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“You don’t have new clothes because of him,” Daya said. “But I don’t blame him for the broken engagement.”
“Big Sister!” Erya, who hadn’t gotten the united support she hoped for, felt displeased. She stomped her feet in anger. “You’re still defending him.”
“I’m not defending anyone; I’m just talking about the situation. Hutou didn’t dare to act today, so his mother caused a scene. If this happens again in the future, he’ll just hide behind his mother.”
Realizing this early on was just a temporary pain, not something that would continue to hurt forever.
Lu Qiniang sighed. “It’s come to this, so there’s nothing more to say. This matter, I owe an apology to Daya.”
She hadn’t anticipated that a moment of impulsiveness, agreeing to marry Xiao Yan, would affect her daughter’s engagement.
“Mother, the most important thing is that we’ve returned from the Zhou family. Outsiders think we were driven back, and it’s only natural for them to look down on us. Their intention to break the engagement didn’t start today—it was just that today, they found an excuse,” Daya said calmly, maintaining her composure. She was focused only on the facts.
“Snobbish!” Erya gritted her teeth and cursed. “When I have money in the future, I’ll buy you a better husband than Hutou, one who listens!”
Lu Qiniang: “…”
“Alright, no more talk. Let’s clean up and eat.”
“I don’t want to eat sweet potato porridge…” Erya looked at Lu Qiniang’s expression. “But it’s good, helps with digestion…”
Lu Qiniang was so angry that she was terrifying.
Xiao Yan heard this and smiled faintly, a slight curve at the corner of his mouth.
He thought, the money lost from buying and the twenty taels of silver lost due to the broken engagement, he should be able to pay it back in the future.
However, before he had the silver, there was no point in fantasizing.
During the meal, Xiao Yan noticed that there was a boiled egg without its shell in his sweet potato porridge.
But there was none in the bowls of Lu Qiniang and her daughters.
The sight of that egg made it hard to swallow.
Lu Qiniang was still giving instructions to Sanya. “After you finish eating, go ask for Hu Shenyi.”
“Mother, are you feeling unwell again?” Erya hurriedly asked.
“Stop making me angry, and I’ll feel better,” Lu Qiniang joked and scolded, then gestured toward Xiao Yan. “Take a look at your father.”
That was her father after all!
He needed to be treated with respect.
“We don’t have any money to pay for his treatment!” Erya complained.
“If we don’t have money, we’ll owe it. Hu Shenyi is used to it,” Lu Qiniang replied.
Xiao Yan realized they were familiar with this Hu Shenyi.
After they finished their meal and Lu Qiniang had just finished washing the dishes, Hu Shenyi was dragged inside by Sanya.
“Sanya, slow down! Slow down, you’re going to kill me!” Hu Shenyi puffed, running after her.
He was carrying a medical box on his back, and in the other hand, he held a large carp. The fish was fresh, its scales gleaming brightly under the sunlight.
“Old Hu, just come in already. Why are you being so polite, carrying something?” Lu Qiniang laughed.
“Spit, spit, spit! Not only do you still owe me two taels of silver for medicine, but now you’re eyeing my fish. This was given to me by someone else, and before I could even take it home, your third daughter grabbed it. Good for you, Sanya, are you after my fish?”
Hu Shenyi appeared to be around twenty-six or twenty-seven years old, which didn’t quite match Xiao Yan’s expectations.
He wore a loose hemp robe with suspicious brown stains from medicine, and his messy hair was casually tied with a half bamboo chopstick — the tip still had a dried goji berry stuck to it.
He looked rather unreliable.
“You were invited here to treat me, yet you’re so noisy,” Lu Qiniang complained as she stepped forward to take the fish. “Go ahead, I’ll clean it up for you. So your wife won’t have to do it when you get home.”
Hu Shenyi handed her the fish, wiped his hand casually on his clothes, and lifted the curtain to step into the room.
“Tsk tsk, The General who routed the Barbarians?” He looked at Xiao Yan.
“Sorry for the trouble, I am Xiao Yan.”
“Seems like Lu Qiniang got a good deal,” Hu Shenyi shook his head and said, then motioned, “Come, let me see your wrist.”
Xiao Yan silently extended his wrist.
Hu Shenyi stretched out his hand and placed it on Xiao Yan’s pulse. After a moment of contemplation, he said, “Oh, nothing’s wrong, you’re doing well. Lu Qiniang, you can have children, no need to worry! You just need to think about how to earn money to support your husband.”
Xiao Yan: Quack…
He had been poisoned, feeling weak all over, yet according to Hu Shenyi, he was “doing well.”
Lu Qiniang, who was scraping fish scales in the yard, overheard and asked, “Do you think I need a prescription?”
“I write a prescription, but do you have the money to buy the medicine?”
“… I will have it.”
“Pay me back the two taels you owe first!” Hu Shenyi said gruffly.
He slowly strolled out, looking at Lu Qiniang squatting on the ground washing the fish, and hummed, “Back when my wife passed, I asked you to come with me, but you refused. If you had, wouldn’t you be eating fish and meat every day now?”
“Bah!” Lu Qiniang spat at him, “I’ll tell your wife and see if she lets you get into bed tonight.”
“Who do you look down on?”
“You.”
Hu Shenyi: “Women and petty men are the hardest to deal with, I’m leaving.”
“Wait, the fish will be ready soon.”
“I’m sick of it, keep it for your good husband, let him eat it and get you a son sooner.” Hu Shenyi called out as he walked away.
Xiao Yan thought to himself, this Hu Shenyi was clearly flirting with Lu Qiniang in his words.
Lu Qiniang’s temper would probably flare up, right?
But he guessed wrong.
Lu Qiniang didn’t get angry. Instead, she happily began preparing to stew the fish.
Xiao Yan didn’t understand.
So, he asked Lu Qiniang.
“Old Hu, he just has a sharp tongue, but he’s a good-hearted man,” Lu Qiniang explained as she scooped a large piece of fish onto his plate. “After his previous wife passed away, he wanted to find a new one. At that time, I had just become widowed, and someone wanted to set us up, but I didn’t want it, so I refused. Back then, he was taking care of a nephew, and I felt like it would mean becoming a stepmother. I didn’t want that.”
“You didn’t want to become a stepmother?” Xiao Yan looked at the three adopted daughters sitting at the table waiting for her.
“Being a stepmother isn’t easy. It’s different from raising Daya and the others. Becoming a stepmother feels like taking someone else’s father. I raised them to give them a mother, and that’s different.”
Lu Qiniang poured some fish broth into her rice. “Eat more, it’ll help you recover faster. Old Hu’s current wife, I helped him find her. The Hu family’s daughter-in-law is a good person, especially after I got sick; she came to help often. She brought her daughter, Dujian, and Old Hu didn’t mind. They’re living happily together now.”
“She doesn’t know how Old Hu treated you before?”
“How could she not know? There’s no need to hide it,” Lu Qiniang said frankly. “We never got together, so why wouldn’t we still be in contact?”
People aren’t just defined by the romantic aspect between men and women.
Xiao Yan thought back to what he had often seen—the delicate power struggles between noblewomen at flower-viewing banquets, the subtle competition and suspicion between a wife and concubines in the inner chambers…
It seemed that most of the relationships between women in his mind were like this.
But Lu Qiniang’s relationship with Mrs. Hu was different. There was no such rivalry. In their case, it was a genuine mutual help and support.
It felt like, in the lower-class world, survival itself took up all their strength, and being overly cautious or petty seemed a luxury they couldn’t afford.
“Since Hu Shenyi says you’re fine, then you’re definitely fine. He’s careless, but his medical skills are solid,” Lu Qiniang added.
Probably.
Having eaten the fish, he fell silent.
Lu Qiniang sat back down at the table, and the daughters finally picked up their chopsticks. They started discussing ways to make money.