CHAPTER 43: CHAPTER 43: YOU CAN’T SHOW YOURSELF TO ANYONE ELSE

The voices of discussion weren’t loud, considering everyone was quite exhausted, and the sound of the heavy rain was also overpowering. If Ye Xiaotong hadn’t been shouting and pointing at people, no one would have noticed them.

Ye Manman looked at her in sheer exasperation. She didn’t want to raise her voice, so she deliberately walked up to her.

"What does your argument with your husband have to do with me? I haven’t even left home much in the past two months, let alone interacted with you. Please stop snapping at people indiscriminately, alright?"

Everyone was gathered together for warmth and safety, so Ye Manman’s words were clear to others too.

Thus, a chorus of agreement from the crowd followed.

"That’s true, Manman rarely leaves her house, and Xie Fengmian hasn’t even come to our village. How does their family fight involve her?"

"Seems so; she hasn’t been seen out much, and whenever she goes out, He Chen is with her. How could she be having a secret rendezvous? Ye Xiaotong must be causing trouble for her on purpose..."

"I heard those two sisters have always been at odds."

Anyway, everyone was quite bored, and doing something was better than standing in the rain and catching a chill, so many joined the discussion.

Ye Xiaotong was trembling all over, uncertain if it was from rage or the cold.

She clutched her belly and continued to present her evidence.

"It was just yesterday. If Fengmian hadn’t run into you on the street, if you hadn’t seduced him, how would he be so indifferent to me, even telling me to carefully consider whether to keep the child, boohoo..."

The day before, her argument with Xie Fengmian was actually because the Xie family’s factory hadn’t been doing well recently, and they had a few words on whether to keep the child.

But just after insisting on keeping the child, a neighbor ran to tell her about seeing Xie Fengmian laughing and chatting with a woman on the street. Just a couple of questions revealed that the woman had to be Ye Manman.

She immediately ran back to confront Xie Fengmian on the spot, but unexpectedly, not only did he argue intensely with her, he also pushed her, almost causing a miscarriage.

Furious, Ye Xiaotong ran back to her family home, forgetting that a torrential rain was about to cause a flood. By the time she realized, it was already evening, too late to head back to town.

She had gone through this once in her past life and knew this flood would claim many lives, causing her to fear she might accidentally become one of them.

All of this, was Ye Manman’s doing!

Ye Manman was stunned by the absurdity and couldn’t help rolling her eyes.

"How do you call a conversation a friendly chat? He and I, along with He Chen, were about to head home when your husband blocked us, saying irrelevant things. I told him we weren’t familiar and left. Is that a ’friendly chat’? Are you treating He Chen as air?"

"The two of you are clearly birds of a feather, unable to understand human language, right? One is delusional, and the other is paranoid."

"If you’re sick, get treatment. Stop screaming here."

The rain had drenched everyone through and through, and dealing with this kind of messy slander, Ye Manman was thoroughly upset.

Ye Xiaotong still didn’t believe it. "You’re lying, people said they saw it with their own eyes!"

Ye Manman couldn’t be bothered to respond to her anymore, and an elderly woman nearby, who had heard everything, couldn’t help but chime in.

"Folks here also saw it. Yesterday, Ye Manman went to town with her husband, He Chen, and returned with him. Don’t slander others; calling someone a homewrecker indiscriminately hurts their reputation."

The woman was reasonable and couldn’t stand Ye Xiaotong’s behavior, especially pulling this kind of family dispute when facing a major crisis; it was pure obliviousness.

If the rain got any heavier and triggered a landslide, everyone could lose their lives. What was the point of these baseless accusations then?

Ye Xiaotong didn’t expect others to back Ye Manman. She turned to the elderly woman defensively and said, "What’s this got to do with you?"

This offended several other elder women standing nearby, as they too had their close-knit circles.

"Young lady, don’t you know what’s going on now? We’re giving you a chance to let it go, and you won’t take it? Do we have to scold you before you feel satisfied?"

"Always bringing up the homewrecker thing, you don’t even know how you got close to that Xie family in the first place. I heard it was because of Manman’s help that Fengmian noticed her. It clearly shows he liked Manman, maybe it was you drawing him in."

"Truly clueless. Ye Manman has such a good husband, who cooks, earns money, is hardworking and dependable, and buys her new clothes regularly. Why would she seduce a married man?"

"Right, right, that reasoning is flawed. He Chen treats his wife so well, what woman would entertain the idea of attracting someone else? The logic doesn’t hold."

The crowd chimed in from all sides, leaving Ye Xiaotong with a face alternating between red and pale, unable to utter a single word for quite some time.

Yang Xiumei initially wanted to speak up for her daughter, but everyone suddenly dispersed.

Ye Guoqiang arrived and took them towards the tent, so they had to swallow their anger and seek shelter from the rain.

The tent was small, barely able to block the rain falling from above, and the ground was all wet.

He Chen took off his shirt and wrung out the water, placed it on a part closer to the inside of the tent to soak the water off the ground, and repeated a few times before taking a dry jacket out of the bundle to spread on the ground.

"Come, sit here."

He Chen intended for Ye Manman to sit on the dry clothes, but Ye Manman, looking at her soaked clothes, was on the verge of tears.

"The clothes are all wet, sitting on them will get wet, too."

She desperately wanted to change her clothes, but there were too many people around, and there was no cover, so she had to settle for letting He Chen help wring out her clothes so they wouldn’t drip.

Despite being shy, He Chen was more afraid of Ye Manman catching a cold, so he diligently helped wring out her clothes and pants.

Ye Manman, noticing her clothes felt somewhat less wet, suddenly recalled a method to change clothes without taking off the ones underneath.

So she took off her jacket, pulled her arms inside the shirt, and asked He Chen for a long-sleeved shirt of his to put over her head.

He Chen watched as she maneuvered inside his oversized shirt, pulling the previously sticking wet clothes out from underneath it.

That instantly felt much drier, and she even took off her undergarment.

"Wearing dry clothes feels great!"

She exclaimed sincerely, secretly wrapping the undergarment in her short-sleeved shirt into a bundle, handing it to He Chen while whispering in his ear what was inside, asking him to hide it.

He Chen’s face flushed red, then his brows furrowed, watching Ye Manman’s chest.

Seeing her don one of her jackets, entirely obscuring the view in front, he breathed a sigh of relief.

"Don’t worry about the pants, quickly sit down and rest for a while, don’t catch a cold."

He Chen was still shirtless, droplets of water running over his skin, his upper body’s firm muscle definition was very attractive, and his V-shape torso was every fitness enthusiast’s ultimate goal.

Ye Manman noticed many women sneaking glances at him, which inexplicably upset her.

"You put on your clothes too."

Her tone was displeased, and He Chen noticed it, but he thought she was concerned about him catching a cold.

"No worries, I’m healthy and won’t catch a cold. Not sure how long we’ll be here, later I’ll still have to..."

"No, I want you to put your clothes on now."

Ye Manman interrupted him, pouting while using the wet shirt to wipe the water off his body, quietly speaking as she did so.

"You’re not allowed to show yourself to others."

"Only I can look at you."