Song Shi’an felt that he couldn’t spoil Jiang Chun, otherwise now she already dared to touch his buttocks with her hand, who knows where she’ll touch next time?
Just thinking about such a thing could make his face red and ears hot.
So he decided, like last time, to cold-shoulder her for a while, let her know fear, so she could rein in her behavior.
Thus, at lunch, he sat at the dining table eating silently, no matter how Jiang Chun tried to talk to him, he didn’t utter a word.
Jiang Chun tried several more times, but Song Shi’an still didn’t respond, only then did she belatedly realize that he was angry.
She pouted and said: “When Husband had a high fever, it was I who wiped your body, things that should be seen and shouldn’t be seen I’ve all seen already, and today I merely hugged your waist, is that enough for you to throw a tantrum at me? Making a fuss over nothing!”
The corner of Song Shi’an’s mouth twitched ever so slightly.
Merely hugged his waist?
Then what about touching his buttocks here and there, and even slapping his butt once—could that be a ghost?
Truly skilled at avoiding the heavy and talking about the light.
This fellow had clearly counted on him being thin-skinned, that it would be impossible to argue with her over the shameful matter of “buttocks or not,” thus she could act so brazenly, calling a deer a horse.
He calmly reached out to scoop a spoonful of steamed egg into his mouth, pretending not to hear her words.
Arguing was impossible—he had his dignity.
Jiang Chun snorted and laughed, mercilessly exposing his pretense: “Husband, you don’t need to pretend anymore, I know you’re not really angry at me, it’s just putting on an angry act to scare me, so that I won’t dare take advantage of you again.”
Song Shi’an: “……”
Couldn’t she be a little stupider?
His intentions were all seen through by her—then what did she have to be afraid of in the future?
His gaze lowered, he calmly bit into a white flour bun, not uttering a sound.
As long as he didn’t admit it, then she hadn’t seen through him.
Mm, just like that!
Jiang Chun snickered: “Even if you don’t admit, it’s useless. I’ve seen through you anyway.”
Song Shi’an continued to lower his head and shovel rice, completely silent.
Jiang Chun raised her eyes to look at him, and said with a proud smile: “So, from now on, not only will I continue taking advantage of you, I’ll even push my luck more and more.”
Upon hearing this, Song Shi’an nearly broke character, but in the end, held it in.
If he lectured her, not to mention whether she’d obediently accept it, the moment he opened his mouth, he’d already lost.
Seeing he still ignored her, Jiang Chun put down her chopsticks, leaned her body toward him, pouted her mouth, and pretended to kiss him.
Song Shi’an swiftly picked up his small stool, moved himself and the stool far away, straight to the other end of the dining table.
He took a deep breath, and said coldly, unable to bear it anymore: “Do not speak when eating, do not talk when sleeping.” [食不言寝不语: an ancient rule of etiquette, meaning one should eat and sleep in silence]
Jiang Chun immediately sat up straight, swallowed the food in her mouth, then laughed out loud: “Aiya aiya, Husband finally spoke—so you’re not angry at me anymore?”
Song Shi’an helplessly closed his eyes.
As expected, the words of the sages are not wrong—“only women and petty people are hard to raise.”
A fellow like her—shameless, thick-skinned, full of tricks, endlessly inventive—to spar with her was simply overestimating his own ability.
But he couldn’t spoil her, otherwise she would definitely “step on the nose and climb onto the face”, getting more and more excessive.
So he decided to adopt a “half-hearted response” attitude—only speak when he absolutely had to, at all other times, ignore her completely.
This way, it would be justifiable in front of Jiang He too.
Only when she realized her mistake, and promised not to touch him all over again in the future, would he be willing to change his attitude.
But the corners of Jiang Chun’s mouth couldn’t be pressed down no matter how hard.
She thought to herself: Little thing, you want to fight me? Your skin is still too tender!
Thick-skinned vs. thin-skinned—thick-skinned wins by KO.
Just like that, the two of them—one full of smugness, the other silent—finished their lunch.
After the meal, Jiang Chun found the sewing basket, spread out the half-made cotton-padded jacket at the end of the kang bed, and continued sewing.
Song Shi’an placed the kang table at the head of the kang and continued his grand undertaking of copying books.
Lu Zhengheng had not yet sent over the materials needed for painting; at present, aside from copying books, he had no other livelihood to earn money.
Jiang Chun was a chatterbox. She had only quietly worked on sewing for less than a quarter of an hour before she couldn’t hold it in and started chattering: “Husband draws so well—draw me a stove design tomorrow, the day after I’ll make a trip to the county town, and get the blacksmith to forge one according to the drawing.”
Before Song Shi’an could wonder about the stove’s purpose, she gave an explanation herself: “This stove is actually for Husband—to burn coal for warmth. Husband’s body is weak, and the winters in Qizhou Prefecture are hard to endure. If you rely only on cotton clothes for warmth, I fear you won’t be able to handle it. Although our home has a kang, and once it’s heated it’s warm enough, you can’t possibly lie on the kang twenty-four hours a day, can you? A person still needs to move around diligently—only then will the body recover faster.”
The brush in Song Shi’an’s hand paused. He lifted his eyes to look at her.
Afraid he couldn’t handle Qizhou’s harsh winter, so she specially sought a blacksmith to forge a heating stove for him?
This made him recall the first winter he spent at the Jiang family in his past life.
Back then, his health was even worse than it is now. Jiang He had urged Jiang Chun to take him to the county town to find a good doctor, but Jiang Chun loathed this live-in son-in-law, wishing he would die early. She only said to get through the winter, no need to waste money seeing a doctor.
Even after he clearly told her that he was vegetarian and couldn’t eat greasy meat oils, she was still unwilling to press some soybean oil or rapeseed oil for him.
He could only eat black flour buns with pickled mustard roots. After the pickles were gone, he just ate dry black flour buns.
As for new cotton-padded clothes, that was simply out of the question—he only got an old cotton jacket worn by Jiang He, and no cotton trousers at all.
The entire winter, he could only curl up on the kang, covered with a tattered old quilt, shivering all over.
Naturally, his body didn’t get nursed properly, and from then on, he developed a severe chronic illness.
But in this life, ever since Jiang Chun’s core changed, she took all the soybeans at home to press soybean oil for him, and every day tried to cook one or two dishes for him, changing the variety as much as she could.
She bought new fabric and new cotton, made new cotton clothes and a new quilt for him.
She even took him to the ready-to-wear shop in town to pick out cotton shoes and cotton boots—bought two pairs in one go.
Now she even wanted to forge a heating stove for him. This clearly required a large sum of silver, because the court strictly controlled iron goods, and the price of iron had always been high.
Moreover, this heating stove burns coal, and coal is not easy to mine, the price is also not cheap.
Setting aside her those unreserved and unladylike behaviors, Jiang Chun could be said to be attentive to the utmost toward him, always thinking ahead for him, and never stingy with money when it came to him.
Song Shi’an lowered his gaze and let out a long sigh in his heart.
He was not a masochist, of course he hoped Jiang Chun would treat him well—this way he could eat his fill and dress warmly in the Jiang family, and nurse his body back to health.
But she treated him a bit too well. People are not plants and trees, who can be without feelings?
He was afraid if this went on, he would fall into her tenderness and lose his heart.
Having experienced being betrayed by the Jiang Chun of the previous life, he didn’t dare, nor did he have the confidence.
But at this moment, if he continued to remain silent, it would be a bit of not knowing what’s good for him.
Song Shi’an opened his mouth and said sincerely: “Thank you.”
Jiang Chun didn’t even lift her head, continued with her needlework, and said with a laugh: “Thank what thank, we’ve already reached the stage of having kissed on the lips, there’s no need to be so distant.”
Song Shi’an: “……”
In an instant, all the emotions he had were like they grew wings and flew away.
Such a good woman, just had to grow a mouth.
This fellow, truly never forgets to tease him no matter when—opens her mouth with kissing, closes her mouth with kissing—is teasing him really that fun?
What a pity Jiang Chun didn’t know what he was thinking, or else she would definitely nod decisively: it is fun, it’s extremely fun.
When teasing someone, you must tease a gentleman with thin skin. Watch him shy and blush, watch him dodge and avoid, watch him sigh helplessly, watch him flee in a panic—it’s simply the most entertaining thing.
If he were someone with a mouth as sharp as hers, and a skin even thicker than hers, she wouldn’t even bother teasing him.
How boring that would be!
—
In the second half of the afternoon, Jiang He hurried back from the neighboring village, driving three pigs he had collected.
He also brought back a piece of bad news, he had to serve corvée labor1Corvée labor (服徭役): mandatory labor service required by the state, especially in historical periods.
Every year after the autumn harvest and before the start of winter, the court would conscript people for labor service, with the duration ranging from twenty to thirty days.
The rule was: if a household had fewer than four adult male members, one person had to be sent; if four or more, then two had to be sent.
Currently, the Jiang household had two adult men—Jiang He and Song Shi’an—according to the rule, one person had to go serve the corvée.
Jiang He said to Jiang Chun with a smile: “Son-in-law’s body is weak, definitely can’t handle the hardships of labor service, it’s better that, like in past years, I go instead.”
Because the original body was strong and capable, be it slaughtering pigs, selling meat, or collecting pigs—she was good at all of it. Even if Jiang He went to serve corvée labor, it wouldn’t delay the business at the meat stall, so every year Jiang He would choose to go do the corvée labor himself. This way, he could save the one tael of silver labor fee.
But Jiang Chun raised objections, and said decisively: “No. Labor service is extremely exhausting, and you even have to bring your own dry rations. For sleeping, hundreds of people are squeezed into one big tent—it’s simply bitter, tiring, and taxing on the body. Just one tael of silver, we can save that amount by economizing here and there, there’s no need for Dad to suffer that kind of hardship just for that one tael of silver.”
Jiang He frowned, clearly disapproving: “It’s still one tael of silver, we’d have to sell meat for ten days to earn that back! Besides, the meat stall you can handle on your own too, I’ll just go once—at most it’ll be twenty-some days before I’m back.”
Jiang Chun rolled her eyes at him and directly dragged Song Shi’an into the matter: “Dad, you make it sound easy. I could manage on my own before because I didn’t have your son-in-law back then.”
“Now that I have your son-in-law—and your son-in-law has a weak body, he gets sick once every few days—by the time I’m done busying with him I’m already overwhelmed, how would I still have the energy to take care of the meat stall?”
“You should know our family’s meat stall can earn three taels of silver in a month—Dad, don’t pick up sesame seeds and lose the watermelon.”
Jiang He spoke lightly, but every year, quite a few people died while serving corvée labor. Jiang Chun absolutely did not wish for him to have an accident.
Let alone that she held a huge sum of five hundred taels of silver notes in her hand—even if she didn’t have a single coin, she would urgently go to the town or county to check in and exchange money, just to pay this one tael of silver corvée fee for him.
Seeing the father and daughter arguing, Song Shi’an raised his hand to cover his chest, coughed a few times, and acted weak: “Dad, it’s all because my body is useless, dragging down Chun-niang’s feet.”
When Jiang He heard this, sure enough, he immediately gave up the idea, scratched his head and laughed sheepishly: “Look at me, actually forgot about you, son-in-law.”
“Chun-niang, you’re right, you have to take care of your son-in-law, and also prepare three meals a day for him—where would you still have time to go collect pigs? The job of collecting pigs still has to be done by Dad, so Dad won’t go serve corvée labor anymore.”
Jiang Chun smiled in satisfaction: “In a bit I’ll get Dad a string of coins, you go and send it to Village Head Zou, ask him to cross your name off the list.”
Being able to avoid corvée labor—actually Jiang He was also quite happy, after all, corvée labor was really too bitter. Every year when he returned, he’d be ten jin thinner.
Now could it be considered that he was enjoying the blessings brought by his daughter?
He grinned from ear to ear and cheerfully went out to wash his hands.
Jiang Chun leaned over to Song Shi’an’s side, imitated his gesture and covered her chest, coughed lightly once, and deliberately exaggerated her heavy breathing as she said: “Husband, husband, this ‘Xi Shi clutching her heart’ appearance of yours—this heart-clutching look—is really good-looking.”
Song Shi’an closed his eyes and frowned as he corrected her: “‘Xi Shi clutching her heart’ refers to women. Using it on a grown man like me—it’s not appropriate.”
Jiang Chun started acting shameless again: “Husband, I can’t read, I’m an illiterate, I don’t understand these lofty principles of yours. Anyway, I just feel that Husband’s ‘Xi Shi clutching heart’ delicate look is especially seductive.”
Seductive?
A bad premonition immediately arose in Song Shi’an’s heart.
He backed up a few steps, looked at her with full alertness, and warned defensively: “You behave yourself. Dad is still here, don’t act recklessly.”
But it was no use.
Jiang Chun made a swift stride forward, hooked both arms around his neck, stood on tiptoe, and gave a loud “bwo” kiss on his lips.
Then she smacked her lips and reviewed: “So sweet!”
Song Shi’an: “……”
Might as well just let him go back to his past life.