Back To The 80s-Chapter 56 - 55: Hero_1

Lu Zhanguo settled Gu Xiaobei into the front passenger seat, then passed back to Shen Heng who followed him, "Give it here."

Shen Heng handed over the gun and said, "Let me come with you."

Lu Zhanguo didn’t even give him a glance, opened the driver’s door, sat in, and placed the gun in the back seat. He touched Gu Xiaobei’s face and said, "I have to return to the camp and hand in the gun first, then take you to the hospital, okay?"

Gu Xiaobei shook his head, "I’m fine, just a few scratches, I will buy some iodine tincture to cleanse them."

Lu Zhanguo nodded, didn’t even look at Shen Heng outside the car window, started the car and drove off.

Shen Heng scratched his head, realizing that Lu was upset. He blamed himself for not taking good care of Gu Xiaobei and letting something like this happen. He secretly swore to find out who was responsible.

Lu Zhanguo, with Gu Xiaobei by his side, felt his fury dissipate somewhat. Gu Xiaobei looked at Lu Zhanguo’s earnest face while he drove and asked curiously, "When did you come back?" 𝗳𝚛𝗲𝕖𝚠𝚎𝚋𝗻𝗼𝕧𝗲𝐥.𝚌𝚘𝐦

"Yesterday."

"Why didn’t you come home when you came back yesterday, and why didn’t you call me?" Gu Xiaobei said a bit aggrieved.

"We must confine ourselves for seven days upon returning and we cannot have contact with the outside world," Lu Zhanguo explained patiently, expecting it to be the case many times in the future.

"Why?" Gu Xiaobei was puzzled. Wasn’t confinement only for those who had committed errors? Why did they have to quarantine after completing their mission?

"To rid ourselves of the killing intent. Why didn’t you go to work today?" Lu Zhanguo dodged the question.

"Oh, the provincial publishing house asked me to translate a book. I finished the translation yesterday and mailed it this morning." Gu Xiaobei thought naively, thank goodness the book was mailed before she was robbed. If she was robbed before sending it and the manuscript was damaged, that would indeed be troublesome. That’s 400 yuan!

Lu Zhanguo glanced at Gu Xiaobei’s grimace face, which didn’t show a hint of the trauma from the robbery. He was quite baffled.

"So when we go back, are you still going to be in confinement?" Gu Xiaobei pouted.

"No, I’ll be with you for the next few days." Gu Xiaobei was delighted and couldn’t help grinning.

When Lu Zhanguo returned to camp to turn in the gun, Guo Huaqiang looked at Gu Xiaobei standing in the distance and pulled Lu Zhanguo aside to ask, "Are you sure she was just robbed?"

Lu Zhanguo turned to look at Gu Xiaobei, who was standing under the shadows of the trees in the distance. Sunlight filtered down through the leaves in dappled patches onto her, making her face seem even more radiant. Her eyes sparkled even more brightly when she caught him looking.

She indeed didn’t look like she had just experienced a life-and-death situation. Lu Zhanguo didn’t understand either, "She was more calm than any trained person even when the robber had his knife to her throat."

Guo Huaqiang could only explain, "Seems like she has become braver after falling last time. You should take Gu Xiaobei home and rest."

Lu Zhanguo insisted on taking Gu Xiaobei to the medical team for her to have some iodine applied. They walked side by side to the medical room. Lu Zhanguo could not help but ask, "Weren’t you scared then?"

Gu Xiaobei paused, then laughed and said, "Of course I was scared. But I believed my hero would come flying in on a cloud to save me." In her heart, she added, I also guessed the ending to my story. My hero and I will live happily together.

Lu Zhanguo reached out to hold Gu Xiaobei’s hand and said, "There won’t be a next time."

Gu Xiaobei looked at his big, dark hand holding hers, laughed out loud. This man was actually holding her hand in public.

When Lu Zhanguo walked into the medical room with Gu Xiaobei. Chi Xiaoyue happened to see from her office window, she was taken aback at seeing them openly holding hands.

She thought about how Gao Dailin only accompanied her for the operation in the end but walked away without looking back once they left the hospital. She had to take the bus home alone and didn’t dare to take a leave of absence to rest. Even now, almost a month later, she still wasn’t completely healed.

Gu Xiaobei just had a few scrapes on her arm and knee. The field medic, Xiaoli, simply cleaned the wounds and applied iodine. Gu Xiaobei didn’t think her wounds were severe at all. They would heal on their own in a few days. But seeing Lu Zhanguo’s concerned face made her incredibly happy.

Leaving the medical room, Gu Xiaobei suddenly remembered that she hadn’t seen Chi Xiaoyue around. She wished she could flaunt her affectionate relationship in front of that white lotus, just to ruffle her feathers.

"Let’s go to the cafeteria first and get something to eat," Lu Zhanguo said, reminding Gu Xiaobei that she was actually quite hungry.

They went to the cafeteria, which was mostly empty as lunchtime had passed. Only two soldiers were picking vegetables for the kitchen. Seeing Lu Zhanguo, they quickly stood up and saluted. Lu Zhanguo returned the salute and said, "Carry on, we will get our own food."

The young soldiers offered to help, but Lu Zhanguo stopped them. He rolled up his sleeves and went into the kitchen to fix some food.

Gu Xiaobei noticed the big pile of vegetables in front of them––eggplants, cowpeas, peppers, and celery. She couldn’t help asking, "Why do you have so much food?"

One of the soldiers, a round-faced one with prominent canines visible when he smiled, replied, "We grew all these vegetables ourselves. Since they’ve all matured now, we’ve been drying the eggplants and cowpeas and turning the peppers into chili sauce, and pickling the celery and peppers. Otherwise, we wouldn’t have any vegetables to eat in winter."

Gu Xiaobei also grabbed a small stool to sit and help pick celery leaves, thinking that she had almost forgotten that in winter, they would only have cabbages, radishes, and potatoes. They had to make some dried vegetables and pickles in advance for a change of taste in winter.

"How do you pickle the celery?" Gu Xiaobei had no idea how to make pickles, so she wanted to learn.

"It’s simple, just wash the celery, pepper, and leek thoroughly, drain them, let them semi-dry, sprinkle some salt, and pickle them," another rather shy soldier explained.

This seemed too simple to be true, Gu Xiaobei archly raised an eyebrow, such simplicity was rather surprising.

Before she knew it, Lu Zhanguo called her in for lunch. The cooks had leftover cooked rice from lunch, so Lu Zhanguo made a tomato and egg stir-fry dish and a stir-fried meat with peppers dish.

The peppers grown in the northwest were small but extremely spicy. Gu Xiaobei had a thing for spicy food, so didn’t realize she had eaten two large bowls of rice. She stuck her tongue out, thinking that this was the most she had eaten since she had transmigrated.’

Lu Zhanguo watched Gu Xiaobei warmly. When one loves someone, every small action of theirs seems to be very cute.

After eating, Lu Zhanguo cleaned up the dishes and utensils and they head back to the hospital. Passing by the vegetable field, Gu Xiaobei suddenly remembered, "Oh no, we were also assigned a plot for a vegetable field. I wonder if it’s still there."

"It’s not idle. Fengmei has been farming it. She’ll help us dry some vegetables for winter," he replied.

Gu Xiaobei felt that among her acquaintances, only Fengmei was sensible. Xiangmin was too arrogant, Li Juan was a gossip, and the rest she didn’t know well.

Lu Zhanguo continued, "Nobody has lived in our place for a month. The bedding might be damp. We’ll have to make do tonight, and tomorrow, we will return to T City." Gu Xiaobei nodded in understanding.