Chapter 175 - A Quarrelsome Couple

The field-developing project that was performed by a thousand labors would go down in history. Before his departure, the village head gathered the villagers to see them off. Xu Linghe lifted the curtains of the carriage to look at the distant terraces covered by the heavy snow on the top of the mountain. Zhan Ming raised the whip. With a neigh, the horses galloped down the road. It was already about midnight when they arrived in Jin City. Zhan Ming reined in the horses and the carriage slowly came to a halt. As if knowing they were at the destination, the dog jerked the hem of Yan Wu’s trousers and the old man’s alarming shout woke Yan Wu up.

“We’ve arrived?” He asked the old man. The dog urged him to get off the carriage with a sharp tug at his sleeve, then the old man followed him off the carriage. At the sight of the city governor, the soldiers guarding the city wall hastily went out to welcome them.

“Your Majesty!” The leader of the security force bowed respectfully to the emperor. Xu Linghe brushed off the dust on his robes and the group of them headed for the Jin palace. After Zhan Ming saw the old man off did Xu Linghe step into the palace. Yan Wu did not feel like staying in a Courier Station, where the desolate air was suffocating. So he pleaded to go to the palace with Xu Linghe over and over again. At last, Xu Linghe reluctantly agreed. But when the gate of the palace swung open, Yan Wu was deeply disappointed. There was no trace of beautiful maids but eunuchs. “Turns out that those books all lied about a large number of imperial concubines and the glorious imperial harems.” A palace servant scuttled over, greeting them in a spookily high-pitched voice. “Why are there just a bunch of sissies? I’m here to see those attractive concubines. Heaven knows why I wound up like this.” Yan Wu changed his mind and made to get out of the palace gate. But a woman’s voice scared him back. A wave of Spirit Power pelted right towards his forehead. A woman swooped down from the midair. Yan Wu felt a chill at his neck and wondered how come the merciless woman had come to the Jin Palace.

“You never knew it’s me, did you?” said Liu Ruoshui scornfully.

“Merciless woman, you don’t have a crush on me, do you?” Yan Wu said that deliberately. He knew he should handle that kind of woman with a vicious tongue. Otherwise, he would be kept downtrodden forever.

Xu Linghe entered the study. Since he was out for a month, he had neglected loads of government affairs waiting for him to process. In the dim light, the woman dozed off. “Why did she come to Jin city?” Xu Linghe bent over the desk to organize the files. From the beautiful handwriting on the files, he saw some of them were already commented and some critical ones were singled out for his review. The woman was truly very meticulous. She had piled up the files according to their category. Having devoted a whole month to the field-developing project, Xu Linghe even forgot to go back to Kunlun. He felt rather guilty about that. In the last month, with his absence, the woman had to travel back and forth between the two places. Against the shivering candlelight, he saw her delicate face pined and could not help tracing his fingers on her with affection. The woman gripped his hand to stop him disturbing her dream, but Xu Linghe grabbed her over in his arms, holding her tender body tighter. The woman instantly launched a palm at him.

“Attempt to murder your husband? Doubly guilty.” The man pressed his lips against hers.

“Husband?” The woman slowly recovered from her trance. “I was dreaming. But how come the dream come true when I woke up?” She reached out until her small hand was stung by his beard.

“Dare impersonate me? You must be sentenced to death.” Hearing that, the woman laughed involuntarily. Xu Linghe usually seemed quite aloof, but at the moment he was rather domineering. Anyway, Wuyou liked that.

“Thank my dear wife for taking so much trouble.” He could not see any reason to not love the woman.

“Don’t mention it. You’re my husband!” The woman looked up at him, smiling like a kid begging for candies. Xu Linghe’s eyes moistened.

“My girl…” They knew each other’s thought even without words. A while later, the two went out of the study and headed for the bedchamber. But before they took a few steps, their attention was drawn to the noise of a fight. Xu Linghe pushed open the hall gate only to find that Yan Wu was fleeing in panic and a woman in green was chasing after him. Xu Linghe quickly blocked the Spirit Power of that woman.

“Junior sister apprentice.” Liu Ruoshui scattered the Spirit Power, no longer seeming that fierce. The sudden change in her air rendered Yan Wu dumbstruck. “How did the merciless woman turn into a mouse?”

“It’s late. Go to bed.” Xu Linghe held Wuyou’s small hand and crossed the hall gate.

“Brat, why get at loggerheads with junior sister apprentice again?” It was not the first time. The two got at odds the moment they met in Kunlun. They were just born to be incompatible as fire and water.

“We’re the quarrelsome couple, got it?”

“Do you mean… They…” The woman turned to her husband.

“I’ve kept my mouth shut.” Xu Linghe beamed cunningly. “Nobody can tell who loves who after all.”

“I brought our child here, too.” Before the woman’s voice faded, her husband was already gone, leaving Wuyou sighing with emotion behind. In the dim candlelight, the man tucked the child in and quietly sat at the margin of the bed, watching the child sleep.

“Douya’s hands have grown bigger.” He measured the cute hands with his large palms and saw they had sized up. At the scene, Wuyou knew her husband had always missed the child. He had kept his love deep down.

“Dear.”

“What’s up?”

“If I die, will you marry another woman?”

“Yes… And I’ll marry a few concubines as well.”

“You…” A pillow flew over. “The man doesn’t even bother to coax me with sweet remarks!”

“So, if you live a long and healthy life… I won’t have any chance to enjoy the good fortune in love affairs throughout my life.” Xu Linghe could never let the woman go unless they were parted by death.

“My dear husband must also live a long and healthy life. If not, I, your wife, will also… marry lots of guys…”

“What an overbearing woman! If a dead man ever hears that, he would creep out of his coffin!” Xu Linghe stuck his tongue into the woman’s mouth and bit her tongue. “Her tongue is really snide. She gets more recalcitrant after a few days’ separation.” Wuyou was surprised by the move of the man. She instantly bit his tongue as a payback. When the two finally calmed down, Wuyou gave a hearty laugh.

“Mommy.” Xiao Douya rubbed his eyes, awaken by her mother’s laughter. Being dragged back to reality in the middle of a dream where he was reaching out for a chicken leg, Xiao Douya looked disgruntled.

“Um? Daddy!” Although a moment ago his eyebrows were still cocked up, the next second the child threw himself at Xu Linghe with enthusiasm. Seeing the rapid change in his attitude, the corner of Wuyou’s mouth twitched.

“I miss daddy!” cried the child. Feeling the soft little body in his arms and smelling the baby scent, Xu Linghe was unwilling to loosen the hug.

“Douya waited for daddy to come back every day.” The boy’s eyes sparkled, which were so bright that Xu Linghe could see his reflection in them.

“Fly to the sky…” The father and the son began their favorite game. At that moment, all that Xu Linghe wanted was to make his boy happy. When Xiao Douya was tossed up and waited for his daddy to catch him, he chuckled carefreely. The father and the son played wildly. When the boy was tired, Xu Linghe already felt his bones were about to fall apart.

“How childish you are!” said Wuyou reproachingly. She soon carried a barrel of hot water, ready to wash Xu Linghe’s feet. However, Xu Linghe hoisted her up and placed her on the bed.

“Sit still.” He put her small feet in the water, massaging them with his large hands. Gradually, Wuyou felt the soreness in the soles of her feet ebbed away.

“We should open a clinic as soon as possible. I can’t let my dear husband’s massage skill go wasted,” Wuyou teased.

“Moneygrubber!” Xu Linghe gave her forehead a gentle flick, splashing the water for washing her feet over her face. Wuyou wiped the water off with the man’s clothes, wetting it out. Xu Linghe cast a pampering look at the woman. “How cute she is!”

“Go making more money. I want to spend my days counting the taels of silver.” She pouted.

“Yeah, I’ll make a fortune for you.”

Xu Linghe dried her feet with a cloth. “How could that woman ever let me earn a living by feet-massaging?”

“During the month when you went to the other provinces, something has troubled Jin City.” Wuyou brought up the topic.

“What happened?” Xu Linghe could not allow Jin City to be in danger. He immediately felt worried.

“Conflicts among refugees.” Wuyou had had a headache when trying to sort out the incident that someone murdered several people to get some food.

“The other provinces are not much better off. Paddy fields are too few. The crops we grow are far from enough.”

“Well then, we should create some,” suggested Wuyou. The chip recorded some field-creating projects, so Wuyou had some knowledge about it.

“I’ve already created a hundred fields and planted the saplings. All we need to do is wait for the harvest.”

“It’s for that project that you went to all those provinces?”

“Yeah. Yan Wu is truly amazing. It’s he who taught us the field-developing technique,” exclaimed Xu Linghe. Wuyou, of course, knew it was him. It was precisely for the purpose of helping her husband that she kept Yan Wu around.

Yan Wu wailed, sporting a bruise at the corner of his mouth. “I must have gone nuts to kiss that bitch. Now, I shall take the consequence myself. The merciless woman does get merciless when she punished me.” A spasm of pain shot through his lip. “I merely nibbled on her lips. Why beat me into a pulp?” His legs swelled up after taking Liu Ruoshui’s kicks, so he had to limp out of the main hall. A palace servant let loose a muffled laugh. Half of his body swelling like a pig, Yan Wu was more sensitive about being laughed at for the moment. He darted a kick at the palace servant, who turned tail and ran for it. In a dark corner, a woman’s lips curled up. “I did hit him badly. Now my palm is still numb. My little finger also swelled like hell. The force I used surely was too much. But how dare that brat bite me? In the seventeen years of my life, I haven’t even hold hands with a man. How could I let that playboy bite my lips?” The curled corner of her mouth was now covered by a blood scab. Touching the wound, the woman felt prickling pain, but the scene of him biting her lips repeatedly replayed in her mind. Her cheeks reddened as she looked back on that scene. The scorching pain at the corner of her mouth soon was replaced by the heat of passion.

The woman patted her cheeks, hoping to come to her senses. But her heart was unbridled. Even she herself had no perfect control over it. She followed Yan Wu all the way to his place. Once he entered his room, the woman got in through a window. The man’s lips immediately curled into a smile. “What did she come here for?” He swiftly took off his coat. Liu Ruoshui was not sure whether she should leave or not. Yan Wu continued undressing until he was left with only his underwear. The woman clapped her hands over her eyes, cursing him inwardly for his shamelessness. At the sight of the bashed woman, Yan Wu was surprised that the tough woman also had a girly side. He then jumped to bed and lay on his side on purpose. The woman approached the bed furtively. As she slapped him very hard, his face was all swollen. The woman took out some ointment and applied it to his face. As the cool ointment coated his wound, Yan Wu felt his heart burning. He was overwhelmed by the abrupt kindness of the merciless woman. After that, Liu Ruoshui gingerly got up lest anyone spotted her in the room.

“Where shall you run away, merciless woman!”

Yan Wu rolled off the bed, giving Liu Ruoshui a turn. “That brat was feigning sleep! Humph, the jerk tricked me again!” Liu Ruoshui kicked at him, and Yan Wu took the opportunity and fell to the floor.

“Pretending to be dead again?” The woman stuck a hand under his nose to see if he was breathing. Suddenly, Yan Wu’s large hand grabbed her little one. “She is not an evil person at all.”

“Let go!” The woman gave him another slap. But Yan Wu simply held her tighter. Toughness was just the woman’s disguise. She was afraid of being hurt so she always wore the armor.

“I won’t!” Yan Wu held her with a larger force. The woman summoned the Spirit Power over to attack him. How could a human being resist that blow? When blood spilled from the corner of Yan Wu’s mouth, Liu Ruoshui dismissed the Spirit Power.

“How dumb you are!” Liu Ruoshui commented as she bent down to hear his heart beating. “This guy is just stubborn. He didn’t fight back even when I beat him to vomit blood.”

“You’re truly a merciless woman!” Yan Wu covered his mouth with a hand and coughed. Liu Ruoshui blushed to her ears. “What’s wrong with me? Why am I worrying about the brat?”

“Do you miss your hometown?” asked the woman.

“What’s the point of missing it?” The man looked dispirited, which seemed more like a playboy. Liu Ruoshui was speechless for the moment.

“The world in the chip is so appealing.”

“I’ll take you on a fly…” Yan Wu seized her small hand and brought her into the world in the chip. They soared over the mountains and rivers. The sight absorbed Liu Ruoshui. “What’s that? How powerful it is!” Although Liu Ruoshui was a practitioner of Spirit Power, she was also at a loss as she saw “huge dragons” speed away on the rails and the bridges pulled up by hanging chains. She never thought she could see such a spectacular view. “The brat’s world is fantastic!” Liu Ruoshui was amazed by humans’ unlimited wisdom. Now, she was looking forward to the idea that humans could change the world with their might.

Liu Ruoshui had a dreamlike experience in the chip. The little thing led her on a time travel. It was a fantastic journey. And her hands still scented with gunpowder. Just now, she did not hold a sharp saber, but a black pipe which could explode. Compared to sorcery, this experience was fresher. However, Liu Ruoshui knew the secret in it. “The little thing is awesome!” exclaimed the merciless woman in astonishment, which made Yan Wu even more proud of himself. The chip was indeed a breath-taking object. It was a product from the twenty-first century. How could these ancient people understand it?

“The little thing does house a ton of things…” Liu Ruoshui fumbled it back and forth but found nothing. Sure enough, it was a wonderful journey.