Reborn in the 1970s — Married a Proud Rough Man

Jie Jingchen saw her staring at him warily, and his mouth twitched. His large hand landed on her shoulder, pulling her over to pluck a leaf from her hair. ”You had a leaf in your hair. What else did you think I was going to do?”

”Heh heh.” Qin Mei laughed awkwardly.

”What were you two doing in the tree?”

Jie Jingchen and Qin Mei were startled. ’The guy actually turned back.’

Qin Mei pulled Jie Jingchen over to join them and casually lied to the young boy, ”Raiding a bird’s nest.”

’This isn’t a fruit tree, so saying we were picking fruit isn’t realistic, and we might even be mistaken for thieves. Raiding a bird’s nest is the perfect excuse.’

The boy was easy to fool. He shot them a disdainful look, as if to scold them for being so grown up yet still climbing trees to raid birds’ nests.

”What are you all running for? Is this some kind of race?” Qin Mei asked with a curious expression. ’Being chased and doing the chasing are completely different feelings. When you’re being chased, you run for your life. When you’re the one chasing, you can just slack off and fill the numbers.’

”I don’t know,” the boy replied, looking just as clueless.

”If you don’t know, then why are you running?” Qin Mei rolled her eyes at him. ”Do you have nothing better to do?”

The boy stopped in his tracks. ’That’s right! Why am I running along with them? I might as well use this time to go home and get some work done.’

Seeing that she had successfully persuaded one person to quit, Qin Mei felt a great sense of accomplishment. She then caught up to a middle-aged woman and successfully talked her out of it, too. After persuading many people to stop, Qin Mei handed the task over to an enthusiastic auntie, then pulled Jie Jingchen away, her mission accomplished.

So many people running in the streets alerted the police. Gao Yang came running with over a dozen officers and ran into Jie Jingchen and Qin Mei.

”Jing Si. Little sis.” Gao Yang was a little surprised to see them again.

”On a mission?” Qin Mei asked.

”Jing Si, little sis, I’ll treat you two to dinner some other day.” Gao Yang didn’t say much more and ran ahead with his men.

”Captain,” Police Li came running toward Gao Yang, panting. ”Captain, I got the details. They weren’t incited to organize some illegal activity. They’re chasing two human traffickers, car thieves, and hooligans...”

’Human traffickers? Car thieves?’ Gao Yang stopped in his tracks. His deep-set eyes narrowed as he looked at Jie Jingchen and Qin Mei in the distance. He said to Police Li, ”You take the men and go on ahead.”

”Yes, sir.” Police Li immediately accepted the order.

When Jie Jingchen and Qin Mei saw Gao Yang turn back and return, they shared a knowing smile. Jie Jingchen looked at Gao Yang’s strange expression and asked neutrally, ”Something wrong?”

Gao Yang cleared his throat. ”That mob wasn’t... ganging up on you two, were they?”

”I’m a law-abiding citizen,” Qin Mei said with a harmless smile.

”I’m a retired soldier,” Jie Jingchen said without batting an eye.

”Really has nothing to do with you?” Gao Yang eyed the couple suspiciously.

”Really has nothing to do with us,” they said in unison.

Gao Yang’s dark, profound eyes stared at them searchingly. ’Why do I find that so hard to believe?’ ”Then why did you two show up here?”

They weren’t about to admit that the mob had been chasing them, and that they had then turned around and run with the mob for a while, persuading many of the clueless runners to give up.

”We were curious, so we ran along with them for a bit. We found it boring, so we stopped,” Qin Mei said with a straight face.

”Chasing human traffickers, car thieves, and hooligans... would that be boring?” A sharp glint flashed in Gao Yang’s eyes.

”Oh,” Qin Mei said, feigning a sudden realization. ”So that’s what it was! They were chasing human traffickers, car thieves, and hooligans. It’s not even safe in broad daylight. The public security here is terrible!”

Jie Jingchen held back a laugh, looking at Qin Mei with a doting expression.

”If I recall correctly, Jing Si was mistaken for a human trafficker...”

”Am I a human trafficker?” Jie Jingchen cut Gao Yang off.

Gao Yang rubbed his chin. His dark, unreadable eyes swept over Qin Mei before landing on Jie Jingchen. Staring at him meaningfully, he said, ”You definitely weren’t before. But now... it’s hard to say.”

Qin Mei raised an eyebrow. ’Is he implying I’m a bad influence on Jie Jingchen?’

’Isn’t Jie Jingchen’s image supposed to be like a lotus emerging from the mud, unstained? How could he be someone who gets blackened just by being near ink?’

’Pfft! Am I the mud here? I’m purer than mountain spring water, thank you very much.’

’This Gao Yang is a real piece of work!’

”Captain, bad news! Something’s happened!” a police officer shouted.

”Crap.” Gao Yang couldn’t afford to waste any more time teasing them and took off running.

Qin Mei’s heart sank. ’The stampede I was worried about still happened.’

”Meimei, I’m going to go take a look.” Jie Jingchen was a retired soldier, and a soldier’s sense of duty was etched into his very bones. Whenever he saw injustice, he had to intervene.