Chapter 62

Chapter 62

...

After the meal, there was no wine.

There was plain water.

Boiling water, with a slight pot smell, and not very palatable.

Yet Mengshaoxia and Hecheng drank several bowls of water.

They ate and drank their fill.

And let out two belches.

They also had to leave.

They hadn't planned on staying overnight anyway, as they had lodgings in the county town.

And this house didn't seem like a place that could accommodate guests for the night.

However, Hecheng didn't understand.

Jiang Feng's father was such a beauty, how could he be living in a place like this? How could he possibly just be an idle helper at the county office?

These days, lavish lifestyles were in vogue in the imperial palace, and literati in Qingzhou would size up a person's appearance first.

With his looks, even if he submitted a blank exam paper, he would probably still be ranked in the imperial examinations.

How could he...

It felt abrupt to say anything in front of a beauty.

So it was the square-faced Mengshaoxia who curiously asked, "Where is Uncle Jiang's ancestral home? You must not be a local, right?"

When he asked this, the entire Jiang family fell silent for a moment.

The long-haired young man sitting on the bamboo chair, cradling an infant, calmly responded, "If you're asking about my ancestral home, I suppose I should be from Jiangyin."

His distant aunt, Lady Jiang, adorned in golden hairpins and jade bracelets.

Although Mister Jiang wasn't dressed opulently, he clearly had never been troubled by money - that spacious practice courtyard, bright study chamber.

Miss Jiang Wanxia in her semi-new silk dress, a warm white jade bangle on her raised arm, green gemstones studded on her shoes, fair skin, sweet smile, knowledgeable and cultured, showing no signs of ever having suffered hardship.

Mengshaoxia also reviewed the scene in his mind.

Thinking again of Miss Jiang Wanxia, her appearance and bearing exquisitely refined, generous demeanor, and endearing manner towards her maidservants.

Looking at the round-faced young lady before him in her coarse linen clothes, sitting there with reddened eyes like a little rabbit.

Mengshaoxia felt like knocking on her silly little head.

Jiang Changtian finished kneading one of the little girl's hands and moved on to the other.

His voice grew even softer.

Because he didn't wish to dwell on those matters that would make him seem pitiful and fragile.

He didn't want to appear choked up or affected.

He spoke in the lightest tone possible,

hardly any friction in his vocal cords.

"From a young age, my mother abhorred me, saying my eyes harbored evil and she felt repulsed just looking at me. I studied diligently in secret, hoping to escape the family through the imperial examinations. But my mother informed the scholars, saying that I lacked filial piety and virtue, unfit to be human. Thus ending my path to the examinations."

As Jiang Mianmian had her hands massaged, listening to her father's speech, so different from usual.

Word by word, very slow.

Her father's body was slightly trembling.

She looked up at her father.

But saw him smiling down at her, head lowered.

"Mother wanted me dead, but I didn't want to die, because I had my child."