Jiang He walked out from the miscellaneous storage room and saw that his daughter had already tidied up the dining table, so he slowly went to open the door.
As soon as the door bolt was pulled open, Li-shi directly bypassed Jiang He and strode into the courtyard, with the posture of wanting to see what kind of good food his family was eating.
What greeted her, however, was an empty dining table, and a sickly grandson-in-law sitting in front of it.
Immediately, her old face pulled down, and she shouted, “Big holiday like this, you all ate so quickly, are you guarding against this old woman coming to freeload a meal?”
Song Shi’an lowered his eyes.
They really were guarding against her coming to freeload a meal, which was why the father-in-law had already set the dining table even before it got dark. Usually, dinner was never this early.
Li-shi saw that the sickly grandson-in-law didn’t make a sound and fiercely glared at him, scolding, “An elder is speaking to you, you turned mute?”
The small low stool that Song Shi’an was sitting on was one that Jiang He had specially asked someone to make for him. It had a backrest, like a small chair.
He leaned back against the low stool’s backrest, closed his eyes to rest, acting as if he hadn’t heard Li-shi’s words.
This attitude directly ignited Li-shi’s anger. She raised her foot, about to kick the low stool under him.
“Grandmother, you absolutely must not act rashly. You should know that if your foot comes down, without three to five taels of silver, I’m afraid this matter can’t be settled.”
Jiang Chun, who was hiding at the kitchen door watching the situation outside, saw that this old woman Li-shi was about to play dirty, and immediately shouted to stop her.
Jiang He, upon hearing this, instantly ran over, speaking in a muffled voice: “My son-in-law’s body is weak, can’t endure your beatings and scoldings. If something happens to him, I’ll have Second Brother compensate money.”
“You…” Li-shi was choked back by this father-daughter pair, nearly fell backward from anger, but didn’t dare touch this precious sickly grandson-in-law anymore, afraid of being extorted.
Li-shi was someone with no shame or skin, but in just a moment, she adjusted the expression on her face and changed the topic: “That day Chun-niang was also present, the matter of Matchmaker Wang’s miscarriage, you all must know already?”
Jiang Chun was still behind the kitchen door, pretending not to hear.
Jiang He was right in front of Li-shi, but he didn’t make a sound.
There was no comedic partner, but that didn’t stop Li-shi from performing a solo act.
She pulled out a handkerchief, fake crying: “That black-hearted prostitute, actually blackmailed our family for fifty taels of silver. If we don’t give it, she’ll go to the county office to file a complaint against Chun-niang’s second aunt. But our family is just a peasant family digging food from the ground, where are we supposed to get fifty taels to compensate her?”
Jiang Chun and Jiang He continued to play dumb, pretending not to understand her hints, not picking up the thread.
Song Shi’an, however, suddenly lifted his eyelids and said blandly: “Since Matchmaker Wang is suing Ma-shi, if you divorce Ma-shi, wouldn’t that sever the connection?”
Jiang Chun: “…”
“Pfft…” She almost burst out laughing, hurriedly covered her mouth.
What a savage rotten idea. If Li-shi weren’t still outside, she would’ve run up and given him a thumbs-up right then.
Li-shi was stunned at first.
After reacting, she jumped on the spot, pointing at Song Shi’an and cursing loudly: “You damned sickly ghost, actually dared to come up with such a rotten idea, I see you have no good intentions! Your second aunt gave birth to a son and a daughter for your second uncle, she’s a great contributor to our family, how could we divorce her just for fifty taels of silver? That’s just heartless!”
Song Shi’an gave a light snort: “You old one have conscience, unwilling to divorce Ma-shi, then you ought to sell land if there’s land, sell people if there are people, quickly gather money to compensate Matchmaker Wang.”
Pausing a bit, he “kindly reminded” again: “Selling grandson and granddaughter would be heartless, you old one surely wouldn’t do that. Why not consider selling yourself? Though your age is a bit high, selling into a big household to do some night chamber pot work or other dirty hard labor, still barely usable.”
“Pfft…” Jiang Chun this time couldn’t hold it in and directly laughed out loud.
Song Shi’an was probably angered by Li-shi’s act of trying to hit him, so he spoke so many words in one go, and every sentence carried barbs—looking like he wouldn’t stop until Li-shi was angered to death.
Li-shi was so enraged that her face turned bluish-purple, her chest rose and fell violently, and she was gasping for breath with “hu chi hu chi”.
But at the same time, her eyeballs spun round and round.
Jiang Chun thought to herself, not good, and immediately lifted her feet to walk out of the kitchen, raised her eyes to look at Song Shi’an, and mouthed words frantically at him: “Pretend to faint! Pretend to faint! Pretend to faint!”
Song Shi’an pursed his lips, and in the next moment, he raised his hand to clutch his chest, let out an “aiyo,” and then his body slowly tilted to the side.
Jiang Chun immediately “broke down” and screamed: “Husband, husband, what’s wrong husband? Did my Grandma anger you? The doctor said you can’t take being angered, or else fire would attack the heart [急火攻心, idiom: extreme anger causing heart attack], and there’d be danger to your life, what are we going to do!”
As she shouted, she rushed over to Song Shi’an’s side, caught his slanting body, and held his head in her arms.
Then she shouted toward her father: “Dad, Dad, go quickly and get a cloth towel, my husband is spitting blood!”
Afraid Jiang He would take it too seriously, she even secretly winked at him.
“Spitting blood? How could he be spitting blood? Didn’t we just spend three taels of silver to get medicine for him?” Jiang He tossed out a rapid string of three questions, then rushed toward the kitchen in a hurry.
Li-shi, who was originally planning to pretend to faint from anger and extort a bit of money for medicinal soup from her sickly grandson-in-law, now had a completely confused expression.
She, the old woman who had been mocked and sneered at, hadn’t even fainted yet—how come he was the one who fainted first?
But thinking of that sickly son-in-law’s skin-and-bones body, it really wasn’t impossible.
Plus seeing the anxious and flustered looks on her granddaughter and eldest son, they didn’t seem to be faking.
Her heart couldn’t help but go “thud.”
She had come to borrow money—don’t let it turn into not getting the money, and instead getting conned into paying for medicinal decoctions?
Seeing the situation, Li-shi tiptoed, and while no one was paying attention to her, quietly tiptoed out the main door, then dashed away at full speed toward home.
Jiang Chun saw that Li-shi had run until her shadow disappeared, and only then let go of Song Shi’an.
As she helped him tidy his tousled hair, she grinned and said: “Husband not only speaks fluently and is top-class at verbally attacking others, but your reaction is also quick. Thanks to your move, we scared that old woman away.”
Otherwise, she would’ve had to waste a lot more words.
Song Shi’an leaned his body back to avoid her fingers’ touch and said coolly: “I can do it myself.”
He himself didn’t know what was up with him today—just seeing Li-shi, that uninvited guest, made his mood irritated. And she even came to provoke him, so he couldn’t be blamed for being impolite.
With Li-shi’s temperament, once she got home, she would surely complain to Jiang Hu, repeating every word he said without missing a bit.
She was Ma-shi’s maternal aunt, so naturally she didn’t want Ma-shi, her niece, to be divorced.
But Jiang Hu, who was infatuated with Matchmaker Wang—what would he choose?
Thinking of this, a sneer appeared at the corner of his lips.
Dare to provoke me, then you’d better be prepared for your family to fall apart and people to perish!
Jiang He came out from the kitchen, smiling as he asked Jiang Chun: “Your Grandma left?”
Jiang Chun nodded, stood up, and quickly walked to the main door, inserting the door bolt.
After coming back, she cut the mooncakes she bought into four pieces each, and together with two other packs of pastries, put together four plates.
Then she boiled a pot of water and brewed a pot of tea.
Carrying the pastries and tea to the dining table in the courtyard, she smiled with narrowed eyes and said: “Let’s drink tea, eat mooncakes, and admire the moon.”
Jiang He was going to Qingyan Town tomorrow to collect pigs, an appointment made with others a few days ago, so after eating one piece of mooncake, two pieces of pastry, and drinking three cups of tea, he went to wash up and sleep.
Only Jiang Chun and Song Shi’an were left.
Jiang Chun was afraid Song Shi’an would feel cold, so she got up and went to the west room to get him an outer robe and draped it over his shoulders.
At this time, the bright moon was hanging in the eastern sky, and all the stars in the sky appeared dim. In the courtyard, the shadows of trees swayed; the lantern hanging under the eaves was gently swayed by the wind, casting flickering shadows of light.
On such a full-moon night, she felt a bit of longing for her modern-day family.
Thinking of this, she looked up at Song Shi’an and asked seriously, “Husband, do you miss your family?”
Song Shi’an picked up his teacup and took a sip—inside was warm plain boiled water. Jiang Chun had said his spleen and stomach were weak, and forbade him from drinking tea.
After putting the teacup back on the table, he closed his eyes and took a deep breath, then said lightly, “I do not.”
Because missing them is useless.
What he did want was to go redeem his cousin who had fallen into the place of flowers and willows [烟花之地, euphemism for the brothel world], but first—his body hadn’t yet recovered; he couldn’t even leave Hongye Town.
Secondly, redeeming someone from a brothel place would cost at least a thousand or eight hundred taels of silver. How to earn this amount without drawing the attention of Consort Liu’s faction was a problem.
He could only take it slowly, no rushing.
Jiang Chun felt that he was saying one thing but meaning another, yet she didn’t expose him—she only let out a sigh to the moon with a hint of sorrow: “I miss my family.”
Although her parents had passed away early, her paternal and maternal grandparents were still alive. To let white-haired people send off black-haired ones—she truly was unfilial.
Fortunately, her parents were not only children. Other relatives could take care of the elders. The assets she had left behind had been evenly divided among them, which, to them, could be considered a kind of extra security.
Song Shi’an thought she was missing her deceased mother, Madam Zheng. After hesitating for a moment, he still offered a line of comfort: “The dead cannot return to life. Thinking too much is of no use. Better to focus on the present.”
Jiang Chun: “???”