Chapter 36: Gao the Slow Driver
The reason she got completely drunk at the bar before was probably because something had already been weighing on her mind. She knew that if she could not handle the pressure this time, she would end up getting married, and her innocence would be gone with the wind. So she drank to drown her worries, only to feel even worse afterward.
A storm of thoughts rushed through Cheng Fei’s head, and she suddenly felt like she had figured things out. A smile curled at the corner of her lips, while her half-closed eyes and raised brows showed a playful look.
The sound of slippers suddenly stopped, pulling Cheng Fei back to reality. Gao Ming walked over, and after looking around the room helplessly, he searched around again before placing a quilt and a blanket across the middle of the bed.
“One person on each side. If you cross the line… I’ll break your hand!”
Gao Ming brushed the hair in front of his forehead aside. “Relax. Acting is acting. I’m not interested in men. No matter how you look on the outside, your core is still a man.”
“That’s good then!”
Cheng Fei climbed into the blanket and turned her back toward Gao Ming. Bread curled up into a round fluffy ball beside her. Pets often take after their owners, and the cat’s sleeping position clearly showed how Cheng Fei usually slept.
When they came back, the room was already filled with soft breathing sounds. Bread had disappeared somewhere, probably out catching mice to guard the house for its owner, or maybe meeting up with other cats. The steady breathing sounded almost like a lullaby, and Gao Ming could not resist the sleepiness either, so he climbed onto the bed.
Back home in this warm and peaceful harbor, Cheng Fei slept especially well that night. With both body and mind fully relaxed, she slept dreamlessly until morning. If not for the rooster crowing together with the alarm clock, she probably would have slept until ten.
Cheng Fei smacked her lips twice, planning to roll around comfortably in bed.
Hiss!
The moment she moved her head, her scalp hurt too, like someone was pulling her hair.
The discomfort quickly woke up her senses again, but what felt even stranger was that the blanket suddenly seemed so soft and warm. And the thing she was touching definitely did not feel like Bread.
Hmm… honestly, it felt about as soft as real bread you could actually eat…
Uh… don’t tell me this is…
Cheng Fei instantly opened her sleepy eyes and saw Gao Ming’s sleeping face right in front of her.
The blanket was still hers, but she had somehow moved far away during the night, almost pushing Gao Ming off the bed!
And her sleeping position looked pretty funny too, almost exactly like the way Bread curled up in her arms.
Cheng Fei carefully moved back little by little. Then she noticed something awkward under Gao Ming’s blanket, and subconsciously pulled her own blanket tighter around herself.
“Move over, you’re lying on my hair!”
“...”
After calming herself a little, Cheng Fei quietly climbed out of bed. Just then, the silent man suddenly spoke.
“I want to go home.”
Cheng Fei froze halfway on her way to the bathroom.
“Sleeping with you is seriously exhausting.”
“......”
Why did that sound so irritating?
When she woke up later, nobody was home. After failing to find the electric tricycle, Cheng Fei knew the two of them had gone to the supermarket on the street to work.
Before leaving, they had prepared breakfast for her, fried pancakes and millet porridge.
It had been a long time since Cheng Fei had eaten Qin Yi’s homemade breakfast. Eating it together with pickled vegetables, she still felt unsatisfied, but she had no choice except to leave some for Gao Ming too.
Cheng Fei’s staring made Gao Ming uncomfortable, so he looked around the yard instead. After glancing around for a while, he actually noticed something.
The wind had picked up during the night, and the tractor hidden under the tarp in the corner of the yard was now exposed.
“Your family still farms land?”
“I already have a town household registration, but my parents still have rural registration. And if farmers don’t even have farmland, can they still be called farmers?”
Gao Ming smiled. “So how much farmland do you still have?”
Cheng Fei glared at him cautiously. “Why? Thinking about getting into real estate?”
“Just curious about what crops you grow.”
Since childhood, Gao Ming had always lived in the city, so it was natural for him to be interested in things outside of city life. He rarely even touched soil, let alone farmland.
“If I’m not planning to go home anytime soon, I need to find something fun to do.”
“Oh?” Cheng Fei raised her voice and lifted her brows at the same time. For some reason, Gao Ming suddenly felt nervous when he saw that expression.
After breakfast, Cheng Fei pulled off the plastic tarp, picked up the tractor key, and gave Gao Ming a look.
“Single-cylinder, 18-horsepower engine, classic walking tractor model! Boss Gao, can you drive it?”
“I can drive cars. This shouldn’t be too hard, right?”
“Oooh?” Cheng Fei dragged out the sound again while grinning brightly. She handed him the crank handle. “Since you can drive it, then you definitely know how to start it too!”
The crank handle was shaped like a right-angle “Z” and felt heavy in his hands, almost as heavy as his mood right now.
He drove cars often and had even ridden motorcycles before, but farm machines like this…
During summer in Yunzhou, he often saw melon farmers driving these things around the streets. He had seen plenty of them, but had never actually used one before. As for starting it, he had only pretended he could drive it to save face.
Gao Ming swallowed nervously and lined up the crank with the slot on the right side.
From the way he moved, Cheng Fei could already tell he was about to use brute force. She just stood there watching without saying a word, secretly laughing.
Not long after, veins were popping out on Gao Ming’s forehead and the back of his hands. Sweat rolled down his forehead while he breathed heavily.
“Hahaha!”
Cheng Fei almost burst out laughing. Gao Ming turned and gave her a cold look.
“It won’t move at all. Is there some kind of switch or something?”
Cheng Fei held her stomach and laughed for a while before calming down. She took the crank handle from his hand and stood in the same spot.
Unlike Gao Ming, she placed her left hand on a small, easy-to-miss metal lever and pulled it hard.
Then she bent her knees into a stable stance and used all her strength to crank it several times.
Put-put-put-put—
With a loud, sharp noise, the tractor finally started running!
Gao Ming’s face darkened immediately.
He could not even blame Cheng Fei for looking down on him. He could only blame himself for not knowing enough.
Cheng Fei happily jumped onto the back trailer, while Gao Ming was not very willing to become the driver.
Embarrassing himself once was already enough. If something else happened on the road, where would he put his pride?
“By the way, are we really going there on this thing?”
“We’re in the county town right now. The farmland is more than ten kilometers away!” Because the tractor was so loud, Cheng Fei almost had to shout.
“I think driving a car would be better…”
“It rained the day before yesterday. Are you really willing to let your precious car roll around on muddy roads?”
“......”
Fuxian was an old county with slow development. The roads inside town were not too bad, but the more remote places were another story. The roads near farmland were mostly dirt roads.
Even SUVs and off-road vehicles would struggle there, not to mention his low-chassis sedan.
If the car got stuck and could not get out, they would still have to rely on this tractor anyway.
After hesitating for a while, Gao Ming finally climbed onto the tractor. Holding the handlebars that looked almost like those of a Harley motorcycle, he slowly drove out of the yard under Cheng Fei’s instructions.
At first, the deafening noise hurt his ears badly. But after leaving the streets and reaching more open areas, it felt much better.
Slowly, he started getting used to it. The breeze brushed past his hair, and the fresh smell after rain rushed toward him. A feeling completely different from driving a car naturally rose in his heart.
Cheng Fei sat in the back with one leg crossed over the other. One hand held onto the trailer to stop herself from getting thrown off by this beginner driver, while the other hand stuffed “fragrant girls” into her mouth.
The bright red fruits tasted sweet and sour. The ones sold in supermarkets were all artificially grown, nowhere near as tasty as these wild ones. Of course, this only applied to harmless plants that reproduced quickly. As for eating wild animals, something harmful to both people and nature, she strongly opposed it.
The road slowly became narrower. Cheng Fei pointed ahead.
“Turn right at the small bridge up ahead.”
Gao Ming looked forward and saw a bumpy yellow dirt road filled with uneven holes. Several gray ducks stretched their necks and shook their heads happily in the ditch beside the road. Besides the lively scene, there were also deep tracks in the mud left by other vehicles.
A memory from when he once got trapped in the suburbs suddenly resurfaced, making Gao Ming nervous.
At that moment, a hand landed on his shoulder.