Wen Xinya stretched slowly, tidied up the documents spread all over the table, and went downstairs.
Si Yiyan wasn’t at home. Instead, there was an unexpected visitor.
Xu Zhenyu!
He stood by the French windows in the living room, clad neatly in green military uniform which made him look upright, slender and radiate an unshakable aura. The bright sunlight from outside shone upon him as the majesty, eminence, and magnificence unique to a military officer made Wen Xinya feel uncontrollably respectful towards him.
She rarely saw this side of Xu Zhenyu.
On the northwestern battlefield, he was the courageous “Military King” of their time, his legend was still being passed down in the military camps in the northwest.
The army led by him was the sharpest knife, known as the “Wolves of the Battlefield”.
In the Capital city’s army, he was the youngest colonel, a commander well-versed in military tactics with the makings of a general.
In the Xu Family, he was the successor of their bloodline, the pride of the Xu Family.
However, he was just such a man.
In front of her, he was instead all smiles and jokes, a mix between a dog and a human.
“What brings you here?” Wen Xinya walked over slowly. After getting engaged with Si Yiyan, she had openly moved into the mansion in Mount Li. Zhou Tianyu and the rest came over occasionally—only Xu Zhenyu had never visited.
Xu Zhenyu suddenly turned back. “Came to visit you!”
He looked at her, dressed in home clothes. Without sharpness all over, she became even gentler and exquisite. Xu Zhenyu had never seen Wen Xinya like this. Somehow, Xu Zhenyu thought about the extremely mushy phrase in the Book of Songs—”The peach blossom blushes, its flowers beaming. Such a fair maiden, good for the household!”
Wen Xinya said suspiciously, “This isn’t like you at all.”
Xu Zhenyu sat down on the sofa, fiddling with a cigarette in his hand, reaching his hand into his pocket from time to time, and eventually still managed to resist himself from lighting it up.
“Planning to quit smoking?” Wen Xinya asked, feeling strange.
Over the past two years, Xu Zhenyu had gotten increasingly addicted to smoking.
“Nope!” Xu Zhenyu answered. “Can’t find an ashtray!”
Wen Xinya hated the smell of cigarette smoke. Previously, she would always snatch his cigarette away and lecture him every time she saw him. After many failed attempts, she finally had no choice but to give up the thoughts of asking him to quit smoking.
Wen Xinya burst out laughing. “In that case, continue holding it in!”
Indeed, there were no ashtrays in the mansion, because the only male owner didn’t smoke and they usually didn’t have visitors either.
Xu Zhenyu also laughed along. “Asking a smoke addict to not smoke is equivalent to not letting a drug addict have any drugs when his addiction acts up.”
Wen Xinya shot him a glance and said coldly, “Oh, so you still know that you’re a smoke addict!”
Xu Zhenyu suddenly shut up.
“Is there a reason for your special visit?”
Wen Xinya didn’t continue to make a big fuss out of Xu Zhenyu’s addiction to smoking. From some angle, Xu Zhenyu listened to everything she said, with the exception of quitting smoking.
“Wen Xinya, let’s play a game of dice. Just like the way when we just knew each other—guess if it’s big or small,” Xu Zhenyu suddenly said.
Wen Xinya was slightly stunned.
It was like in her past lifetime. Xu Zhenyu was extremely good at the game of dice, but she didn’t really know how to play. Every time Xu Zhenyu played the game of dice with her, she would always designate a series of outrageous stakes. Eventually, Xu Zhenyu would lose to her every time and get forced to give her all sorts of gifts, wear baby bear clothes, dance to the Three Little Pigs, wear maid costumes, pole-dance, etc…
The one who won the bet, Wen Xinya, would be overjoyed and happily tease him.
The loser, Xu Zhenyu, would pridefully refuse to concede defeat, yet joyfully play along with her tirelessly, losing to her time and again.
After her rebirth, in this lifetime, she had also played a few times with Xu Zhenyu and purposely teased him.
“Alright, but let’s say upfront—what if you lose?” Wen Xinya gathered her slightly fuzzy emotions and a mischievous smile broke out on her face.
The helpers brought the dice over, but there weren’t any chips.
Xu Zhenyu held the dice cup between his fingers and looked at her with a complication look. “If I lose, I’ll tell you something. How does it sound?”
Wen Xinya thought about Xu Zhenyu’s act of especially coming over to visit her today and finally nodded her head in agreement.
The crisp sound of rolling dice rang rhythmically in the quiet living room.
Xu Zhenyu was slightly distracted.
He thought about how standing at the spot by the French windows just now, he could see passionately blooming and intertwining Chinese roses, as well as intricately bound grapevine trellis radiating gorgeousness…
Every view was a scenery!
Every detail was beautifully exquisite.
The male owner must be extremely in love with the female owner to be so meticulous.
The female owner must have often stood at that spot for many days, tucked into the male owner’s embrace, enjoying those beautiful sceneries.
The dice cup went silent. The extreme figure of six sets of six points suddenly presented itself in each other’s eyes.
Xu Zhenyu sighed. “I lost!”
He had completely lost.
Wen Xinya looked complicated as she joked and said, “With your gambling skills, you can already be the king of gamblers!”
She knew better than anyone else just how good Xu Zhenyu was at the game of dice.
How could he lose to her?
“Before meeting you, the wish of yours truly was to conquer the entire gambling world. However, yours truly has sinned in my past life, and just had to be so unlucky to meet you, so I had no choice but to enlist in the army.”
Xu Zhenyu looked at Wen Xinya as he spoke in a half-joking, half-serious manner.
Wen Xinya suddenly felt sad for no reason. “Don’t try to talk about something else in a bid to distract me. Just now, you said that you’ll tell me something if you lost—say it now.”
Xu Zhenyu had lost to her for two lifetimes!
This made Wen Xinya feel bad.
Xu Zhenyu suddenly retrieved a lighter from his pocket and lit up the cigarette in his hand which emitted rising smoke. “Wen Xinya, I’ve applied to be dispatched!”
Surrounded by smoke, Xu Zhenyu suddenly felt an itch in his throat and the urge to cough.
Stunned, Wen Xinya asked subconsciously, “Why?”
A military dispatch might look glamorous, but she was very clear that based on Xu Zhenyu’s identity and character, he would definitely be dispatched to the most arduous, dangerous, and even a country at war. Over there, the military uniform was a soldier’s graveclothes and the place he fell would be his grave. Everything about his person would be erased—he’d be without nationality, glamor, race, religion, and identity!
An anonymous hero!
This was an unparalleled glory for a soldier.
However, it was also extremely tragic!
As the second son of the Xu family, Xu Zhenyu had a bright future. If he stayed in the Capital city for a few more years and accumulated some military merits, it was certain that he would be promoted to a post equivalent to a general. He totally didn’t need to be dispatched.
