Ye Mo only let go of Liu Duo unwillingly when Aunt Ye spoke. Once she regained freedom, Liu Duo pushed him away, turned around, and dashed upstairs.
Ye Mo felt really good seeing Liu Duo run like a rabbit. He quickly took the things he had brought and went up too.
They had been cleaning and dusting the house – inside and out, top to bottom – for a long time, and it was finally finished. In her own room, Liu Duo hurled herself onto her bed and rolled about. How great it was to have a room to herself!
The bed was quite spacious. It came with three layers of thick mattresses and a bamboo mat on top. It’s softer this way.
Aunt Ye had sent her away just moments earlier so that she could have a meeting with the four brothers in a room somewhere on the third floor. “Yang, is it true that none of you have consummated your marriage with that girl?”
She had heard rumors and gossip about Liu Duo, saying she was infertile, among many other vile things, but she did not believe them. The only possibility was that they had not consummated! She had been there once herself, so why wouldn’t she know?
The four men didn’t want to hide anything from her. They nodded.
And so, Aunt Ye got a bit suspicious and agitated, “Why not? Was she unwilling?”
But the lot of them maintained good relationships, and they obviously loved each other, so why would she refuse? Aunt Ye couldn’t understand.
“Aunt Ye, look at us. We’re not worried, so why should you be? Who says Little Duo was unwilling? When the time’s right, we’ll consummate. We’ve just been waiting for the right moment and, let me tell you, we really wanted it,” Ye Liu snickered as he sat with his legs crossed, shaking mischievously.
Consummation was necessary. If his calculations were correct, her sixteenth birthday would be coming soon, in another two months!
“That’s right, Aunt Ye. Why are you so anxious? When the time comes, I’ll bear four children with her!” Ye Mo said. The aspiration to become a father was written clearly on his face, as though a baby was waving at him.
“Hey, you want Little Duo to have four kids with you? What about us? How many would that be?”
“I don’t care! All that matters is that I want four!”
Pffft, Ye Liu laughed hysterically, and discontinued the debate with him. Four children? Did he regard Liu Duo as a sow? As if! Personally, he didn’t mind how many babies he would bear with Liu Duo. He’d let her decide.
Hearing that, Aunt Ye’s wrinkled face reddened. True, it was not her place to worry if they didn’t. If they wanted children, they would have to consummate.
And so this topic came to a close. Aunt Ye left after lunch.
After a while, Ye Xuan and Ye Lanlan showed up uninvited.
“Yang, Liu, Mo, Ling, why didn’t you tell us you were moving? I could have helped,” Ye Xuan said with a grin on his face.
Ye Yang and Ye Ling were cleaning up the yard. They took one look at their cousins, not saying anything.
Ye Lanlan looked at the four-storey building in front of her, filled with jealousy. How could a bunch of people who used to be so poor get enough money to build such a magnificent house?
Ye Liu called out from the third floor, “Hey there, isn’t this Little Xuan? It’s been years! What brings you here today?”
Ye Xuan had been to their house several times, all of which Ye Liu had not been around for, so this would be their first time seeing each other in a long time.
Ye Mo was on the third floor balcony too, looking at them cooly from above. He furrowed his brow in great displeasure.
“Liu, like you said, do we need reasons for younger members of the family to visit their elders? But, alas, it is my fault for neglecting you. I have been busy with my studies and exams. My dear cousins, I hope you don’t mind,” Ye Xuan chuckled. He wasn’t intimidated at all by Ye Liu’s provocation.
In Liu Duo’s words, this person was obnoxiously arrogant on an entirely different level! It seemed like, in the Ye family, being thick-skinned was tradition.