu, who had been sitting on a small stool, suddenly looked up, her gaze fixed intently on Grandma who was still on the phone across from her.

She appeared to be only about twenty, with a wheat-colored complexion from long hours of labor. Her slender frame was complemented by black hair of medium length, half-tied at the back. Her facial features were more defined and angular than those of most girls.

Her long limbs were awkwardly folded on a worn-out wooden stool that wasn’t even half the height of her calves, creating a somewhat pitifully comical sight.

“Tomorrow? Of course it’s convenient,” Grandma replied with a beaming smile.

Jiang Zhongmu unconsciously opened her hand, rubbing her palm against the seam of her trousers, trying to use this trivial sensation to suppress her emotions.

From the moment she heard that familiar name, the usually reserved young woman became restless.

But Grandma seemed to remember something, her tone shifting to one of helplessness as she continued, “Zhiyi, Jiang Town isn’t like it used to be. There are no direct buses now.”

Silence fell on the other end of the line.

Jiang Zhongmu immediately furrowed her brows, unable to contain herself any longer. She stood up and strode over to Grandma, saying in a low voice, “I can go pick her up.”

Grandma paused, her expression hesitant. “But don’t you have to go to school tomorrow to submit your college preferences.”

“It’ll only take about ten minutes.”

Jiang Zhongmu said it lightly, as if the matter that everyone else considered crucially important meant nothing to her. Or perhaps she had long made up her mind to apply to the alma mater that person had once mentioned so she felt no anxiety about the choice.

Grandma, on the other hand, was just an ordinary small-town woman. The farthest she had ever been was the county town a dozen kilometers away. While she knew education was important, she had no concrete understanding of it.

Since Jiang Zhongmu said so, she believed her and immediately began describing the shortened journey to the person on the phone.

Jiang Zhongmu didn’t return to her seat. Instead, she leaned casually against the dark wooden cabinet, her eyes occasionally drifting back and then quickly shifting away, though her ears remained honestly perked up.

As Grandma had grown older, her hearing had deteriorated, so she always kept her phone volume at maximum, allowing intermittent sounds to escape.

A voice both familiar and unfamiliar, gentle with the soft, sticky accent typical of southerners, its tones lilting slightly upward like a dragonfly skimming the water’s surface before fluttering up toward the sky.

Her palm pressed against the sharp corner of the wooden cabinet, scattered memories began to surface.

Jiang Town back then was not as run-down as it was now. Six years ago, it had been developed as a distinctive tourist town, with substantial investments and promotional efforts, attracting a steady stream of visitors.

The Jiang family had torn down their old house and built an inn during that time. Thanks to their honest and sincere approach, business was fairly good, with only a few rooms left vacant on the third floor throughout the year.

Tenants came and went, and Jiang Zhongmu had grown from initially curious to eventually indifferent. Yet, among the countless tourists, only one person left a deep impression on her.

Xie Zhiyi.

Her timing was uncanny. Back then, Jiang Zhongmu’s parents had died in a car accident. The young girl, unable to cope, spent her days in a daze, crying intermittently. Eventually, she was granted a leave of absence from school and stayed home to recover.

Grandma also had her own hardships, having to bury her own child while the guesthouse, farmland, and young granddaughter all weighed heavily on her aging shoulders. She clung to life by a thread, enduring day by day.

It was at this time that Xie Zhiyi arrived in Jiang Town. In her twenties, she possessed a gentle, considerate, and cheerful nature, brimming with the vitality of youth. On sleepless nights, she would often sit under the tree with Grandma, engaging in casual conversation. She would bring out candies only found in the city, softly coaxing Jiang Zhongmu, who always kept her head down and remained silent.

One day, Jiang Zhongmu caught a cold and developed a high fever. With Grandma busy working in the fields, it fell to Xie Zhiyi to take care of her.

The conversation in her ears came to an end as the two bid each other farewell.

Jiang Zhongmu suddenly snapped back to reality, realizing that the voice on the other end no longer carried the clarity it once had. Instead, it was tinged with an inexplicable sorrow and weariness, no wonder she hadn’t recognized it at first.

She lowered her hand, her palm deeply indented and the edges flushed red, a testament to the force she had exerted.

A drawn-out white line cut across the clear sky as the wind swept through the emerald rice paddies, stirring layers of waves. A dilapidated bus spewed black smoke as it trundled along the narrow road.

Peering through the half-open window, one could see a weary-faced Grandma tugging a woven plastic bag, a rooster poking its head out and looking around, completely unaware of its impending fate.

A pot-bellied man, one hand holding up his loose belt and the other gripping a phone, was loudly discussing some so-called business.

Xie Zhiyi, her head resting against the window, frowned slightly as the jolting motion bumped her against the glass. A faint pain spread, but she merely pressed her lips together and continued leaning against the window, breathing in the fresh air outside.

Shadows of trees flickered in her melancholy eyes, like birds skimming over a deep forest pond, leaving no ripples in their wake. Her delicate yet not overly sharp features, along with her graceful figure, were concealed by a long-sleeved shirt. Only the exquisite Drifting Flower Bangle, clasped around her slender wrist, was visible, trembling slightly and leaving faint red marks on the prominent bone.

A young man on the other side cast hesitant glances her way, his eyes flashing with undisguised admiration. But he had already been rejected once.

Clenching his jaw, he mustered the courage to take another chance for his future, only to be interrupted by the sharp screech of brakes. The woman with long, wavy hair rose without hesitation and stepped off the bus.

Amid the crowing of the rooster, angry shouts from the phone, and the sound of frustrated fists pounding the seats, Xie Zhiyi left it all behind, letting out a small sigh of relief.

“Xie Zhiyi?”

Before she could catch her breath, a slender shadow fell over her. The voice was deeper than that of most girls, carrying a youthful rawness.

Before Xie Zhiyi could react, the person suddenly reached out and grabbed her wrist, pulling her closer. She instinctively resisted but was held fast by an unyielding strength, the rough calluses on the person’s thumb and forefinger scraping against her delicate skin.

The wind tousled the long curls at her temples as she stumbled forward and regained her footing.

The person finally remembered to explain, muttering, “You were blocking the way.”

Xie Zhiyi pulled her hand free and stepped aside.

The people crowded at the bus door filed out, stepping down one by one.

Jiang Zhongmu spoke again, “Your suitcase, what does it look like?”

White high-top canvas shoes turned toward the bus compartment.

Before Xie Zhiyi could respond, the other person had already bent down to open the side luggage compartment. A cloud of dull gray dust immediately billowed out, rendering her answer unnecessary after all, there was only one suitcase inside, made of dark brown leather that looked like a branded item, hardly the type locals would choose to buy.

A tanned arm tensed, revealing clear muscle lines as the suitcase was effortlessly pulled out.

The next moment, people rushed in to retrieve their own luggage, eagerly crowding forward and hastily dragging out their belongings along with years of accumulated dust.

“Not bothered by the dust? Let’s go,” the person said, perhaps worried about the dirt on the ground staining the luggage, carrying the suitcase single-handedly as they walked over. Their tone remained flat, neither mocking nor questioning, as if merely breaking the silence with a casual remark.

Xie Zhiyi didn’t respond but instinctively followed the worn-out canvas shoes.

After a few steps forward, they saw a scooter parked diagonally on the roadside grass. The person laid the suitcase horizontally on the footboard, then swung a leg over to sit in front, gripping the handlebars tightly, blue veins faintly bulging.

“Is it secure? Should I carry it?” Xie Zhiyi finally spoke.

“No problem,” the person replied without turning around, keeping their eyes fixed ahead.

The sound of the bus starting up roared as it hurried off to its next destination.

Xie Zhiyi rarely rode such vehicles and awkwardly raised her hand, deliberately avoiding the other’s shoulders and neck at the last moment before stiffly settling into the back seat.

A palm-sized gap remained between them. Xie Zhiyi leaned back, clutching the rear fender of the scooter.

The person in front seemed to sense this, tilting their head slightly before stopping and consciously shifting forward, widening the distance between them.

An awkward and stiff atmosphere spread.

As the elder, Xie Zhiyi pursed her lips, about to say something to ease the tension, when a sudden roar erupted. She quickly steadied herself as the tires left marks on the gravelly ground.

For convenience, locals here had modified their scooters to run on gas, avoiding the embarrassment of running out of battery mid-journey and having to push though the downside was the increased noise.

The scooter turned onto a muddy path between fields, causing rice plants to sway to one side.

The rider clearly knew this route well, skillfully avoiding all the potholes and maintaining a smooth ride with little jolting. By the time Xie Zhiyi gradually relaxed, the long road they’d traveled had disappeared from view. She inexplicably let out a sigh of relief, her whole body loosening up slightly.

Her gaze fell on the person in front, whose red-and-white jacket fluttered in the wind, a standard national sports school uniform.

She slowly exhaled a breath of turbid air, her thoughts gradually clearing.

Recently troubled by trivial matters and suffering from insomnia, Xie Zhiyi had suddenly remembered the small town she’d visited years ago far from the city’s noise, with clear rivers winding through ancient-style houses and the innocent laughter of children ringing in her ears.

So the next day, she dug out the number for the short-term rental she’d stayed in back then and set off that very day.

However…

The journey was much harder than she remembered. She vaguely recalled that there used to be a dedicated bus taking visitors right to the town entrance, unlike now, where she had to wait ages for a single coach that dropped her off far from the town. Fortunately, the landlord’s granddaughter was heading to the county high school today to submit her college preferences and could give her a lift.

The suitcase jolted on the footrest, the person in front sitting awkwardly, a tall frame of one meter seventy curled up with legs tucked, leaning forward with tense forearm muscles, a faint sheen of sweat emerging unnoticed.

This stirred a twinge of guilt in the older woman. Her wrist, previously rubbed raw by calloused hands, tingled with numbness. Though she appeared gentle, she was inherently distant, seldom engaging in physical contact with others, let alone such abrupt pulling.

Memories of the leering stares in the bus and events from before intertwined, a suffocating restlessness surging up to drown her completely.

She averted her gaze, blaming the other’s recklessness even if well-intentioned, it left her uncomfortable.

The oversized school uniform flapped noisily in the wind. The scorching sun began its descent, and the outlines of houses, high and low, gradually emerged against the skyline, just as she remembered, only more dilapidated than a few years prior.

The small vehicle climbed a slope and entered a street paved with long blue bricks, the suitcase trembling even more violently. Xie Zhiyi gripped the back of the seat tightly, yet her expression softened further.

Typical southern architecture gray tiles, white walls, upturned eaves adorned with bronze bells, moss growing in the brick crevices. Once a bustling tourist town, it had ultimately been abandoned by the tide of time, leaving behind increasingly worn houses, elderly and children, and the ever-flowing stream.

They stopped in front of a row of houses near the riverbank. A small building enclosed by a wall, its gate wide open, revealed a white-haired elderly woman sitting on a small stool by the entrance.

At the sight of the newcomers, she immediately set aside her needlework and approached with a smile, addressing Xie Zhiyi: “You’re finally here. Are you tired?”It rained the past couple of days, the dirt road softened with water, full of potholes from the wheels rolling over.” Must’ve been a bumpy ride. Poor girl, you’ve had a rough time.”

Xie Zhiyi, just stepped out of the vehicle, forced a gentle smile and reassured softly, “She rode steadily, avoiding those potholes. It wasn’t too uncomfortable.”

Grandma’s smile deepened. “That’s good, as long as it wasn’t too bumpy. Zhong Zhong often travels that road, so she knows it well.”

Shifting her gaze, she urged the person beside them: “Zhong Zhong, help your sister carry the suitcase upstairs to the third floor, the room you cleaned last night.”

Jiang Zhongmu acknowledged with a sound. Even around her own flesh and blood, she remained taciturn and withdrawn, making one doubt whether her earlier volubility had ever occurred. She hadn’t spoken a word along the way, like the worst tour guide.

Before Xie Zhiyi could voice a refusal, the obedient figure hoisted the suitcase and strode straight into the gate without a second thought.

Grandma added cheerfully, “Follow her inside. The bedsheets and duvet covers are freshly washed and changed. Rest in your room for a while, and tonight I’ll have Zhong Zhong call you down for dinner.”

They offered three meals a day here.

Xie Zhiyi quickly agreed and hurried once more to keep up with the slender figure ahead.

In the small courtyard, the century-old Frangipani tree spread dense branches and leaves, exuding an elegant, subtle fragrance, a rare treasure in the sweltering heat.

Unfortunately, Xie Zhiyi had no mind to appreciate it. Whether out of habit or not, the person in front walked exceedingly fast, taking large strides that covered twice the distance of others, and in the next moment, disappeared into the cool, shaded interior.

The wooden stairs creaked underfoot, and tiny worm-eaten holes were visible on the handrail.

“You!” Xie Zhiyi quickly spoke up, wanting to ask if she needed help. After all, carrying a suitcase single-handedly while climbing stairs was no easy task, and in her eyes, the other person remained the same little girl from six years ago.

The woman turned around at the sound, her loose white T-shirt collar slipping down to reveal a slender, straight collarbone, resembling the crossbar of a clothes hanger.

Xie Zhiyi, who should have spoken immediately, paused for a moment, leading Jiang Zhongmu to mistakenly think she was too tired to climb the stairs and proactively extended a hand to help.

Unlike the delicate hands of city dwellers, her long fingers were calloused with deep, intersecting lines and a few faint scars.

Snapping back to reality, Xie Zhiyi finally remembered the matter at hand and hurriedly said, “Are you tired? I can carry it up myself.”

Her breath was uneven as she spoke, punctuated by panting. Although the other rode steadily, sitting for so long had left her muscles sore. Having just gotten off without rest, she was forced to walk and run, and after climbing a few flights of stairs, she already felt weary.

As her words fell, she noticed Jiang Zhongmu wearing an expression of reluctant speech. With her naturally narrow, upturned eyes and light pupils that resembled amber in the slanted light, her obscure emotions became all the more apparent.

She withdrew her hand and murmured, “The stairs are quite steep. Take your time.”

Xie Zhiyi blinked, belatedly realizing she’d been looked down upon by the kid.

Jiang Zhongmu had already turned away. Even while carrying the suitcase, she moved steadily, as if climbing stairs were no different from walking on flat ground. If not for the slight tilt of her left shoulder and the tension in her arm muscles, it would be hard to tell she was carrying such a large object.

Pursing her lips, Xie Zhiyi ultimately chose not to push herself and resignedly gripped the handrail, trudging upward with heavy, slow steps.

An adult’s pride is always a bit more fragile than a child’s.

Meanwhile, Jiang Zhongmu, with her back turned, let out a silent sigh, her eyes filled with regret as if blaming herself for yet another poor performance.

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