CH 22

The best laid plans often go awry. It unexpectedly rained on the next day.

“Looks like we won’t be able to pay the land tax today,” Qiao Yuan said as he leaned on the window sill, grumbling as he watched the heavy downpour outside.

It was about ten meters from the east wing to the kitchen. They didn’t have an oil-paper umbrella at home, and they would definitely get wet in such a heavy rain. Yu Dameng wouldn’t let him cook and went to cook by himself.

Looking at Yu Dameng busily scurrying about in the kitchen, Qiao Yuan couldn’t help but purse his lips into a smile.

This big silly bear!

After laughing, he felt a sense of satisfaction from the bottom of his heart. Someone was spoiling him like this.

For breakfast, Yu Dameng cooked white porridge and heated up mantou1Steamed buns that he brought from his old home last night. He also fried five eggs and served a dish of pickled vegetables that Aunt Zhao gave them.

Although simple, it was still a fragrant meal. Qiao Yuan ate with great satisfaction, even praising Yu Dameng for having the talents of a great chef.

This made Yu Dameng blush furiously, he clearly put too much salt in the eggs.

The heavy rain prevented them from opening their business, so the two of them had a rare opportunity to rest at home.

Qiao Yuan was just thinking of continuing the storybook he didn’t finish last time, when he suddenly heard urgent knocking on the door.

Who would knock on the door in such a big rain? How urgent must it be?

Qiao Yuan’s heart lurched.

When he opened the door and saw Xu Xiuhua standing outside, he felt relieved and immediately closed the door again.

Xu Xiuhua scolded a few times outside. Qiao Yuan understood – she actually wanted him to go help the Qiao family harvest wheat!

What audacity!

It made sense though. Even if people went to help with labor, they would finish the tasks on their own land first before helping her family. Her family was already behind schedule to begin with, and had a lot of land. She had also offended quite a few people recently. These past two days, no one in the village was willing to take her money to help her, so she could only find some people from other villages.

But with such heavy rain, who would travel far to help her harvest wheat? Getting drenched in the rain, if they caught a cold, it certainly couldn’t be resolved with just the thirty-wen daily wage.

Yu Dameng was so angry that he wanted to go out and argue with her, but Qiao Yuan stopped him. “We’d have to be idiots to go out in the rain because of her nonsense.”

After saying that, he hugged Yu Dameng’s waist and rubbed his face against him, gently coaxing him to calm down. “Why bother with someone like her?”

He said that, but he also felt that this old witch was really annoying. She came to him every three days to make trouble for him. But right now, he didn’t have enough silver on hand, and he hadn’t established himself in the county town yet. He couldn’t act rashly.

Yu Dameng lowered his head and looked at Qiao Yuan. When they were alone like this, he couldn’t help but think of the kiss last night. His ears turned a little red.

Qiao Yuan pulled Yu Dameng to read the storybook. He was the kind of person who, whenever he had free time, would never stand if he could sit, and would never sit if he could lie down.

Now that he finally had a chance to slack off, he naturally wanted to lie on the bed.

This time they were reading the book “The Fierce Husband of the Farmer’s Family”.

It was about a very capable young ger who had several acres of land and was quite well-off. But his father, who he relies on, broke his leg by accident one day and couldn’t do any work at home. He wanted to find him a son-in-law who would marry into their family. The ones who came were all crooked melons and cracked dates2Unreliable and untrustworthy like Zhang Er Gou and Wang Tie Dan3Er gou (二狗) means “second dog” and tie dan (铁蛋) means “iron egg”. These are nicknames or informal names that were given to people based on their birth order, physical characteristics, personality traits, or other factors. They are not official names, but rather expressions of affection or familiarity. from the village!

So, his father changed his tune, saying he would marry his son off along with the family’s land and house, on the condition that he could also come along. This brought in many more suitors, from all over the region, coming to ask for his hand. But the only one who didn’t come was the farmer whose land bordered theirs. And that year, the farmer had also reached marriageable age.

He was honest and hardworking with great strength, so the young ger took a liking to him.

But the farmer felt the little ger had too strong a personality and didn’t really like that. He wholeheartedly wanted to marry a more obedient and docile girl.

But how could the young ger easily give up?

From then on, the young ger began to use all kinds of methods to seduce the farmer.

Yu Dameng only understood then that this was how the small clothes were used. No wonder that day when he gave them to Yuan Ge’er, Yuan Ge’er was so angry.

As they continued reading, in the second chapter, they actually did it in the fields…

So this fierce meant that kind of fierce!

This is too wild!

Qiao Yuan muttered to himself, and then said to Yu Dameng, “This farmer is clearly a hypocrite!”

Yu Dameng didn’t reply. Qiao Yuan looked up at him in confusion, only to see Yu Dameng’s face was already flushed red, and he was sweating slightly.

Qiao Yuan understood. He closed the storybook and pounced on Yu Dameng.

……

Yu Dameng braved the rain to fetch water for Qiao Yuan to wash his hands. Qiao Yuan angrily pinched him. “My hands are sore!”

This damn storybook was so harmful!

Yu Dameng quickly apologized and helped him massage his hands.

Qiao Yuan lazily leaned on Yu Dameng’s chest and said: “My hands are going to crack. I need to buy something to moisturize them.”

“Okay, let’s buy some snowflower ointment4“雪花膏” (xuě huā gāo) literally means “snowflake ointment” in Chinese. It is a type of traditional Chinese medicine used for treating skin conditions such as burns, cuts, and rashes. .” Yu Dameng pulled the blanket up a bit.

“We also need to buy two umbrellas and make some thicker clothes. I accidentally broke one of our bowls, so we need to buy another to replace it.”

Qiao Yuan counted off on his fingers, they needed money for all of this. “Now that the autumn harvest is over, everyone will have spare silver on hand. We need to quickly sell our shredder and peelers in our shop.”

These days, Old Man Yu and Yu Dameng had made more than the originally planned fifty and one hundred units of these two items. The reason they haven’t sold them yet is because there are fewer people in the county town due to the autumn harvest.

After the autumn harvest, the county town would liven up again. It would be best to sell then.

When the two of them were together, most of the time Qiao Yuan would chat and make plans, while Yu Dameng would quietly listen at the side, occasionally responding to him or answering his questions.

Qiao Yuan felt very content. He snuggled against Yu Dameng and teased, “Are you still sleeping on the floor tonight?”

Yu Dameng said with red ears, “It’s getting cold.”

They started to mess around again.

The rain didn’t stop until noon the next day, and the sun came out brightly. But the courtyard was a muddy mess. Only then did Qiao Yuan deeply experience just how inconvenient life in an ancient countryside could be.

The little husband liked to be clean and didn’t want to step down. Everything naturally fell on his husband’s shoulders.

Yu Dameng said: “Let’s buy some green bricks and pave a path.”

Qiao Yuan asked, “How much is a green brick?”

“Last year Gensheng bought them for eight wen each when he built his house.”

“Eight wen? That’s too expensive!” Qiao Yuan almost jumped up. The wealth gap between him and his ideal life was still huge!

They needed to pave a path from the bedroom to the kitchen, and another one from the bedroom to the toilet. Even if they spaced them out, they would need a lot of bricks. Why bother spending that money? Qiao Yuan suggested, “Why don’t we go to the mountain and find some stones?”

“The flat rocks in the mountain that could be sold for money have mostly been already collected.”

Qiao Yuan had a sudden inspiration and excitedly slapped his leg, “Then let’s pave a path with pebbles!”

The sky had cleared up, and looking at the sun, it was certain that it wouldn’t rain again. The two of them rarely had such a lot of free time. They decided to do it, and carried their baskets and called the twin brothers to go to the river with them.

Liu Ge’er also clamored to go, but the riverbank was dangerous. He was still young with a small stature, so no matter how he pestered, Qiao Yuan refused to agree. He lied to him that the little chickens at home would cry if he left, and the naive Liu Ge’er believed him.

“You two as well, don’t go in the river. We’re only picking up pebbles along the bank.”

Nowadays, Qiao Yuan’s words carried a lot of weight in the Yu family, and with their third brother right there, the two sensibly promised to obey.

The reason the village was named Xianhe5Immortal River Village was because there was a river called Tian Xian Er Lai6Roughly, this means “came from heaven” running through it. According to Yu Shanwu, legend said an immortal had once bathed there.

Qiao Yuan: “……”

Whether there were really immortals or not was unverifiable, but the river did bring convenience to the villagers. Not to mention washing clothes, catching fish, getting meat – it was especially important for irrigating the fields and increasing crop yields. Therefore, the villagers of Xianhe Village were slightly more well-off than those of nearby villages.

The group walked along the riverbank, chatting and laughing while picking up quite a lot of pebbles. When Yu Dameng and Yu Shanwu’s baskets were full they carried them back, while Qiao Yuan and Yu Shanwen continued picking.

Since it had just rained, quite a few people passing by the mountain saw them picking up pebbles and couldn’t help but ask what they were doing.

Qiao Yuan explained, and also wondered what these people were doing up the mountain after the rain. The mountain road was not easy to walk at this time.

“To catch mountain water buffalo7Longhorn beetle! And pick some mushrooms while we’re at it.”

After everyone had left, Qiao Yuan asked Yu Shanwen, “What is mountain water buffalo?”

Yu Shanwen was surprised that Brother Yuan didn’t even know about this! He gestured with his hand to describe the appearance of the mountain water buffalo and said, “It’s a kind of insect. There are many of them on the mountain after it rains. The medicine shops in the county town accept them and they can be exchanged for money.”

Speaking of this, Yu Shanwen was still very angry, “Shanwu and I used to catch them in the mountains before, but he fell down once. Mother gave us a beating and never let us go again!”

The children of poor families mature early. The twin brothers, despite their young age, are already thinking about how to bring in more income for their family. Qiao Yuan is both worried and amused, “Mother is right, you can’t go to dangerous places casually. You only think about making money, but you haven’t thought about what to do if you get injured. Also, don’t pick mushrooms randomly like they just mentioned. Many of them are poisonous and look very similar, making it hard to distinguish. Remember to tell mother about it later.”

After saying this, he still felt uneasy, “Or rather, I’ll go tell mother myself.”

It wasn’t until it got dark that they finally collected the amount estimated by Qiao Yuan. Yu Shanwu couldn’t wait to see what the road paved with pebbles would look like, so he asked, “When can we start paving?”

Yu Dameng had seen this kind of path before in the general’s mansion, and he roughly knew how to do it. “We have to wait until the ground is dry. We have to pave fine stones and soil to compact the ground, and then use mortar to stick the pebbles on.”

Upon hearing this, Yu Shanwu was very disappointed. With such heavy rain, it would take at least three days for the ground to dry up.

After going out, and their shoes and pants were covered with mud. Yu Dameng was fine, his straw sandals were easy to clean. But Qiao Yuan couldn’t do that. Because he was a brother, he couldn’t expose his feet outside casually, so he wore cloth shoes, which had now turned into mud shoes.

Qiao Yuan sat on the recliner in the bedroom, swinging his little feet and reading the storybook. Yu Dameng was boiling water in the kitchen to wash his feet and brush his shoes.

He briefly skimmed through it. The book basically had no plot at all, the entire text was just…

What kind of indecent person was that young general who stuffed this kind of storybook to people for fun!

Qiao Yuan closed the storybook and took a few deep breaths to calm his desire.

Take care of your body first!

Yu Da Meng brought a wooden basin to wash his feet. His little husband’s toes were round and white.

He couldn’t bear to let go.

Qiao Yuan giggled from being tickled by him, “You should also make me a pair of those straw sandals you wear. I’ll wear them at home.”

Yu Dameng nodded and said again, “The weather is getting colder, so it’s better to wear less and avoid getting cold feet.”

Qiao Yuan loved how attentive Yu Dameng was to him. He immediately opened his arms coquettishly for Yu Dameng to carry him to bed.

I hope you enjoyed it as much as I did. If you want to show your support, you can buy me a coffee. It would make my day! For every five coffees I get, I will release a bonus chapter.