The heat in the grand hall was thick with tobacco smoke and the stale smell of old wood, so stuffy it made a person’s temples throb.
Iris Holloway shoved a patched old cotton jacket behind her lower back. At eight months pregnant, the weight of her belly had her waist aching and her spine sore.
Her eyelids felt as heavy as if snow were hanging from them. After three days and two nights on a rattling green train, and with the baby kicking half the night before, even all the noise around her couldn’t keep the sleep away. Little by little, her head drooped to one side.
The moment her mind slipped into that fuzzy dark, warmth rushed over her first.
Not the dull, half-dead warmth of the hall’s heater, but the fierce heat of a brick kang, hot enough through the rough bedding to make her skin go weak.
Behind her was a broad, solid chest, pressed close, carrying a faint clean scent of soapberry. The man’s breath brushed the tip of her ear, and his voice was low and husky, like a snowy winter night. “If it hurts, tell me.”
She got so flustered her fingers curled up tight. Before she could even nod, a burning kiss dropped onto her skin, moving from behind her ear down to the side of her neck, strong and impossible to mistake.
Outside, the north wind drove pellets of snow against the window paper with a soft rustling sound. Inside, the room was so hot it seemed ready to catch fire. The whole time, she kept her face buried in the man’s shoulder, too shy to open her eyes. All she could feel was the hard line of his waist and stomach under her hand, hot enough to make her heart tremble.
That had been their wedding night. And in all her life, the only time she had ever been that close to him.
“Wake up! Iris Holloway, wake up!”
An elbow jabbed hard into her waist, with no mercy to it.
Iris gave a violent start and opened her eyes. The firelight and heat from the dream vanished in an instant. All that was left was the hard wooden bench, the shifting figures filling the hall, and beside her, Cynthia Greer’s face, full of mockery.
“The meeting’s about to start and you’re still asleep. You’ve really got some nerve.” Cynthia curled her lip, her eyes sweeping over Iris’s reddened eye corners. She gave a snort. “Look at your face, all red. What, having some romantic dream?”
Iris lifted a hand and pressed her brow, forcing down the last trace of warmth from the dream. Her tone stayed flat. “I dreamed about the old days at the farm.”
“The farm?” Cynthia lowered her voice even more, but the sarcasm in it was plain as day. “More like you were dreaming about that professor ex-husband of yours. You’ve been divorced more than half a year and still can’t let it go?”
The hand resting on her belly paused, just for a second. Iris said nothing.
Most people at the farm thought her husband was dead, that she was just a poor young widow with a hard fate.
But Cynthia knew the truth. Iris hadn’t lost a husband. She’d been thrown aside.
Her ex-husband’s surname was Mercer. He had been the youngest professor at Huaqing University. A few years back, he was framed and sent down to the farm for labor reform. When he was at his lowest, he and Iris got that marriage certificate.
Last winter, when the case was cleared up, he divorced Iris the night before he returned to the capital.
Cynthia had always thought Iris was overestimating herself. Just because she had a pretty face, and people at the farm jokingly called her “the farm’s one blossom,” did she really think she could climb into a scholarly family like that?
He’d gone back to the capital, seen a bigger world. How could he still think much of a country girl like her, with only a few years of primary school behind her? Families like that, when they picked a wife, cared about schooling and family background. What good was a pretty face on its own? It didn’t put food on the table.
So really, being cast aside was no surprise.
But even so, Cynthia Greer felt a hard knot in her chest.
Who could have guessed that after the divorce, Iris Holloway wouldn’t cry, wouldn’t make a scene, wouldn’t fall apart? She just buried herself in the vegetable greenhouses and, in the dead of a winter that hit thirty below, somehow grew strawberries.
First the story made the provincial paper, then it got printed in the national agricultural paper. The whole northern farming circle was talking about it. The farm promoted her straight to technician, and for this National Agricultural Technology Breakthrough Conference, they had called her to the capital by name to receive an award.
Her brother, Howard Greer, had only helped here and there, yet even he managed to get a conference seat.
Her father was the farm director. He pulled strings through who knew how many people to wedge her onto the list too, saying it was for study in the capital. But everyone knew the truth. She was here to add a bit of shine to her record, so when she went back, it’d be easier to move her into management.
Why should Iris Holloway, a woman tossed aside by her husband, be the one to stand there and take all the glory?
"Quiet! The leaders are coming up!" someone in the front row whispered.
At once, the buzzing in the hall ebbed away like a falling tide.
One by one, a row of men in Zhongshan suits stepped onto the stage. Down below, more than a thousand people straightened their backs almost at the same time and looked up together.
This was a national conference, after all. The people on that platform were either ministry leaders or top research experts. Just seeing them in person was something folks could go home and talk about for half a year.
No one wanted to miss a moment like this.
No one except Iris Holloway, who really couldn’t work up much interest. She had no clear idea what counted as a "big leader" or a "top expert." All she felt was that her lower back was aching from the hard seat, and in her mind there still lingered the warmth of the brick kang from her dream, along with that man’s low, steady voice.
She even felt a little regret.
That night, she had been too shy the whole time, too shy to lift her head and get a proper look at his face.
If only she had known...
"Wow..."
Beside her, Cynthia Greer let out a hushed gasp. It wasn’t just her. A few women in the back rows had started whispering to each other too, their voices full of excitement they couldn’t hide.
"Who’s that young man in the middle? He looks incredible."
"Didn’t you hear? A professor from Huaqing University. Not even thirty yet. He’s a specially invited expert this time."
"A professor already, and that young? And he’s that handsome too? That’s really something..."
A young professor?
The noise kept Iris Holloway from drifting back into her thoughts. She felt a faint bit of disbelief. No matter how young or good-looking he was, could he really compare to her former husband?
Holding onto what little patience she had left, she slowly raised her eyes and followed everyone’s gaze toward the stage.
One look—
and Iris Holloway froze.