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“I’m the mother of three children—I have to think of my children.”
“You ended up like this because you must’ve offended a lot of people. Those people don’t want to see you do well. And me? I’m just a jobless widow—I don’t dare cross them either.”
She deliberately made her words sound coarse and unpleasant.
“I was thinking, you must’ve had relatives and friends before. Sure, when you were down and out, they couldn’t just drop everything to save you, but once this rough patch is over, someone’s bound to lend you a hand, right?”
Xiao Yan lowered his eyes. “No one.”
“Huh? What kind of life have you lived?” Lu Qiniang was stunned, her face full of disbelief. She couldn’t help muttering under her breath, “So I really got stuck with this one?”
Xiao Yan remained silent.
Lu Qiniang looked up to the heavens in exasperation. How was she supposed to live like this? Now she had one more person to feed.
“Forget it. The cart will always find its way around the mountain,” she muttered as if to console herself. “You can stay for now. But let me be clear about one thing—”
She stood akimbo, fierce as a tiger: “I saved your life, so we’re even. I just couldn’t bear it—this freezing weather, I couldn’t throw you out to die in the snow.”
“But in this house, I make the rules. Whatever I say, you do. Whatever we eat, you eat. If you start being picky or turning your nose up at food, I’ll toss you right out without a second thought.”
“Did you hear me?!”
Xiao Yan gave a barely audible hum of acknowledgment, his eyes lifeless, like ashes without a spark.
But then, a faint flush of anger colored his face.
Those words—were simply too humiliating.
Did she think he was some kind of beast?
Xiao Yan’s lips parted slightly, as if trying to defend himself, but in the end, he said nothing.
“Mother, the water’s ready,” Erya called, knocking on the door.
“Alright, I’m coming.”
Lu Qiniang soon entered carrying a large wooden basin, poured in more than half a basin of warm water, then walked over and began undressing Xiao Yan without hesitation.
Xiao Yan tried to push her away, but his hands were limp and powerless.
He had been poisoned—his martial arts crippled. He had no strength left. His legs couldn’t support his weight, and he couldn’t lift anything with his hands.
In just a few swift moves, Lu Qiniang stripped him bare, lifted him, and placed him in the basin. Without the slightest sign of embarrassment, she scooped water and began bathing him.
“So you really have been on the battlefield—so many scars,” Lu Qiniang remarked as she worked briskly. She filled a ladle with water and poured it over his shoulder.
The water flowed down his shoulders, revealing the sharp lines of his scapula. His back was emaciated, all bone and scar tissue—fresh wounds layered atop old ones.
“How are you even alive after all this?” Lu Qiniang muttered, scrubbing his back with her hand.
The scar on his chest—“Was this from a sword straight to the heart?”
Xiao Yan kept his eyes shut.
He had already resigned himself to being no more than a walking corpse. How else could he endure this widow’s roughness?
Lu Qiniang paid no mind to his indifference. Once the warm water had softened the grime on his skin, she began scrubbing him vigorously. As she scrubbed, she said, “I used to work at a bathhouse in town—got three wen for scrubbing one person!”
“Sigh, I’ve spent the money meant for buying pigs on you. I’d better go check if the bathhouse is still hiring. Scrub ten people a day, that’s thirty wen. Twenty would be sixty wen…”
Except for the private areas, which she tactfully avoided, she scrubbed his limbs and torso until his skin turned red.
After changing the water and rinsing him off, she quickly washed his hair, gave it a rough wipe, and then laid him on the heated kang, which was now comfortably warm.
For the first time, Xiao Yan felt like an object.
Like one of those old belongings scrubbed clean by the maids before the New Year.
Daya had finished cooking, set up the kang table, and served Xiao Yan a bowl of sweet potato porridge. There was also a small dish with a salted duck egg, split open—the yolk glistening with oil, a bright orange-red.
“Time to eat,” Daya said, head lowered, her cheeks tinged with pink.
Clearly, she still wasn’t used to having this “live-in father” in the house.
Lu Qiniang and her three daughters sat at the table eating. Erya grumbled that the sweet potato porridge tasted awful and said it was bland.
“If you want salted duck egg, just say so!” Lu Qiniang shot her a glare, bluntly calling out her little scheme.
“I never said that, don’t wrong me, Mother,” Erya replied. “When I was at the Zhou Residence, I had all kinds of good things to eat. I…”
Erya, feeling guilty, sneaked a glance at Lu Qiniang’s wide-eyed glare. Before her mother could explode, she quickly softened her tone and said, “Mom—I wasn’t saying I miss the Zhou residence. It’s just that they did eat better than we do. When I grow up, I’ll marry a high-ranking official and let you, big sis, and little sis live the good life every day. No—better than the Zhou family ever did!”
“Shut up and eat,” Lu Qiniang snapped. “Little girl talking big, don’t know how high the sky is or how deep the earth runs. Marry a high official? What, is he blind? Would he fancy our three shabby rooms or a little brat like you?”
Erya grumbled, “Don’t underestimate me. Just wait, you’ll be enjoying my blessings one day.”
“I’ll be happy if you just give me less trouble. Quit slacking off and scheming every day.”
Daya quickly interjected, “Second Sis did do a lot of chores today. We were lucky to have her helping. Right, Second Sis?”
Sanya, meanwhile, kept sneaking curious glances at Xiao Yan and occasionally chirped “Father.”
Out of everyone, she was the happiest.
“Everyone shut up and eat,” Lu Qiniang grumbled, irritated. She didn’t want to hear her three daughters bickering. She muttered under her breath, “That Zhao woman really is no good!”
“Mother, what were you and Madam Zhao whispering about? I saw you both looking sour.” Erya, ever nosy, perked right up again even after being scolded, unfazed—thick-skinned as ever.
“I asked her for credit—told her to make the banquet noodles first, and I’d pay her back after collecting the gift money—but she refused. What, do I have no credibility at all? Would I really stiff her on ten tables’ worth of gift money?”
“Pah! I say she’s just a rotten woman,” Erya chimed in angrily. “Back when we were working at the Zhou residence and getting four taels of silver a month, she used to give me malt candy when I came home. Now she really thinks we got kicked out—looking down on people just ’cause we’re back.”
Xiao Yan quietly sipped his sweet potato porridge, piecing together bits of their conversation to form a picture of the family’s background.
So, the four of them—mother and daughters—used to work at some Zhou residence, but had recently returned home for unknown reasons.
It must’ve been recent, because this house clearly hadn’t been lived in for some time. The courtyard was barren and deserted.
Still, it explained something else—why Lu Qiniang, despite their poverty, still had meat on her bones. Turns out their days hadn’t always been this hard.
“What a waste of the gift money I handed out when attending weddings. I was counting on recouping it when I held my own!” Lu Qiniang smacked her thigh in frustration.
“Mother, you might not have gotten it back anyway. Twenty eggs just for one gift, and then a family of four or five comes to eat—you might’ve ended up at a loss. So maybe it’s for the best we didn’t throw a feast,” Daya said gently, trying to console her.
Lu Qiniang sighed, “It’s already the tenth of the twelfth month, and even the money I saved to buy a pig is gone. How are we supposed to get through the New Year like this?”
“We’ll manage. I just want a new outfit, that’s all,” Erya chimed in cheerfully.
Lu Qiniang: I’m doomed.
She still remembered that?
How was she supposed to tell Erya… that new clothes weren’t happening this year?