Received A Wife From The Civil Affairs Bureau Ch.36

During the weekend, Shen Yumo brought home the essays her students had just written and turned in. They were to be graded by her and since they were argumentative essays written by science major students, naturally the logic behind their arguments was quite sound. However, there were a few handfuls of students who did not take the assignment seriously and the work they handed in was quite a headache to look at. 

Jiang Ziquan sat beside Shen Yumo, sketching as she watched her go through each and every paper. In her hand was every teacher’s favorite type of pen, the red ballpoint type, and like a bloody judge, it gave each student a number it deemed worthy of their work. 

Therefore, if the pen is the judge then is the holder of the pen Yama, the king of hell? [1] An image of Teacher Shen wearing one of those judges’ uniforms like the one she saw on TV briefly flashed through her mind. 

The frightening image that appeared caused Jiang Ziquan to feel amazed at her imagination and she shook her head as she tried to erase that image from her mind so she could get back to her own work. 

After a while, she noticed that those beautiful eyebrows were furrowed and a frown hung on Shen Yumo’s beautiful face. She watched as Shen Yumo even flipped to the front of the essay to look at the student’s name before setting the essay to the side. 

Jiang Ziquan glanced at the paper and secretly felt bad for the student. If the writing could even make Shen Yumo upset, just how bad was it?

Then she suddenly remembered that love letter she had written so many years ago. Of course, she couldn’t remember much, but she did remember that it was full of grammar errors and punctuation mistakes. What if Teacher Shen had gotten annoyed when she read her writing?

Ka-da! 

The soft sound of something breaking was particularly loud in this silence. 

Jiang Ziquan froze and then realized it was her own pencil that had made the noise. It seemed that the tip of the pencil had broken off and there were a few stray marks on the white drawing paper in front of her. She forced herself to focus, settling her mind as she erased the stray black marks. 

“What’s wrong? No inspiration today?” Shen Yumo pushed up her glasses and stretched. Jiang Ziquan had been sitting beside her for more than an hour now, but the drawing paper was even cleaner than her face with not a single drawing on it. She wondered if something was bothering her and if that something was herself, as Jiang Ziquan’s eyes hardly left her body this entire time. 

“No, nothing like that.” Jiang Ziquan twirled the pen in her hand as she tried to cover her own panic. It was really hard to lie to your wife when she is also a teacher who is trained to detect them. 

“Well, that’s good. You should continue working then.” Shen Yumo didn’t force her to explain and went back to correcting the essays. However, this time her grading speed seemed to have significantly increased. 

Jiang Ziquan sheepishly scratched her head and then stood up to grab something. She came back with a lamp from her bedroom and placed it on the table next to Shen Yumo. The warm yellow light hit Shen Yumo’s face, a slight shadow forming on one side of her face. 

“Isn’t the light a little too bright?”

“I don’t think it’s bright at all.” 

Shen Yumo gave her a glance full of suspicion but seeing that Jiang Ziquan had started sketching seriously, she didn’t say anything and focused on her own work instead. 

During the next few moments, the only sounds that could be heard in that room were the sounds of a pencil sketching furiously and a red pen scratching marks on essays. 

Riinnng! Riiinnng! 

Shen Yumo quickly silenced her phone and looked up to see a strange expression on Jiang Ziquan’s face. She immediately realized that it was probably because Jiang Ziquan was annoyed at being interrupted during her focused drawing session. She looked at her apologetically, “Sorry, I need to answer the phone.”

After saying so, she stood and walked out to the balcony. She wanted to give Jiang Ziquan a quiet and creative space to concentrate, so she closed the door behind her. 

“Great.” Jiang Ziquan smiled sullenly. As an artist, there was nothing more irritating than your model suddenly running away. However, remembering that the other party was Teacher Shen, she didn’t have the heart to get angry and thus resulting in her conflicted expression from earlier. 

Teacher Shen talked on the phone for a long while and Jiang Ziquan lowered her eyes at the unfinished drawing in front of her. She tried fixing some of the edges, but she really couldn’t do anything without her model as a reference. 

She then turned her gaze to the essays and was especially curious about the one set to the side. She was intrigued to know just how badly written it was to have offended Teacher Shen. However, she knew that teenagers valued their privacy greatly and probably wouldn’t approve of her taking a peek at their work. Furthermore, wouldn’t Teacher Shen get angry too?

“What are you doing?”

Jiang Ziquan jumped and hurriedly sat back down before saying seriously, “Drawing.”

Shen Yumo followed her gaze to that essay and then looked at the suspicious blush on Jiang Ziquan’s face. She could guess most of it and sat down, turning her head towards Jiang Ziquan with a serious expression on her face, “His is not as good as yours.”

Jiang Ziquan raised an eyebrow. What isn’t as good as mine? My drawing? My looks?

“It’s true. He’s been working on it for the better part of the year, apparently, and yet it isn’t as good as yours.” Shen Yumo mistook her look as one of disbelief and continued, 

“I really liked your handwritten letter.”

Shen Yumo’s head was bowed and she felt thankful that her hair wasn’t tied up today. She could feel her ears burning and knew that they were probably crimson by now. 

Although Jiang Ziquan couldn’t see her reddened ears, she had seen Shen Yumo’s shy behavior many times and was quite familiar with it now. However, no matter how cute she thought Shen Yumo looked right now, why did she feel like Shen Yumo and her weren’t talking about the same thing?

What to do? What to do?

Can someone give her a hint of what’s going on?

The atmosphere is good right now, she really didn’t want to ruin it with a phrase of ‘What are you talking about?’

Wait, handwritten letter?

A handwritten letter!!! 

Could it be that essay is actually a love letter?!

Her eyes widened. She didn’t know if she should be angry at knowing that a student confessed to her wife or she should feel bashful that Teacher Shen claimed she liked her love letter more? 

Shen Yumo watched as Jiang Ziquan’s face flipped through different colors like a palette. She had originally thought that Jiang Ziquan was feeling jealous and now as she observed her, she felt that she might be right. However, isn’t she being a little too petty?

“He is just a student to me, I-” 

Jiang Ziquan inwardly complimented herself, it looked like she had guessed right. She pretended to cough a few times, “Ahem, can I read it again?”

Shen Yumo thought about it for a while, then carefully flipped through the essay and then took out the small note that was hidden inside, it was taped onto one of the pages.  

Jiang Ziquan was also thankful that she hadn’t tried to read the essay or else she wouldn’t have had enough time to read it thoroughly and find that small note. She read the note aloud, there was only one sentence on it,“Fireworks going off for thirty nights may be noisy, but they are not as loud as my thoughts of you.” 

Jiang Ziquan’s already widened eyes expanded even more. Isn’t this one of those legendary cheesy pick-up lines? Furthermore, Teacher Shen even made a simple comment on the bottom with a red pen, ‘Wouldn’t that just make everything noisier?’ 

“Pfftt-!” Jiang Ziquan couldn’t help letting out a laugh. Teacher Shen is this cute even with her students? She stood up and walked over to Shen Yumo’s side, giving her the note. 

Shen Yumo looked up at her. She felt that it was unnecessary to have walked over to her side just to return a note. Her cheeks were burning already from all this embarrassment, but they turned even redder when a certain pair of eyes looked at her. 

An idea appeared in Jiang Ziquan’s mind and leaned towards Shen Yumo. Seeing her face all red, she smiled and gently took off Shen Yumo’s glasses. 

Although Shen Yumo is short-sighted, she can still see clearly within a certain distance and she can definitely see that smile on Jiang Ziquan’s face. She already knew that Jiang Ziquan’s smiles were always very tempting, but it was even more so at this moment. 

“What are you doing?” Shen Yumo felt surprised at her own voice. Why did it sound so soft?

Jiang Ziquan slowly leaned in, her forehead pressed against her own as she stared into Shen Yumo’s eyes. Her red lips moved, “Yumo.”

“En?” She hasn’t heard Jiang Ziquan call her by her name in a long time.

“Do you only fall for me when you’re blind?”

Shen Yumo: “…..”

Jiang Ziquan was so close to her that naturally, she could see the mischievous look in her eyes. This cheesy pickup line was no good on her. 

Those lips were so close now, and she had already done this not just once or twice now. So she didn’t think any further and impatiently dove in, easily covering those red lips with her own. 

Jiang Ziquan felt a wave of hot breath on her face. For some reason, she couldn’t help but feel that this kiss was even better than the one that night. This time, she didn’t try to control herself as she pressed the tip of her tongue against the lips in front of her. She felt the person in her arms stiffen for a moment, but she took advantage of that moment of hesitation to slide her tongue in.  

They broke apart, and Shen Yumo gasped for air, her legs feeling soft underneath her. She was half lying in her chair, her eyes glazed over so that it looked like there were mists in her eyes. 

Jiang Ziquan watched her closely, amused that her blush still hadn’t disappeared. She had always thought that even if Shen Yumo is pure, she should have kissed someone before, right? How could someone who had lived for twenty-eight years never experience a kiss before (not counting herself since she was an odd variable)? Did Shen Yumo only hold hands during her previous relationships? Although the thought of that made her quite happy. She couldn’t help but smile but she received a glare in response. However, that glare looked like a tempting gaze to Jiang Ziquan and her mouth felt dry at being on the other end of it. She so desperately wanted to kiss her again. 

“Give me back my glasses.” Shen Yumo’s voice sounded hoarse, and a little husky, but she obviously hasn’t recovered from the kiss. After having her fill, Jiang Ziquan naturally had no problem with this and smiled as she handed back her glasses. She also wiped the lipstick smeared on the sides of Shen Yumo’s lips. This color isn’t really suitable for Teacher Shen. 

Shen Yumo placed her glasses back on her face and Jiang Ziquan’s delicate face appeared in her vision more clearly. She could see the touch of wetness that appeared in the corners of Jiang Ziquan’s eyes and those burning ears that betrayed her shyness, no matter how much Jiang Ziquan pretended she was experienced at kissing. 

“My eyes may be bad, but it doesn’t mean I’m a bad judge of character too.”

As those words slipped out of her mouth, Jiang Ziquan froze. She felt like she was floating on air, and she couldn’t pry her eyes off the dazzling person in front of her. There seemed to be a warmth around her that easily lured people in. A type of warmth that would make a person want to bask in it forever, never wanting to leave.  

Is this the feeling of when the person I like, likes me back? 

Originally Jiang Ziquan had felt annoyed by the student’s love confession, but she felt it was such a trivial matter. She believed in the person in front of her and Shen Yumo deserved her trust, her everything. 

Shen Yumo’s mind finally cleared up for her to remember what she had wanted to say about the call from earlier, “My mother called me to say that my grandfather has sent them a letter.”

“What?” Jiang Ziquan blinked, she had completely forgotten that Shen Yumo had a grandfather. She straightened, “You mean that same grandfather who accurately calculated the exact date of our marriage?”

“Yes.” Shen Yumo nodded. She was also surprised to hear from her grandfather who she hasn’t seen in nearly two decades. She was happy to know that he was alive, though she wasn’t too surprised knowing his abilities. However, she had a vague feeling that something bad will happen when he sees him this time: “He says he wants to meet you.” 

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T/N notes: 

[1] In Chinese mythology, you are judged when you die by one of the ten magistrates/judges of hell. The one who rules them all is Yama, the ruler of the underworld. Think of it as Yama = Hades, but he doesn’t handle the judgment stuff and leaves it to a court of judges. Fun fact: when someone says in Chinese “I want to see Yama” they usually mean they want to die. Haha, morbid humor. 

Sidenote: I was watching a British show while translating this so some of the sentences may have been structured in a more British-English pattern. I don’t think anyone could tell the difference, but let me tell you, it was weird to hear random British accents pop up in my head every now and then.

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