Chapter 45 All her scheming and petty calculations were used to plot against him! ...

The rising sunlight shone into the brand-new courtyard. The door was tightly closed, and everything was so quiet, as if no one lived there. But in fact, it had already welcomed its owner since last night.

"Zhong Ying".

Li Linshi had already heard the noises coming from the next house; it must be his parents getting up.

"Zhong Ying." Li Linshi called her name again from outside the door.

The house here remained quiet, but the noise from next door grew louder and louder.

"Dad, shall we heat up the leftovers from yesterday's feast this morning? I'll also make a few pancakes..."

"Xiuyun, take your brother and sister to wash their faces..."

The eldest brother and sister-in-law's family have also gotten up.

Zhong Ying was, after all, a newlywed bride. She couldn't wait until the food was all ready before showing up, or she would be criticized.

Thinking this, Li Linshi pursed his lips, hesitated for a moment, and then slipped into the house.

The big black dog sleeping beside the bed smelled the unusual scent in the air and immediately opened its eyes. However, because the cool smell of the river water was already somewhat familiar to it, it did not bark to drive or threaten the dog away.

The temperature was a bit lower at night, so Zhong Ying wrapped herself tightly in the quilt. Only her head was visible in the soft white blanket. She was fast asleep, her long, black hair scattered haphazardly, winding like a mountain road.

Li Lin stared at her intently, feeling as if a cloud had floated into his chest, soft and something similar was trapped within it.

"Sister-in-law, let me help you out..."

Li Linshi came to his senses when he heard his third sister's voice.

"Zhong Ying, Zhong Ying, it's time for you to get up—"

Zhong Ying finally woke up. The first thing she saw when she opened her eyes was a male ghost dressed in red. Her pupils contracted, and she wondered if what she had just heard was not "Zhong Ying, you should get up," but "Zhong Ying, you should die." It was terrifying!

"Stay away from me." Zhong Ying's heart was pounding; she needed to catch her breath.

Li Linshi stiffened, his face tightened, and he retreated half a meter away in a gloomy manner.

Zhong Ying sat up. It wasn't that she was overreacting; Li Linshi looked like a gender-swapped version of the horror game "X Wedding Dress." Her gaze fell on his handsome face, and Zhong Ying silently added in her mind, "No, it should be a horror-themed otome game."

Li Linshi meant well, but he was ruthlessly told to get up. His face turned ugly and his tone became cold and hard. "Get up quickly, everyone next door is already up."

After saying that, he left the house.

Zhong Ying had no choice but to get out of her warm bed.

Today she definitely had to go to work in the fields, so Zhong Ying didn't wear the new clothes she wore yesterday. Instead, she rummaged through her dowry chest and found an old, plain-colored jacket to wear.

Zhong Ying opened the door and took her "foreign gadgets" to wash up. In reality, it was just a mass-market toothbrush and a tooth powder. The pale green powder in the small tin box had been used for two or three years and was now only a thin layer left. Although her mother disliked her for trying to be as poor and fussy as the people in town, she still bought it for her.

Zhong Ying casually tied her hair into a bun and stood by the well to start pumping water to wash her face and brush her teeth. She gripped the lever and pressed down and lifted it with great effort. She was already familiar with this old-fashioned way of drawing water. At first, no water would come out after the first few pumps, just like the energy storage phase in a game. Water would only come out after the bar was full.

Li Linshi stood at a distance, watching coldly.

"Huh?" Zhong Ying looked at the well water gushing out in surprise, then quickly understood. While busy scooping water, she turned to thank the dead man, "Thank you."

Zhong Ying washed her face, and without hesitation, used the remaining tooth powder to brush her teeth. She was a rich person now, and a small box of tooth powder cost five cents each at the supply and marketing cooperative without coupons, which she could afford!

The courtyard is clearer during the day. Zhong Ying brushed her teeth and surveyed the yard. She planned to buy a few more chicks at the market next time she went. She wanted to live a more enjoyable life, preferably with egg and chicken flavors.

Zhong Ying's gaze lingered on the male ghost in the courtyard. She stared at him quietly for a while, as if deep in thought.

After washing up, Zhong Ying didn't rush to the Li family's house next door, but went back to her room.

Li Linshi frowned and followed.

“These are your things, right?” Zhong Ying opened the cabinet door. She had only brought two boxes and two quilts. Obviously, the things already inside the cabinet were Li Linshi’s old belongings. “Do you have a pen and paper?”

Li Linshi didn't understand why, but he still found everything she asked for.

Zhong Ying held the pen, glanced at Li Linshi again, and then lowered her head to draw on the paper.

Before long, Zhong Ying finished drawing something, but before Li Linshi could see it, she went to get the matches she had used to light the candles the night before.

Zhong Ying held a matchstick and quickly struck it across the brown square on the side of the matchbox. A flame appeared and ignited the paper in her hand. The ashes fell onto the ground in front of the table where the memorial tablets were placed.

Li Linshi noticed something was wrong and looked down. He saw that his clothes had changed to a dark gray shirt with a round neck but no front buttons and white pants with two large pockets on the sides of the legs. What kind of strange clothes were these?

Zhong Ying opened her mouth in surprise, "It really works..."

Li Linshi's all-red outfit was really strange and eye-catching. Zhong Ying just tried it out and casually drew a sweatshirt and cargo pants for him and burned them. Unexpectedly, he actually changed into the same outfit he wore at yesterday's wedding.

For some inexplicable reason, Zhong Ying suddenly felt like she had found a game in this era. "Um... Miracle Linlin?"

Then Zhong Ying thought that her mother didn't need to worry about her sewing skills being insufficient to make clothes for her husband. However, Zhong Ying quickly shifted from this altruistic idea that had been influenced to her own perspective. In this way, wouldn't she be able to grab a few pieces of clothing for herself? Even if she couldn't wear them out, she could make pajamas!

Thinking this, Zhong Ying excitedly asked, "Can you take off your clothes and give them to me now? Don't worry, I'll draw them for you after you take them off. I'll burn any clothes you want for you!"

Li Linshi hooked his fingers around the collar of his shirt, pulled it down, and looked up at Zhong Ying, his voice tinged with suppressed anger, "I don't have any other clothes underneath..."

If she takes his clothes off, he'll be naked. What is she thinking?

“It’s just shirtless, I’ve seen it before—” Under the terrifying gaze of death, Zhong Ying’s survival instinct was triggered like a passive skill. She continued, “Don’t many men take off their shirts to do farm work in the summer?”

Feeling the crisis recede, Zhong Ying breathed a sigh of relief, only to mutter to herself, "How conservative! She only asked for his top, not his pants."

Li Linshi heard another sound, and putting aside what had just happened, urged, "Second brother and sister-in-law's family are here, you should go over there quickly."

Zhong Ying's heart tightened. "Then we have to go there quickly. Brown Sugar, you stay at home for now, I'll come back to feed you later."

After locking the front door, Zhong Ying went to the house next door.

As soon as she entered, Zhong Ying felt a force pushing her. Caught off guard, she staggered back several steps until she crashed into the chest of the ghost behind her.

Li Linshi held Zhong Ying's shoulder, his brows furrowed as he looked down at the instigator.

The six-year-old boy was barely up to an adult's thigh, but his expression was anything but pleasant. He glared at Zhong Ying fiercely, as if she were his enemy. "Get out! You're a bad person! You've taken over my house! Get out—"

Li Gangshi rushed over and covered his son's mouth, then smiled awkwardly at Zhong Ying, "Fourth sister-in-law, I'm sorry, Guangzong is still young and doesn't understand things. Please don't take it to heart."

Although it's an apology, it still sounds uncomfortable.

However, Zhong Ying didn't intend to make a fuss about it. Yao Zu was just behaving normally; after all, he wasn't her son.

Li Linshi remained cold and sullen, wondering if there was something wrong with his elder brother's methods of educating his children. Just last year, before his death, Li Guangzong was a good boy who would obediently call him "Uncle".

Li Gangshi pulled his son aside to make way, saying, "Your sister-in-law is cooking in the kitchen. If there's anything you don't like to eat, just tell her."

"Okay." Zhong Ying responded and walked towards the kitchen. She planned to ask if there was anything she could help with. After all, they would be living together in the future, and she couldn't just let others do the work while she waited to eat. Even in the Zhong family, everyone had to do housework.

Just then, a sandbag rolled to Zhong Ying's feet. She stopped, picked it up, and handed it to another little boy who ran over. This was Li Guangfu, the son of Li Rongshi, the second son of the Li family, who was a year younger than Yaozu.

Li Guangfu stared at the somewhat unfamiliar young woman in front of him with his round, dark eyes. Like a cub, he cautiously reached for his sandbag. Once he had it, a childlike smile bloomed on his face. "Thank you, Auntie! Auntie is so beautiful!"

Zhong Ying was taken aback, then laughed, "You're so young, how do you know what 'pretty' means?"

The little boy nodded and said in his childish voice, "I know, my dad always says that to my mom, 'You're so pretty, come give me a kiss—'"

"Li Guangfu!" Nie Jinfeng came out of the main room, shouting angrily, "Come here!"

When his parents called him by his full name, the boy trembled immediately, grabbed the sandbag, turned around, and obediently ran to his mother.

Nie Jinfeng pressed her son's shoulder, her gaze towards Zhong Ying filled with a certain wariness.

“How could my second sister-in-law… She was so warm and straightforward with me before.” Li Linshi frowned even more.

Zhong Ying thought about it and figured the reason was most likely the "son" her parents had helped her get. Her second sister-in-law's wariness probably stemmed from her fear that Zhong Ying might be tempted to adopt Xiao Guangfu because he was so cute. Thinking this, Zhong Ying shrugged; she really had no intention of taking someone else's son.

She continued walking forward, entered the kitchen, and asked Tian Mei, "Sister-in-law, is there anything you need me to do?"

Tian Mei had already prepared her answer in her mind: "Fourth sister-in-law, your second sister-in-law and I agreed that I would cook on odd-numbered days and she would cook on even-numbered days. How about this, we'll both cook from now on, and you can help Mom wash the dishes after dinner, okay?"

Throughout history, it has been known that the kitchen is a place of plenty of oil and grease. Whoever cooks can take a bite first under the guise of tasting the food. Tian Mei and Nie Jinfeng would secretly feed their own children while cooking, and everyone knew it. Logically speaking, the three daughters-in-law of the Li family should all have equal rights in the kitchen, but Tian Mei and Nie Jinfeng did not want to give up five of their fifteen days of cooking time to others, so they wanted to assign Zhong Ying other chores.

Zhong Ying wasn't good at cooking to begin with, so she didn't have any objections. "Okay, then I'll wash the dishes from now on."

Tian Mei breathed a sigh of relief. "Then you can go out first, sister-in-law. Dinner will be ready in a bit."

Li Rou, who was standing nearby, noticed the implication in her sister-in-law's words that she wanted to send them away, and immediately stepped in to smooth things over, "Yingnier, could you keep an eye on Qianqian for me? Let her play with the younger ones for a while, and they'll be able to eat soon."

Zhong Ying nodded, turned around and left the kitchen.

In a corner of the courtyard, three little girls were having a great time by themselves, with one end of a rubber band tied to two stacked large stones and the other end taut on the leg of the oldest girl, Li Xiuyun.

Zhong Ying walked over and patted the little girl on the shoulder, "Why don't you go jump rope with them? I'll help you tighten the rope."

Li Xiuyun is the eldest of the Li family's grandchildren and is very sensible, but she is actually only nine years old this year and is still a child. When she heard that someone could come to take her place, her childlike playfulness overshadowed her sense of responsibility as the eldest sister. "Then... I'm going to play. Auntie, thank you."

Zhong Ying shook her head, secured the rubber band to her leg, and watched the little girls jump lightly and happily between the rubber bands. The rising morning sun fell on their flying braids and illuminated the smiles on their faces.

“My sister-in-law wasn’t like this to me before.” Li Linshi’s face was gloomy. From a worldly perspective, Zhong Ying was now his wife, so how could his family treat her like this? His nephew Li Guangzong was shouting, his second sister-in-law was wary, and his eldest sister-in-law was rejecting him… Clearly, his family was not like this in his memory.

“The world from a man’s perspective and the world from a woman’s perspective are of course not the same.” Zhong Ying said, yawning. The excitement of living alone last night kept her awake for a long time, which made her not only unable to get up this morning, but also feeling sleepy now.

What bothered Li Linshi the most was the way Li Guangzong shoved Zhong Ying at the beginning, and his words, "That house was built for me from the very beginning, how did it become his in Guangzong's mouth?"

“It must have been an adult saying that in private for a child to say something like that.” Recalling how his sister-in-law had taken over the cooking duties with just a few words, Li Lin couldn’t help but suspect her. “I never thought my sister-in-law was such a selfish and greedy person.”

Everyone has their own little schemes to some extent. Zhong Ying neither agreed nor disagreed with this, but she did not quite agree with Li Linshi's words. "I don't think it necessarily has to be blamed on my sister-in-law."

Li Linshi looked at Zhong Ying in surprise, "You think my older brother is the one who corrupts children? How could that be?"

“Anyway, you’re a ghost that no one can see now, so you can go and investigate, just like my aunt was examining potential sons-in-law.” Zhong Ying’s words seemed to tempt him to open the unknown Pandora’s box, and Li Linshi couldn’t help but clench his fists.

“Let’s make a bet,” Zhong Ying said. “I’ll guess it’s your older brother, and you guess it’s your sister-in-law. If you’re right, I’ll do the dishes; if I’m right, you’ll do the dishes for me.”

It sounds like there's no problem.

Li Linshi laughed in anger, "You're quite the sly one; you're not at a disadvantage either way."

He won, and Zhong Ying did the dishes, a task her sister-in-law had just assigned her a few minutes earlier; he lost, and Zhong Ying didn't have to do any work.

She's been using all her cunning to scheme against him every single day!

-----------------------

Author's Note: Li Linshi: Speak up for me!