Jiang Chun reached out and lifted the lantern her father made, looking left and right at the words written on it.
Then she asked Song Shi’an, “Husband, how do you read these two lines of words on here?”
With a ready-made opportunity before her, she had to patch up the “studious” persona she previously set up for herself, to dispel some of Song Shi’an’s suspicions toward her.
After all, a village girl who can’t even recognize a single character, suddenly reading phrases from the Analects, was really too jarring.
Song Shi’an opened his half-squinted eyes, gave her a sideways glance, and let out a sneering laugh: “What, you can even read the phrases from The Analects, but now you can’t read these two lines?”
Jiang Chun pursed her lips. This guy really was suspicious after all.
She said righteously, “Didn’t run into Village Head Zou teaching his little son to read these two lines. How could I possibly know how to read them?”
Song Shi’an raised his long brows that reached his temples, gave an ambiguous “oh.”
Jiang Chun had a fiery temper and hurriedly urged, “What do you mean ‘oh’? Hurry up and teach me how to read them.”
Song Shi’an gave her another sideways glance before slowly opening his mouth:
“The bright moon rises above the sea,
From the ends of the earth, we share this moment.”
[Lines from Zhang Jiuling’s poem 《望月怀远》 “Looking at the Moon and Thinking of One Far Away.” The lines express longing for loved ones under the same moon despite being apart.]
Jiang Chun didn’t deliberately play dumb and repeated it once, clearly and without mistake.
After finishing, she looked proudly at Song Shi’an: “Husband, am I smart or what? Just hearing you read it once and I memorized it all, ya know~”
Song Shi’an: “……”
Do I look like an easy-to-fool idiot?
He coldly snorted but didn’t expose her lie.
After all, he still hadn’t figured out what her background was, not even sure if she was really Jiang Chun herself, so he could only temporarily act like an easy-to-fool idiot.
Jiang Chun didn’t continue pretending to be dumb and confused, nor did she ask what the poem meant.
These lines were from Looking at the Moon and Thinking of One Far Away, with the main idea being to express longing for one’s kin.
But as for Song Shi’an’s kin—aside from the male lead Song Shirui who escaped—all of them had been turned into official slaves, sold off to the ends of the earth.
If she asked about it, it would be like bringing up exactly what shouldn’t be mentioned.
So Jiang Chun stood up, carried over the clay jar placed by the door, lifted the lid, and showed it off to Song Shi’an like a treasure.
“Look, got over forty jin of soybean oil. If it’s just you eating it, it’s enough to last you until this time next year.”
To Song Shi’an, soybean oil was just the most ordinary thing. He had eaten it since he was a child.
But thinking of how the Jiang family only had three mu of land, and all the soybeans harvested from those three mu only got them this one jar of soybean oil…
He pursed his lips, and his voice unconsciously softened a little: “Troubled you to put in the effort.”
Jiang Chun immediately felt warm inside and thought her two trips to the county town weren’t in vain.
“Worrying for husband is only natural.” Her face bloomed with a radiant smile, then she closed the clay jar’s lid and walked lightly toward the kitchen.
That evening, Jiang Chun used the freshly pressed soybean oil to steam an egg custard for Song Shi’an and stir-fried some shredded pickled mustard root.
She placed the two dishes in front of him, gnawing on the meat bun she brought back from the county town, and chuckled sheepishly: “I don’t know how to cook any proper vegetarian food. Just make do with it.”
The steamed egg was smooth and tender, the pickled shredded mustard root salty and fragrant. For Song Shi’an, who had fallen on hard times, this meal already counted as sumptuous.
If not for fearing indigestion at night, he would have wanted to eat an entire white flour mantou.
Touching his slightly bulging lower belly, Song Shi’an secretly cursed himself in his heart for being shallow-eyed.
In the past, hadn’t he eaten all kinds of good things? But today, just because of a bowl of steamed egg and a plate of stir-fried pickles, he almost lost his composure.
Really more and more like a village bumpkin!
—
Jiang He had gone out and didn’t return until midnight.
Jiang Chun was a light sleeper. Just as the front door was pushed open, she scrambled up from bed, threw on her clothes, and jumped down from the kang, then opened the door to the west room.
At the same time, Song Shi’an, lying at the edge of the kang, also opened his eyes, though he didn’t make a sound.
“Dad.” In pitch darkness, Jiang Chun was afraid of startling her father, so she called out to him first, then groped around the stove for the fire striker and lit the oil lamp.
“Eh.” Jiang He responded, walked into the kitchen, and said, “Did Dad wake you up?”
“It’s fine, I wasn’t really sleeping soundly anyway.” Jiang Chun shook her head casually.
She carried the oil lamp to the east room and brought out the wooden basin used for Jiang He’s foot soak, scooped a few ladles of still-warm water from the large pot, and poured it in.
Then she said to Jiang He: “Dad, soak your feet while you tell me the situation.”
Jiang He dragged over a small stool and sat down, took off his shoes and socks, and soaked his feet in the wooden basin. Then he spoke simply and concisely: “Matchmaker Wang didn’t die.”
“Didn’t die, that’s good.” Jiang Chun let out a breath of relief, then urged Jiang He again: “Dad, tell me in detail.”
Knowing his daughter was hot-tempered, Jiang He didn’t beat around the bush: “Matchmaker Wang had a miscarriage, bled all over. When sent to the Qi Family Medical Hall, she was already more dead than alive. Luckily, Young Doctor Qi was at the clinic and gave her an acupuncture treatment, only then was her life saved.”
Young Doctor Qi was the grandson of Old Doctor Qi from the Qi Family Medical Hall, rumored to be a stunning medical genius, apprenticed to Miracle Doctor Xue Ting of Daming Prefecture. He usually stayed in Daming Prefecture, and this time had probably returned for the Mid-Autumn Festival.
Jiang Chun remarked: “Matchmaker Wang’s luck is really not bad.”
After a pause, she gossiped further: “Miscarriage? The child in Matchmaker Wang’s belly—could it have been my second uncle’s?”
Jiang He’s expression turned somewhat strange. For a moment, he didn’t know how to respond to his daughter’s question.
But before he could come up with something, he heard his daughter continue, unable to rest until she dropped a bomb: “Hard to say. After all, Matchmaker Wang has so many lovers. Who knows whose seed it is? Maybe even Matchmaker Wang herself doesn’t know.”
Jiang He: “……”
He glared at her, then glanced toward the west room, and lowered his voice to scold: “You child, how can you speak so carelessly? Your son-in-law is a scholar. Scholars care about propriety and face. You have to watch what you say from now on.”
Jiang Chun didn’t talk back and agreed cheerfully: “Got it, got it. I’ll be more careful in the future.”
After scolding his daughter, Jiang He let out a long sigh: “Your Sixth Grandpa had your Uncle Jiang Wan go to town to gather information. Your Uncle Jiang Wan said, after Matchmaker Wang woke up and found out she miscarried, she opened her lion mouth wide—demanded your second aunt pay her fifty taels of silver, or she’d go to the county office and accuse your second aunt of plotting to harm the only flesh and blood left behind by her deceased husband.”
Clan leader Jiang Zhaonian was Jiang He’s father Jiang Zhaofeng’s blood brother, ranked sixth in the family hierarchy, so Jiang Chun had to call him Sixth Grandpa. [In traditional Chinese kinship terms, “Sixth Grandpa” refers to one’s father’s sixth elder male cousin or brother, depending on hierarchy.]
“Ah?” Jiang Chun’s apricot eyes widened in surprise. “Didn’t Matchmaker Wang’s husband die five years ago?”
Her husband died five years ago, and she’s still able to get pregnant—what kind of horrifying ghost story is this?
Jiang He said speechlessly: “She said it was a new husband. The new husband was a non-local businessman who came to do trade in Hongye County. Last month, he died of a sudden illness on his way back home.”
Jiang Chun: “……”
Conjuring a husband out of nothing, huh?
But Matchmaker Wang was quite clever. If she didn’t find some excuse like this, once things really escalated to the county office, she’d probably be the one first convicted of yinluan. [淫乱: promiscuity, licentious behavior; often a criminal charge for women in feudal China]
Jiang Chun then asked her father, “What did my Second Uncle say?”
Jiang He replied with a tone of “hard to explain in one sentence”: “Your Second Uncle cried like he’d lost his own mother, insisted that the child in Matchmaker Wang’s belly was his, said he wanted to beat your Second Aunt to death for being a venomous woman who killed his flesh and blood. Your grandmother sided with your Second Aunt, said she wanted to beat your Second Uncle to death…”
“When your Uncle Jiang Wan came back, the three of them were still making a scene at the entrance of the Qi Family Medical Hall.”
Jiang Chun: “……”
She “pu”—burst into laughter.
Jiang Hu, that guy, actually rushed to become a happy stepdad. What kind of supreme sucker behavior is this?
Besides, he already had both a son and a daughter at home. He wasn’t lacking children. What was he making such a fuss for?
Could it be he really caught feelings for Matchmaker Wang?
A shrewd woman like Matchmaker Wang, falling for someone like Jiang Hu—who’s dumb, unreliable, and doesn’t even have much money in hand—that’d be the real miracle!
Now there was truly a big joke to be seen. That old house over there would probably be very “lively” for a long while to come, huh?