MWSB – Chapter 2 Planting the Seed of Doubt

Everyone in the village knew that the Zhou and Liu families had arranged a childhood engagement years ago.

Back then, the Liu family had only one daughter—Liu Wanwan.

And the Zhou family had only one son—Zhou Heshan.

Later, Liu Qingyue’s biological mother passed away. Her father remarried, and his new wife brought along a daughter of her own—Liu Wanwan.

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Although the official engagement had ultimately been made between Zhou Heshan and Liu Qingyue, who could say things wouldn’t change?

What Liu Qingyue said actually made some sense.

Could it be that Liu Wanwan had pushed her own stepsister into the lake because she had fallen for her future brother-in-law?

If that happened, the Zhou family might simply honor the childhood promise by marrying Zhou Heshan to Liu Wanwan instead.

That would still fulfill the engagement.

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And the reason Liu Wanwan had set her sights on her future brother-in-law was obvious enough.

Zhou Heshan was good-looking, and he was already serving as a deputy battalion commander.

Military service on the island was harsh. The conditions were difficult, the environment unforgiving, so the pay was slightly higher than that of ordinary soldiers.

The allowances were better too.

Could that be what she was after?

As the villagers’ imaginations ran wild, Liu Qingyue had already chased Liu Wanwan around the area once. She picked up whatever she could find from the ground and hurled it at Liu Wanwan’s back.

Each hit made Liu Wanwan yelp in pain.

The moment Liu Qingyue had fallen into the water, someone had rushed off to notify her family.

Just then, Liu Dajun and Wang Chunhua arrived.

They had come because someone told them Liu Qingyue had fallen into the lake. Instead, they found one girl chasing the other, the situation looking anything but peaceful.

The two girls happened to run past them. Seeing Liu Qingyue lift a larger rock, ready to smash it into Liu Wanwan’s back, Liu Dajun immediately shouted, “Stop!”

Only then did Liu Qingyue casually toss the rock aside before pulling her clothes tighter around herself.

“What on earth is going on?” Liu Dajun strode over angrily once they stopped, his brows tightly knitted together. “Someone came to the house and said you fell into the lake. Why are you beating your sister instead?”

“What happened?”

Looking at Liu Dajun’s face, a trace of mockery flashed through Liu Qingyue’s heart.

In her previous life, she had treated this family as her real family.

That was why they had been able to bully her so miserably.

When Wang Chunhua first married into the Liu family with Liu Wanwan in tow, she had pretended to be kind to Liu Qingyue because Liu Dajun hadn’t fully trusted her yet.

But after many years together, and after Wang Chunhua gave Liu Dajun a son, their relationship only grew stronger.

Day after day, night after night, Wang Chunhua whispered into Liu Dajun’s ear.

Naturally, Liu Qingyue’s place in his heart became insignificant.

Just listen to his first question.

He wasn’t worried about whether she had been hurt after falling into the lake.

Instead, he wanted to know why she was beating Liu Wanwan.

How ridiculous.

Liu Wanwan was Wang Chunhua’s daughter from her previous marriage. She had only taken the Liu surname after moving into the family.

Yet Liu Dajun treated a daughter who wasn’t even his own flesh and blood better than his biological daughter.

Hearing Liu Dajun’s question, Liu Wanwan covered her face and burst into tears.

“I don’t know what happened either. After my sister was rescued from the lake, it’s like she became a completely different person. She’s been chasing me around and hitting me!”

“She had her eye on my fiancé and wanted me dead, so she deliberately pushed me into the lake. I barely survived after someone rescued me. Why shouldn’t I hit her?” Liu Qingyue rolled her eyes.

Upon hearing that, Liu Dajun and Wang Chunhua instinctively glanced at Liu Wanwan before speaking in perfect unison.

“There has to be some misunderstanding. How could your sister possibly be interested in Zhou Heshan?”

Wonderful.

Liu Qingyue almost wanted to applaud them.

As expected of a couple who had shared the same bed for so many years.

Their hearts were completely on the same side—so biased they might as well have been in the clouds.

“Your sister would never push you. You must have gotten it wrong. You probably just slipped into the lake yourself, didn’t you?” Liu Dajun said as he reached out and grabbed Liu Qingyue’s arm.

Keeping his voice low, he added, “You can’t say things like that. What if you’ve misunderstood? If you ruin your sister’s reputation, how is she supposed to get married in the future?”

Hearing those words, Liu Qingyue clenched her fists and took a deep breath.

If it weren’t for everything she still had to do, she really wanted to forget the consequences and beat this so-called father of hers first.

In truth, Liu Wanwan hadn’t actually pushed her into the lake.

Instead, she had deliberately asked Liu Qingyue to help look for something by the lakeside.

She had even directed her to the slipperiest patch of ground.

The moment Liu Qingyue went over to search, she lost her footing and fell into the water.

But if Liu Wanwan could scheme against him, why couldn’t she?

“Chunhua, you’re finally here!”

Most of the villagers had gathered, and quite a few of them were related to Wang Chunhua in one way or another—various aunts and distant relatives.

They all started talking at once.

“You have no idea! Qingyue fell into the water just now, and it was this soldier who rescued her!”

“No matter how she fell in, the important thing is that a man pulled her out.”

“He must’ve touched her while saving her. Who knows? Maybe he even saw everything underwater.”

“And that’s not all,” one of the gossip-loving aunties said excitedly. “When Qingyue still wasn’t waking up, that soldier pressed his mouth against hers over and over. He said it was… what was it called? Artificial respiration? Said it was to save her!”

Then she lowered her voice slightly, glancing toward the tall man standing in the distance. His imposing figure and expressionless face gave off an intimidating aura.

“If you ask me,” she whispered conspiratorially, “he did it on purpose! He was just taking advantage of your daughter!”

As soon as she said that, she deliberately raised her voice again.

“But whatever the reason, he kissed her and touched her. Tell me, what are you going to do about that?”

She even clapped her hands dramatically and paced around with an exaggerated look of concern.

The moment Wang Chunhua heard those words, she was overjoyed.

If that were true, then her daughter’s marriage finally had hope!

She had always wondered why the marriage arranged between the two families had been promised to that foolish, useless Liu Qingyue instead of her own daughter.

Now things were different.

Liu Qingyue’s reputation was ruined, but the engagement between the families couldn’t simply be canceled.

Wouldn’t it be perfect if her own daughter married into the Zhou family instead?

Everyone would save face, and there wouldn’t be any problems.

Her daughter would marry a deputy battalion commander, and Wang Chunhua herself would finally be able to hold her head high in the village.

While she was lost in happy thoughts, Liu Dajun stepped forward first.

Although he wasn’t particularly fond of his eldest daughter, the family’s dignity couldn’t be thrown away.

After all, Liu Qingyue was still engaged to Zhou Heshan.

“Who was it?”

His voice was stern.

The villagers exchanged uneasy glances.

They had all seen that the man who rescued her was a soldier.

No one dared to answer.

The man himself, standing some distance away, heard the conversation carried by the wind and strode over.

“It was me.”

“I’m a soldier. I was returning home on leave when I heard someone crying for help. I didn’t think twice before jumping in to save her.”

“What the villagers said is true.”

“If everyone believes this has damaged the young lady’s reputation, then I’m willing to take responsibility.”

“I can marry her.”

His declaration rang out with absolute conviction.

Liu Qingyue stared at his face, momentarily dazed.

He had been the one who saved her in her previous life too.

He served in the same naval unit as Zhou Heshan and was a deputy regiment commander.

In her previous life, after she followed Zhou Heshan to the island, he rejected her because her reputation had been ruined.

After she attempted suicide, it was this man who saved her.

Eventually, they married.

But because she had never truly let go of Zhou Heshan, their marriage had always been distant.

She remained cold toward him.

Since she never opened her heart, he hadn’t been happy either.

Their marriage had been little more than two polite strangers sharing a household.

Thinking back on all of that, Liu Qingyue felt a deep sense of guilt.

If he hadn’t happened to rescue her while returning home on leave…

If he hadn’t later married her…

Perhaps he would have lived a much happier life.

With that thought, Liu Qingyue stepped forward immediately.

“I don’t think it should be handled this way.”

She looked up at Lu Fengting.

“You saved me out of kindness. Artificial respiration is an emergency lifesaving procedure. If I turned around and demanded that you take responsibility for me because of it, I’d be repaying kindness with betrayal.”

“And besides…” Her eyes flickered as she deliberately raised her voice. “Judging from your uniform, you should be in the Navy. My fiancé is also in the Navy. He’ll definitely understand that this is standard rescue procedure. He would never look down on me because of it.”

“He’s a reasonable man, so there’s no need for you to take responsibility.”

Even as Liu Qingyue spoke those words, she felt physically sick.

After all, in her previous life, Zhou Heshan had done countless despicable things.

But this was a necessary move.

By publicly declaring now that Zhou Heshan was a reasonable man who wouldn’t despise her over a lifesaving rescue…

Then when he later got together with Liu Wanwan, everyone would see him for what he really was.

If he still made a fuss over something that was clearly just standard first aid, then he would be the unreasonable one.

This was nothing more than laying the groundwork—planting the seed that would come back to haunt him later.