Jiang He pressed further and asked: “What exactly happened?”
“Anyway, the beating is already done, Dad, you don’t need to worry, sit down first, I’ll slowly tell it.”
Jiang Chun tugged Jiang He’s arm once, then loudly shouted at the shop waiter: “Waiter, another bowl of shredded meat noodles, make it a big bowl!”
“Alright!” the shop waiter hurriedly responded.
Since the noodles were already ordered, Jiang He could only pull out a bench and sit down at the table.
This time Jiang Chun didn’t keep him in suspense, and one by one, five by five [一五一十 – idiom meaning in full detail], she told him everything that happened today at the Wang family.
After Jiang He finished listening, for a moment he didn’t know what to say.
After staying silent for quite a while, he finally said in a muffled and deep voice: “No matter what, they’re still your aunt’s mother-in-law and husband. You, as the younger generation, how can you lay hands on them? It’s not proper.”
Jiang Chun gave a disdainful cold snort: “There’s already plenty of improper things in their family, this one doesn’t make a difference.”
As someone who had helped their family before, Jiang He had actually tried to intervene in the affairs of his elder sister’s family in the past. The result was that the Wang mother and son would agree on the surface, but behind the scenes, his elder sister was still tormented as usual.
Moreover, every time he tried to meddle, his mother Li-shi would go to their house and make a scene—rolling around and screaming—accusing him of meddling in other people’s business and scolding him for trying to break up his elder sister’s family.
He really had no way, so he had to let it be.
Who would have thought that his daughter would actually be this fierce today, giving that mother and son a good beating.
Although everyone in town knew that the Wang family’s mother and son were not good people, and getting beaten up was something they deserved, he feared that his daughter’s reputation as a “Sea Patrolling Yaksha,” would only get louder.
Thinking of this, he raised his eyes to look at Song Shi’an.
That day, when he had gone to the county town to handle business, he happened to come across a human trafficker pulling a cart of people from the prefectural city, shouting for sale on the street. Seeing that the Song son-in-law had good looks and was tall, yet only cost ten taels of silver, he ended up, as if possessed by a ghost, buying him.
Now that he thought about it, that step was really the right move.
Otherwise, with his daughter’s bad reputation out there, finding a son-in-law who could catch her eye would’ve been very difficult.
Although the Song son-in-law had a weak constitution and spent quite a lot on medicine every day, that was all because he had suffered losses in the past.
If they raised and nourished him well in their home, he would surely get better.
Even if he didn’t get better, it wouldn’t matter. Anyway, he and his daughter could earn money to support the family. If he had a weak body, then let him have a weak body—as long as he could pass on the family line, it was fine.
Jiang Chun saw her dad’s gaze sizing up Song Shi’an from head to toe and didn’t know what he was thinking. Her mouth itched and she joked: “Dad, your son-in-law doesn’t have even two taels of meat on him, he’s all bones. Don’t stare and grope, even if you slaughter him, you won’t get much money.”
Jiang He immediately turned his head and glared at her: “You little brat, what nonsense are you spouting!”
Fortunately, he had no son, so he could buy her a shangmen nuxu [上门女婿 – a live-in son-in-law who marries into the wife’s family, sometimes seen as less ideal in traditional culture]. Otherwise, with her habit of beating people at the slightest thing and her mouth having no filter, how could she ever get married?
After scolding Jiang Chun, he turned to comfort Song Shi’an: “Son-in-law, don’t listen to her nonsense. Our family is a good family. We only butcher pigs, we don’t butcher people.”
Song Shi’an: “……”
What was he supposed to say?
Thank you for not killing me?
“Mm.” He casually gave a perfunctory response, then lowered his head and continued slowly and methodically eating the noodles in his bowl.
Fortunately, Jiang He’s bowl of shredded meat noodles was also brought up. He picked up his chopsticks and immediately started slurping noodles—“slurp slurp”—no longer in the mood to chat.
After the three finished eating, they split into two groups. Jiang Chun drove the mule cart carrying Song Shi’an back to the village, while Jiang He went to Granny Liu’s house to push the wheelbarrow and carry the baskets.
—
After returning to Daliushu Village, Jiang Chun dropped Song Shi’an off at the entrance of their house, then drove the mule cart to the household of Village Official Zou to return the cart.
Village Official Zou wasn’t home; his wife, Madam Qian, received the twenty wen cart rental fee from Jiang Chun, and said with a full smile on her face: “If you need to use the cart again next time, just come and get it. If it’s someone else, I’m not willing, but if it’s your family, I’m a hundred times willing.”
Jiang Chun smiled with narrowed eyes and said: “Many thanks, Aunt Qian. I’ll come borrow it again if I need it next time.”
Twenty wen for a day of rental was not cheap. For ordinary farming households, unless there was a major urgent matter, they were reluctant to spend that much money.
In the whole Daliushu Village, only her own family rented the cart the most—it could be said they were the Zou family’s VIP customer.
Who wouldn’t like doing business with their own VIP customer?
Jiang Chun came out from Village Official Zou’s home and hurriedly walked back.
Last night she had used sourdough to ferment dough. Right now, it was probably already fermented, so she had to quickly knead it and steam buns.
After arriving home, when she went into the west room to change clothes, she discovered Song Shi’an was sitting in front of the kang table, holding a brush and writing something on paper.
She leaned over for a look, and couldn’t help but read aloud: “The Master said: To learn and at times practice it, is it not a pleasure? To have friends come from afar, is it not a joy?” [《论语·学而》– Confucius, The Analects, Chapter 1. Very common classical quote]
Song Shi’an’s pupils trembled, his wrist involuntarily shook, and a drop of ink slid from the tip of the brush and fell onto the paper—immediately staining it pitch black.
This sheet of paper was considered ruined.
Jiang Chun realized she had caused trouble, and guiltily shrank her neck: “Sorry, I startled you. I thought you had heard my footsteps.”
She didn’t realize at all that she had exposed herself.
After all, she had come from the modern era where almost everyone could read. The two sentences written on the paper were so familiar that she read them out without thinking.
She completely forgot that the original host was a country girl who butchered pigs and couldn’t possibly know how to read.
Song Shi’an forcefully acted calm as he crumpled the sheet of paper and tossed it aside, then took a new sheet of paper and laid it on the kang table.
Then he lifted his head and glanced at her from the side.
The meaning in his eyes: “Are you still planning to disturb me here?”
Jiang Chun pulled over the old clothes placed on the cabinet and scurried out with her feet barely touching the ground.
After she finished changing clothes in the main hall, she finally realized—why was she feeling guilty?
Wasn’t it just dirtying a piece of paper? That entire stack of paper was bought with her own silver!
Jiang Chun felt like she had lost face, and she wished she could rush into the west room right now and reclaim the upper hand. But doing so would really be too baffling.
She could only stomp her foot fiercely and silently swear: next time something like this happens, she’ll definitely talk back at him hard.
She tied up her sleeves with an armband, then carried out two flour basins from the big iron pot—one big and one small—and began kneading dough.
As for why there were one big and one small basin, it wasn’t that the big one couldn’t hold all the flour. It was purely because the flour in the two basins was different.
In ancient times, poor people all ate dark, whole wheat flour. Because grinding was done with stone mills, the flour wasn’t fine enough, and it scratched the throat when eaten.
Song Shi’an had a delicate body and weak constitution, and also didn’t eat meat or fish. Clearly, eating such dark buns wouldn’t do.
Jiang Chun had specially sifted some fine flour using a fine-mesh sieve, intending to steam white buns separately just for him.
She felt that her care toward him could be called meticulous in every possible way—truly heaven-moving and earth-shaking!
If he dared to abandon her, his coarse-rice-and-cloth wife, she would chop his head off with a pig-slaughtering knife and use it as a football!
While she was grumbling in her heart, just across the wall, Song Shi’an was holding a writing brush, but had not been able to write a single character for a long while.
Why did Jiang Chun know how to read?
In her previous life, she hadn’t known a single large character, and after returning to the capital, he had even hired a female teacher for her, but she had no motivation at all. No matter how he persuaded her, she just refused to learn.
But now she could fluently recite lines from the Analects of Confucius.
Even if, like him, she had been reborn, it was still impossible for her to have gained literacy with no teacher.
This was truly far too strange.
Could it be that after she was drowned in a pig cage and died in her last life, she had some kind of strange encounter, and that’s why her personality had changed so much—and she could now read and write?
Just as he was puzzling over this with no answer, a sudden exclamation of “Ah!” came from the main hall, followed by a string of Jiang Chun’s muttering.
But her muttering was too soft. Even though he held his breath and listened intently for quite a while, he didn’t catch a single word.
Jiang Chun was on the verge of breaking down.
Only after finishing kneading a whole basin of dough did she belatedly realize that she might have let her cover slip.
The original host was a rural pig-slaughtering girl—it was impossible for her to be literate. And yet just now, in front of Song Shi’an, she had recited two lines from the Analects.
No wonder Song Shi’an had been so startled he ruined the paper. If it were her, she’d be shocked too.
Because when something is out of the ordinary, there must be something strange behind it!
But what’s done is done; regret was useless. She had to think of a way to remedy the situation. She couldn’t just sit and wait for death.
So she rubbed her head and began brainstorming.
After a moment, a light bulb went off—it seemed she had an excuse.
She didn’t even bother to wipe the flour off her hands, kicked open the door to the west room with her foot, and had just stepped inside when she immediately smiled and said: “Husband, you must be surprised why I know how to read, right?”
Song Shi’an nodded slightly.
Seeing how flustered and hurried she looked, clearly she had realized her own “abnormality” too. Let’s see how she explained her way out of this.
Jiang Chun shrugged her shoulders and deliberately laughed lightly: “Aiya, wasn’t it just a coincidence? Just now when I went to return the mule cart at Village Official Zou’s place, I happened to see Village Official Zou teaching his little son Shuānzi to read these two lines. He was teaching him to recite while writing them down on paper.”
“I stood nearby and watched for a bit of fun, and somehow remembered it. So when I saw Husband writing, I blurted it out.”
After speaking, she even tilted her head to act cute, and with a face full of innocence asked him: “Husband, do you think I’m very smart?”
Jiang Chun being called the Pork Xi Shi of Hongye Town was naturally because she had good looks.
She had almond-shaped eyes, peachy cheeks, and an oval melon-seed face. Her hair was jet-black and thick, and she was taller than the average woman, with long, slender legs.
Because her main work was following Jiang He in slaughtering pigs and selling meat, she left the house every day before dawn. Their meat stall was also built beside the courtyard wall of Granny Liu’s house, under a shed—not easily exposed to sunlight.
So her skin, unlike village women who worked in the fields all day and became dark, was only slightly wheat-colored.
Even for someone like Song Shi’an, a young master born from a prestigious family, he couldn’t go so far as to lie and say she wasn’t good-looking.
In fact, before something happened to the Song family, the wife that had been arranged for him by the family didn’t even look as good as Jiang Chun.
In the previous life, because he was grateful to Jiang He for buying him from the hands of those black-hearted human traffickers, and also because he couldn’t predict in advance that Prince Yan would one day make a comeback, so after arriving at the Jiang family, he had truly intended to live a good life with her.
It was just that Jiang Chun looked down on him, and didn’t even let him get on the kang, and the two of them had never consummated the marriage.
Later, when Prince Yan made a comeback and the Song family was rehabilitated, he still brought her to the capital, and requested a decree to confer upon her the title of Madam of an Imperial Edict.
He even hired a female teacher to teach her reading and writing, hired a governess to teach her etiquette and proper conduct, and had his own wet nurse, Mama Zhuang, teach her household management and how to handle affairs.
All to help her grow quickly into a proper and qualified matron of the household.
But it was a pity she didn’t cooperate at all. She said reading and writing was too hard, said learning rules was too restrictive, and said managing the household was too troublesome.
Considering her lowly background, he didn’t force her.
She even asked to continue slaughtering pigs and selling meat, and he even bought her a storefront in the Western Market, allowing her to show her face and run a business.
And how did she repay him?
She had an illicit affair with the butcher in the shop next door, and even got pregnant with that man’s child.
Song Shi’an closed his eyes briefly and temporarily set aside those vexing matters of the past.
He said blandly, “Then that really is quite the coincidence.”
Jiang Chun secretly observed his expression. Seeing that his face was calm, it was impossible to tell whether he believed her or not.
But at this moment, she was no longer flustered.
Song Shi’an had only just arrived in Daliushu Village and knew very little about the situation in the village, so for the time being, he definitely couldn’t judge whether what she said was true or false.
He was someone who read the books of sages, a scholar who “did not speak of strange powers and chaotic gods.”
How could he possibly guess that her soul had been swapped with someone else?
And even if we take ten thousand steps back—so what if he really did become suspicious?
Right now, he was a live-in son-in-law who was relying on others for shelter, and he didn’t know the Song family would be rehabilitated in the future. If he didn’t want to be kicked out of the house, then he had better keep his mouth shut.
What? What to do when the Song family is rehabilitated in the future?
What a joke! There were still two years before Prince Yan’s confinement ended and he was made Crown Prince. She didn’t believe she wouldn’t have won him over within two years!
By then the marriage would have been consummated, and the raw rice would already be cooked. [生米煮成熟饭 – idiom: the deed is done, what’s done is done] Even if he learned the truth, so what? Could he still make her a cast-off wife?
If he dared to start off passionate and end up abandoning her—hmph!—she’d definitely make him suffer!