Chapter 22: Cleaning the House and Persuading Song Fu

Wang Huimin stopped him mid-sentence. “I know, but we’re already legally married — we have the marriage certificate. Legally speaking, we’re husband and wife now. We’re not separating anytime soon, and even if we’re just helping each other out, we still have to live like a proper couple. If we keep drawing such clear lines between us, life will just get harder.”

“How about this — if my grandma is willing to give me the dowry money she once promised, we can use that for now. You can pay me back later when you have the means. But that’s just my idea. Maybe my grandma won’t give me the money at all. After all, it was just something she mentioned in passing when I was little. If she doesn’t give it, then you’ll have to find another way to figure it out. Does that work for you?”

Song Jianjun thought about it. What she said made sense — 200 yuan wasn’t a small amount. And that money was just mentioned casually when she was young. There was a good chance Grandma Tian wouldn’t actually give it to her.

The young girl clearly wanted to help him out of gratitude, and if he refused her outright, it would definitely hurt her feelings. So, thinking this through, he decided to agree for now.

As they were still talking, Song Fu came home. He saw Song Jianjun and Wang Huimin sitting on the kang bed, chatting and even laughing. The sight made him feel extremely annoyed. He didn’t even look at Wang Huimin, only greeted Song Jianjun before heading straight into his room.

Song Jianjun understood that Song Fu was upset. He said, “Xiaomin, don’t take it to heart. He’s been in a bad mood lately, always like this. I’ll talk to him — he’ll come around eventually.”

Wang Huimin smiled at him. “It’s okay, I understand. I noticed the house has a lot of wallpaper — are we putting it up? Let me help you.”

Nowadays, weddings weren’t expected to be elaborate, but there still needed to be some proper preparation. Whether or not there was a banquet, bringing someone new into the family meant sprucing up the house — putting up new wallpaper was the bare minimum.

And not just the main house — the side rooms needed cleaning too. The Song family’s courtyard wasn’t small. There was a stone house on one side, and the main house was made up of an inner room, an outer room, and a kitchen. There was also a stone side room built in the courtyard.

While the side room wasn’t as spacious as the main house, it could still be made livable with some tidying up.

With Song Jianjun marrying Wang Huimin, and Song Fu soon bringing Zhang Chunyan into the house as well, two new people were being added to the household — there needed to be space for them to live. Although Song Jianjun had promised to arrange a separate place for them to live in the future, the betrothal gifts had drained all the family savings. Buying a new house would have to wait until the autumn harvest.

Since the weddings were happening so quickly and there were still two kids in the house, everyone couldn’t live in the main house — that was reserved for the elders. So, for now, the newlyweds would have to make do with the side room.

When negotiating with the Zhang family for the marriage, Song Jianjun had explained this situation clearly. Zhang Yongfa had no choice but to agree. He couldn’t afford to let his daughter remain unmarried and become gossip in the village. Even if Song Jianjun said his daughter would have to care for his parents in the future, he still had to marry her off.

When Wang Huimin got up and wanted to help with the work, Song Jianjun quickly stopped her. “It’s just some light cleaning. Xiao Fu and I can handle it. You go and rest.”

Then he went inside and called Song Fu out to help him clean. Although Song Fu wasn’t happy about it, he didn’t dare say anything out loud. He just ignored Wang Huimin completely, acting like she didn’t even exist, and followed Song Jianjun to clean the rooms.

Wang Huimin didn’t argue with them. Once the two of them went out, she took the opportunity to drink more of the spirit spring water. Although Tian Yongmei’s brick didn’t cause any internal injuries, it had made her nose bleed and left her feeling pretty unwell. Her chest felt tight, and the healing salve didn’t work that fast — but the spring water did.

After drinking two bowls of it, she immediately felt a cooling relief in her chest. Plus, the spring water also filled her up — she hadn’t eaten enough in the morning, but now she wasn’t hungry anymore.

Feeling much better, Wang Huimin didn’t want to just sit around on the kang anymore. Around noon, she got up to prepare lunch.

The kitchen wasn’t big. The stove had two built-in pots — one for cooking meals, the other for boiling feed for chickens, ducks, geese, dogs, and pigs. There was a pile of wheat straw for fuel on the floor and a dish rack next to it.

Wang Huimin checked the rack. The pots, bowls, and chopsticks were all neatly arranged — likely a habit Song Jianjun had picked up from being in the army. She found half a bag of cornmeal, half a bag of sorghum rice, a small amount of white flour and millet, a handful of dark noodles, half a jar of lard, a can of coarse salt, and a jar of pickles.

This was how most families ate at the time. Although the flour mill could grind out some fine white flour, it was expensive. Ordinary families were lucky to have coarse flour. Lard was the only affordable fat — vegetable oil was too expensive. At most, a family might go to the oil mill once a year to get a barrel of soybean oil.

There was MSG available too, but rural families couldn’t afford it. Most households just used oil, salt, scallions, and soy sauce for flavoring.

Luckily, it was July, and most of the vegetables in the garden were already ready. Wang Huimin grabbed a small basket and walked around the garden. She picked some baby bok choy, pulled some scallions, and picked a few chili peppers.

Song Jianjun and Song Fu were still cleaning the side room. When they saw Wang Huimin come out to pick vegetables, they immediately stopped what they were doing and walked out.

“Xiaomin, didn’t I tell you to rest in the house? Why did you come out? I’ll cook later — you go inside.”

Wang Huimin smiled at him. “Don’t worry, I’m really fine. I feel much better now. Cooking isn’t heavy work. You go on — lunch will be ready by the time Xiaolong and Xiaoxue come back.”

Then she walked back into the house with the vegetables.

Seeing that, Song Jianjun didn’t stop her again and returned to the side room to continue working.

Seeing how gloomy Song Fu looked the whole time — especially when he interacted with Wang Huimin — Song Jianjun knew exactly what was on his mind. He tried to console him.

“Xiao Fu, I know you’re upset, but no matter how you feel, what’s done is done — it can’t be changed.”

“We’ll all be living together from now on. We’ll be seeing each other every day. You and Chunyan are about to get married too, and with two new people in the family, things are bound to get more complicated.”

“No matter what happened in the past, I hope you all get along from now on. Otherwise, this home will never have peace.”

“We’re one family. We can’t start fighting among ourselves and let others laugh at us. Do you understand?”