Jiang Xingye’s hands tightened around the hoe, veins bulging on his forearms. A little voice in his heart cried out, "I’ve taken a fancy to you, too," but reason told him he had no right to say such things.
Self-loathing washed over him like a tide, extinguishing the flames of his impulse. He saw himself as he was: a coarse country bumpkin, a twelve-year-old killer, a good-for-nothing drifter, a hot-tempered village bully. Over the years, hardly a single kind word had ever been used to describe him.
And she? She was so wonderful! Just standing there, she looked like a goddess from the heavens, so perfect she seemed not to belong to this world.
Chapter 77