"Alright, you sit down and take a rest, don’t move, I’ll just look around nearby!" Knowing that she was small but brave, Xie Jingchen specifically instructed her not to mess around.
"Okay, I won’t move." Zhang Shanni agreed, at most she would use her spiritual power to drive the wildlife towards him, maintaining her position without moving.
Xie Jingchen nodded to her obedient promise, placed the cloth bag beside a rock, reserving a spot for her to sit, then circled around with a long branch, tapping in all directions, ensuring that no snakes were sighted before handing her the branch, firmly instructing:
"Little girl, hold onto this branch, it can offer some protection, behave and don’t wander off, understand?"
Zhang Shanni hadn’t been treated this way in a long time, her cheeks flushing as she lowered her head and nodded quietly with a mosquito-like whisper, "Understood."
Xie Jingchen touched her thick yet dry and yellowed hair, to his surprise, it was unexpectedly smooth, "I’ll be back in half an hour at most, don’t be afraid."
"Mm, hurry up and go!" Bowing her head, Zhang Shanni dispersed her spiritual power, even accidentally catching sight of Xie Jingchen’s serious face breaking into a smile, his gaze quite gentle.
Zhang Shanni was slightly stunned, doubting whether she had ’seen’ wrong.
She couldn’t be blamed for this overreaction because in her era, when two people got married, apart from having affection for each other, they also needed considerable conditions, family background, at least a stable home environment, and relatively equal financial income.
Even the standards men had for their partners were not few: be adorable, be glamorous, be virtuous, in short, marriage was no longer about affection, but about practical interests!
Back when she married that scumbag, it was also because his conditions were fairly similar to hers, his face was tolerable to look at, and although she was quite eligible herself, her personality was not the greatest.
For one, she didn’t like staying at home to wait on and care for her in-laws, and two, she had slight obsessive-compulsive disorder; they really got married because he was willing to sign a prenuptial agreement with her, forbidding infidelity after marriage, or else the property would be confiscated by the other party and the violator kicked to the curb!
Ridiculously, he truly hadn’t been unfaithful after marriage, because the scumbag had already cheated before they even got married! From the time she got to know him until they decided to get married was no more than three years, yet his son was already nine years old!
Slap after slap, the betrayal hit her to the point where her heart turned to ashes!
By the time she discovered this, the apocalypse had already arrived—so much for any agreements!
Looking at her current appearance, she lacked both beauty and a good figure, and had married him after courting controversy. Don’t look at Xie Jingchen’s dark face; a man’s dark complexion and a woman’s are completely different concepts!
When a man is dark-skinned, at most people say he’s strong, practical, and has a masculine charm!
When a woman is dark-skinned, she’s definitely marred by it, seen as ugly, charcoallike, lacking feminine charm!
Her ex-husband, that scumbag, originally had a fair and handsome face, the very image of a white-collar elite leader, which was what made her fall into the trap unwittingly.
It was all because she had been dazzled by appearances, misled by a pretty face! After this lethal ’lesson’, Zhang Shanni no longer had that naive dream of wanting her man to be a godlike figure, no longer had the infatuation of a little girl yearning for a male idol!
No matter how good-looking the face is, it can’t withstand a black heart!
Then looking back at Xie Jingchen, with his dark complexion, tall and sturdy build, a sense of responsibility, and not disdaining her ’characteristic’ physique, she felt quite content already! Unexpectedly, he was actually ’satisfied’ with the original owner’s ghostly appearance!
This was truly shocking, wasn’t it!
The man named ’Xie Jingchen’ actually had such low demands for a ’wife’?
Was she really picking up a ’treasure’?
Actually, this also reflected the characteristics of the era. At that time, men didn’t mind a woman’s appearance unless she was truly diseased or covered in unsightly scars or knife wounds. Being a bit dark-skinned, who would care?
Fundamentally speaking, Xie Jingchen’s mindset still held the practical views of a local farming man.
Moreover, during this era, women were typically dark-skinned, looking better only when they were girls. Once married, unless they were not from a rural area, which one wouldn’t need to work the fields?
Being dark-skinned was a normal phenomenon!
Besides, in this era, at best there were moisturizing creams. As for whitening and removing spots, that was wishful thinking. Even those who claimed to be city dwellers had dusky complexions, with slightly better ones having yellow skin. Truly fair-skinned women, white as snow, were indeed a rarity.
Shanni’s spiritual power unconsciously followed Xie Jingchen’s movements, lost in a daze.
Xie Jingchen was known as ’Xie Rash’ within the military, not just because his surname was Xie, but Rash was not a complimentary title. Even without Shanni’s help to drive away the wild creatures, his excellent hearing and the skills from his background as a special forces Reconnaissance Guard allowed him to clearly hear movements tens of meters away.
This was also the reason he felt at ease allowing Shanni to rest nearby. Even if they were nearly a hundred meters apart, if she made any noise, he could immediately hear it.
In just over ten minutes, he had hunted a fat rabbit and a hedgehog. He placed the game under a large ancient tree, and from afar, saw his newlywed wife obediently seated on a rock looking his way. True to his word, she really didn’t budge a muscle!
Seeing her docile and obedient demeanor, Xie Jingchen felt even more at ease. Using the wind, he slightly moved his ears, tracking the sounds as he deftly shifted his position. Only the sound of the wind blowing through the grass, rustling, could be heard around him.
He kept his breathing very low; unbeknownst to him, the distance between him and Zhang Shanni had already exceeded three to four hundred meters. Shanni concentrated her spiritual power into a thin thread, keeping it tightly locked onto Xie Jingchen. As the distance increased, she retracted her expanded spiritual power, and after following him for six to seven hundred meters, she had reached her limit.
Any further, and with her current level of spiritual power, she simply couldn’t manage. To force a ’look’ would only damage her ’spiritual’ core!
At that moment, Xie Jingchen finally saw his prey! It was a mature male deer that had been injured, its hind hoof entangled with a thick vine. Stubbornly, it used its antlers in an attempt to remove the vine, but since it was its hind hoof that was trapped, its efforts only caused the vine to wrap tighter around the limb.
Seeing this male deer that weighed seventy or eighty pounds, Xie Jingchen was thrilled, his movements becoming even more still. Only when he was about five meters away from the deer, did it sense something and raise its head to scan the surroundings. Not detecting any predators, the deer lowered its head again to deal with the injuries and the vine on its hind hoof, distracted—
Xie Jingchen was waiting for just this moment of laxity!
A silver flash was seen, and as the male deer bent its head to pull at the vine with his antlers, it exposed its vital weak points—the forehead, neck, and lower abdomen.
The forehead was hard to target as it moved its antlers, but the neck was a glaring target, hit with a single strike! With a shooting range of three rings, if he couldn’t hit the target, he might as well strip off his Military Uniform and go home to farm!