Chapter 16 After lunch, Qiu Yuruo was...

After lunch, Qiu Yuruo was urged by Old Man Qiu to go to the carpenter in Qingshi Town to order a cart, four tables, and some benches.

Then she ordered two pots, one large and one small, that the blacksmith often makes, two cylindrical pots for boiling water and cooking noodles, and several strainers for cooking noodles. It took her a long time to explain it to the blacksmith.

As for bowls, pots, ingredients, and seasonings, we'll buy them after the cart is ready.

When I came back, I only bought the ingredients I had sampled in the last two days.

Because they still needed to set up a shed at the village entrance, Old Qiu decided to stay overnight and told his third brother to go home and tell him to come back early tomorrow morning.

When Uncle Qiu was about to leave, Qiu Yuruo gave him two more jars of meat sauce. Since her family had separated, each family received one jar, and she told him to come back for more after he finished eating them.

Uncle Qiu has witnessed Qiu Yuruo's cunning these past few days. With both cunning and skill, she will definitely have a good life in the future. Therefore, he accepted the meat sauce that Qiu Yuruo gave him without any hesitation.

His impoliteness earned him a scolding from his father, who said he didn't know how to consider the child's feelings at all.

Uncle Qiu jumped onto the oxcart and ran off, thinking to himself, "Instead of making me think about Qiu Yuruo, it would be better to let her help me think more about things in the future."

...

That evening, after Qiu Yuru tidied up Su Yunting, she didn't rush to bed. Instead, she moved the table next to the bed outwards, revealing a brick that had been pressed down by the table leg.

Su Yunting didn't wait for her to get into bed. Instead, he heard her gently move the table, followed by the sound of bricks scraping against each other. The sound only lasted for a moment before it went quiet. Then, there was a fainter sound of bricks scraping against each other.

Su Yunting thought that she was taking out bricks from under the table.

Qiu Yuruo breathed a sigh of relief when she saw the oil paper package under the brick. She took it out, opened the package, and revealed a bracelet and two silver ingots inside.

After thinking it over, Qiu Yuruo finally decided to take out a ten-tael silver ingot, leaving the remaining five taels untouched.

As for the silver bracelet, in Qiu Yuruo's heart, its value cannot be measured by its material. Unless it is a matter of life and death, she will not touch the bracelet.

He carefully wrapped up the remaining five taels of silver and the bracelet, put them back in their original places, and restored them to their original state before finally moving the table back to its original position.

After a series of rustling sounds, Su Yunting finally saw Qiu Yuruo come to bed.

Qiu Yuruo gently turned Su Yunting over so that he was facing her, and then began to talk to him.

Having been at the Su family for only a few days, Qiu Yuruo had already become accustomed to having someone by her side at night and had grown used to his 'silence'.

She shared with him what had happened during the day.

Although he already knew, he still listened attentively.

After Qiu Yu finished telling the story of Old Man Qiu cursing at Old Man Su's door, she said to Su Yunting, "Someone as extreme as your old man is only suitable to be dealt with by someone as extreme as my family. In many ways, the two of us are really a perfect match."

Their destinies are perfectly matched; even their grandfathers were chosen in-laws.

Su Yunting: Now that you mention it, they do seem to be a very 'perfect match'.

Qiu Yuruo: "I don't know if your old man Su was shameless from the beginning, or if he became shameless after your family's misfortune happened. Anyway, my old man has always been very concerned about his reputation."

When my parents had their accident, they clearly couldn't bear to let them take my younger brother to the doctor during the day. But after the accident, they insisted that I was the one who caused the deaths of my parents and brothers..."

As Qiu Yuru calmly recounted the hardships she had endured working under Old Lady Zhou over the years, Su Yunting couldn't help but feel sorry for her.

Aside from feeling sorry for what she went through, I admire her resilience.

Su Yunting's life took a turn at the age of eighteen when his father passed away and he fell into a coma. Before the age of eighteen, he lived a life more affluent than those around him, and he was also talented in his studies, so his whole family had high hopes for him.

In his previous life, he only experienced a period of hardship after he regained consciousness from his coma. The hardship he experienced at that time was only spiritual.

But Qiu Yuruo was different. She lost her parents when she was eight years old and had never worn a new piece of clothing or eaten a meal of fine rice and white flour since she was fifteen. Let alone fine rice and white flour, the fact that she could even eat half a full meal was all thanks to the delicious food she cooked. If Old Lady Zhou wanted her to cook, she couldn't let her go hungry.

Thinking back on everything that happened at the Qiu family's house, it felt like a lifetime had passed in just a few days.

Qiu Yuruo sighed softly: "Before I agreed to marry into this family, I didn't plan to have much contact with them anymore. Who knew your old man would be even more outrageous? Don't be fooled by his current indifference to this matter. As soon as our lives get a little better, he will definitely come over and act like an elder!"

Qiu Yuruo unconsciously picked up a strand of Su Yunting's hair and twirled it around her fingers. "It really proves the saying: there are no eternal enemies, only eternal interests."

Su Yunting: So your plan is to use Old Man Qiu to suppress Old Man Su now, and if Old Man Qiu can't see his own position clearly in the future, you can turn around and use Old Man Su to restrain him.

He chuckled softly deep within his consciousness.

There wasn't a single thing Qiu Yuruo did that Su Yunting couldn't understand; he not only understood it, but he also admired it.

Now, listening to her recount her day's experiences is the most comfortable time of his day.

After marveling at how well the two old men were matched, Qiu Yuru lowered her voice and said, "When I agreed to the marriage in their place, I asked them for twenty taels of silver so that I would have capital to start a business later."

Su Yunting understood that she had moved the table and lifted the bricks to retrieve the silver she had hidden there.

The more Su Yunting understood Qiu Yuruo, the less he understood why she would jump into the river on her wedding day in her previous life!

Qiu Yu was unaware of his inner question. When she mentioned silver, she naturally thought of the silver bracelet left by her mother.

“When my parents were still alive when I was a child, life was pretty good. Every New Year, my mother would wear a silver hairpin and a silver bracelet. The hairpin was the betrothal gift my family gave to my mother, and the bracelet was the only thing my maternal grandmother left for my mother.”

When my parents passed away unexpectedly, I was so shocked and grieving that I fell ill... and almost died.

Qiu Yuruo's voice was already low, but when she talked about how she almost died, it became almost inaudible.

If Qiu Yu had experienced life and death, her own transmigration and rebirth would have allowed her to witness the unknown firsthand, making her know far more than she did.

Even if she were talking to someone who was believed to have a slim chance of waking up, she wouldn't reveal the fact that she had transmigrated and been reborn, let alone when she was talking to herself.

Su Yunting could imagine what her situation was like back then, just like when her younger sister passed away in her previous life, or even worse. At least when her younger sister passed away in her previous life, she had older brothers and sisters who truly loved her by her side.

But back then, Qiu Yuruo didn't have anyone by her side who truly loved her.

If Qiu Yu's past and present lives were combined, they would only be enough to reach the age of just entering society in her past life, but she has experienced two and a half life-and-death situations.

He faced two brushes with death: one was an accidental death in his previous life, and the other was a near-death experience at the age of eight.

The other half was a dream she had during a hunger strike—a dream of starving to death and being thrown into the river. It was so realistic, like she had actually experienced it, that it was almost like Qiu Yuruo experiencing a life-or-death ordeal.

Just as Su Yunting was feeling sorry for her, Qiu Yuruo thought about how she had experienced so many life-and-death situations and was now able to lie here safely, and couldn't help but feel fortunate and happy.

The next part of the story became more cheerful: "When I woke up after escaping death, my family was still busy with work in the fields. My mother's things hadn't been taken yet, so I found the bracelet that my grandmother had left for my mother and hid it under a flowerpot by the door."

The next day, my grandmother searched the house. She hadn't touched my mother's hairpin or the few loose silver coins she'd saved, so she suspected my mother had left wearing the bracelet, which was later removed by the rescue team, thus preventing a wider search of the house.

Qiu Yuruo still feels proud of her quick thinking back then, and Su Yunting admires her for her choices.

Qiu Yu Ruo talked about the past and dreamed about the future for a while. When she got sleepy, she turned Su Yunting over so that he could lie flat on his back, and then she slowly fell asleep.

Her whispers were gone from the room, but thankfully there was still the sound of her soft breathing beside him, which allowed him to continue to find peace. He even found himself following her thoughts and imagining their future together.

...

The next day, Qiu Yuruo and Su Yunting got ready and came out. Old Man Qiu was already up.

She quickly boiled water and cooked a meal. First, she used a small pot to cook porridge for Su Yunting. Then, she put the multigrain pancakes she had made yesterday into a large pot, grabbed a handful of flour, and once the pancakes were cooked, she made noodle soup. Finally, she took out the egg laid yesterday by the hen she had bought from Aunt Wang, cracked it into a bowl, beat it, and poured it into the noodle soup, stirring it directly. One egg was enough to make a large pot of egg and noodle soup.

After Qiu Yuruo finished cooking, Su Jingshu got up. Seeing Old Man Qiu moving around in the yard and her younger brother returning with water, Su Jingshu went into the kitchen feeling guilty.

Yesterday, when Old Man Qiu went to scold Old Man Su, Su Jing Shu didn't go with him because she had to take care of her older brother. However, she heard everything clearly when Old Man Qiu started cursing as soon as he left the alley.

Especially after they returned, Su Jingshu heard the whole story. Although the person who was scolded was her grandfather, she couldn't help but feel relieved.

That night, I thought to myself, how wonderful it would be if my sister-in-law could marry into our family sooner!

I was thinking about too many random things, so I couldn't fall asleep at night and ended up sleeping in the morning.

If Qiu Yu weren't a strict person, and since she wasn't currently running a business, and Su Jing Shu didn't need to go out, getting up a little late wouldn't be a problem.

Qiu Yuruo had already served the food to the person in charge, so she was told to go wash up first and then serve herself the food when she returned.

It was quite comfortable to eat in the courtyard on an early autumn morning. After bringing out the food, I also served some meat sauce and side dishes that I had made a couple of days ago, and then invited Old Man Qiu and Su Yunche to come and eat.

Old Man Qiu had been keeping an eye on Qiu Yuruo all morning, and seeing how tolerant she was of Su Yunting's younger brother and sister, he couldn't help but feel smug.

Qiu Yuruo quickly finished her breakfast under his various demands that she be virtuous, generous, and tolerant.

Before Uncle Qiu arrived, Qiu Yuruo thought that she would never let him stay at home again. She would leave his desire to educate his eldest granddaughter to her. As for how she should act, she didn't need him to worry about it.