Chapter 17 Sister-in-law jokes, Xie Hong is seriously ill

The leader of the group widened his eyes first: "Old Xie, didn't you say yesterday..."

Although the words were not finished, everyone present understood that they meant nothing more than fear that Zhu Mingyue would run away.

Xie Hong started coughing violently again. After calming down, he glanced at Zhu Mingyue and said, "It's nothing. Just keep an eye on things."

Zhu Mingyue lowered her eyes, looking pitiful and helpless, but little did she know that the smile in her eyes was almost overflowing.

Hearing Xie Hong's insistence, the group had no choice but to obey.

The rope was untied, and Zhu Mingyue tried to move her stiff limbs.

"Cough cough!" Xie Hong coughed a few more times at that moment, which didn't sound like a simple cough, but rather like a warning to him.

Zhu Mingyue pretended not to notice and got up to pour him a glass of water with a normal expression.

Xie Hong took a sip, and it was ice-cold! The cold made him frown and want to lash out, but he ultimately held back.

He had originally planned to keep Zhu Mingyue tied up for a few more days to dampen his arrogance and make him settle down and live a more conventional life. However, an accident occurred; he developed health problems, and besides that bastard child, only his newlywed wife remained at home.

That bastard had to go up the mountain to hunt and gather firewood during the day to earn a living, and the only person who could serve him was Zhu Mingyue. Therefore, it wasn't that he wanted to release him, but that he had no choice but to.

"Go and boil this water and bring it here," Xie Hong ordered.

Zhu Mingyue quickly agreed, "Okay, I'll go right away."

He carried the kettle out of the house and looked around when no one was looking. The moment he stepped out the door, he almost couldn't suppress the urge to run away, but after struggling for a while, reason finally prevailed.

He couldn't be impatient. The situation was much better than last night, and he had plenty of opportunities to escape. Since he was going to run, he couldn't fight an unprepared battle. He had to thoroughly investigate the distribution of houses in the village before planning his route to ensure that nothing went wrong.

"Ah!" Zhu Mingyue cried out sharply, her thoughts interrupted by the sudden, enormous impact at the bend, bringing her back to reality.

Zhu Mingyue was in a hurry to stabilize the water in the kettle, and only then did she have time to glance at the person she was bumping into.

"It's you?" Zhu Mingyue glanced in the direction of Xie Hong's bedroom and lowered her voice, "What are you doing here?"

The incredibly thin boy in front of him was none other than the thief who sneaked into his room last night!

Zhu Mingyue cautiously took several steps back. The other person looked to be in poor health, and he was afraid that another collision would break the person to pieces.

To his surprise, the boy smiled when he heard his words.

The next second, he said something that struck Zhu Mingyue like a bolt from the blue:

"Sister-in-law, you're joking. This is my home, why can't I be here?"

Zhu Mingyue: Sister-in-law?

What the heck? This guy is his future brother-in-law? So why is he not eating and drinking well outside but instead running to his house to steal his pastries?

Did you come here specifically to see him make a fool of himself?

However, none of these are the most important.

After recovering from her shock, Zhu Mingyue's eyes instantly reddened, and her voice was filled with sobs: "What I said last night was all a joke. Just keep it to yourself. I won't tell anyone that you came into the room to steal food, and you won't tell anyone about me, okay?"

Xie Pei remained silent, simply watching him with interest.

As if he had enjoyed Zhu Mingyue's embarrassing situation enough, he carried the firewood away, leaving behind only an ambiguous "Whatever," which left Zhu Mingyue completely baffled.

What does "casual" mean?

Why did he casually tell everyone that the other person had sneaked into the bridal chamber to steal food?

Isn't this a provocation against him?

Several large question marks appeared on Zhu Mingyue's forehead one after another. At the same time, her sense of unease intensified.

"Where is he?! I'm dying of thirst, hurry!" Xie Hong's shouts suddenly rang out from inside the house.

"Right away!" Zhu Mingyue responded loudly.

After receiving a response, Xie Hong's complaints immediately stopped.

Zhu Mingyue shook her head helplessly. They had only been out of his sight for a short while, and he was already worried about her and taking the opportunity to escape.

He found a tinderbox, lit the firewood, and watched the steam rise into the air and then dissipate, pondering his next plan.

They originally thought Xie Hong was the only one in the family, but now a younger brother has appeared, and having another pair of eyes watching him will make his escape much more difficult...

As the water gradually boiled, Zhu Mingyue picked up a rag and lifted the kettle over the hot handle.

Xie Hong was still lying in bed, his eyes gloomy as he looked at something. When he saw Zhu Mingyue return, he slowly reached out his hand, wanting some water.

Zhu Mingyue understood immediately, picked up the two cups, poured the water over them several times, and only handed them to the other person when she was sure it wasn't too hot anymore.

After drinking the water, Xie Hong's complexion improved considerably.

Lunch was prepared by Xie Pei. Xie Hong's bowl contained rice porridge that had been prepared in advance, while he and Xie Pei each had a bowl of boiled taro chunks.

After feeding Xie Hong, Zhu Mingyue finally had time to eat her own meal. The cooked taro chunks emitted a faint fragrance. From the outside, they looked similar to the sweet potatoes she ate in her previous life, but after taking a bite, she knew that the two were completely different.

The taro had a fairly delicate texture, but it was tasteless and extremely dry. He choked almost to death after only a few bites, and when he looked up to drink some water, he found that Xie Pei had already finished eating.

Zhu Mingyue's mouth was stuffed full like a hamster storing grain, and she kept chewing but couldn't swallow it. Her face looked both painful and comical.

After finally finishing off the taro, he looked up and saw that Xie Pei had unknowingly chopped a pile of firewood in front of him.

Seeing this, he silently washed the dishes; he couldn't let the other person do everything.

After finishing her work, Zhu Mingyue didn't want to face Xie Hong alone again, so she sat on a small stool and watched him chop wood.

"What's your name?" Zhu Mingyue asked, realizing that she didn't even know her brother-in-law's name.

"Xie Pei."

Zhu Mingyue gave a dry "oh," and knowing that the other party clearly didn't want to talk to him, he tactfully ended the conversation.

Bored, he stared at Xie Pei, and as he looked, a question arose in his mind: his brother-in-law didn't seem to have a close relationship with Xie Hong.

According to his observation, Xie Hongsheng was burly and strong, while his younger brother was thin and bony. As for their meals, Xie Hongsheng drank thick white porridge, while Xie Pei and he could only eat boiled taro. Furthermore, since Xie Hongsheng fell ill and vomited blood last night, Xie Pei had never shown his face in front of his brother.

Zhu Mingyue recalled the scene of their first meeting last night. Xie Pei's impression of him was that he was thin, frighteningly thin, so thin that the first thought was that he was either an orphan or had been mistreated. Now it seemed that he was clearly the latter.

Xie Hong set up several tables for a large meal, enough for all the village children, but Xie Pei was excluded, indicating that Xie Hong didn't care for his younger brother at all.

But he couldn't understand Xie Pei's thoughts. After all, the bowl of white rice porridge that Xie Hong cooked was the real deal, and he didn't even get to taste it.

What if this kid is a masochist...?

Zhu Mingyue stroked her chin, thinking: It doesn't seem impossible.

Zhu Mingyue ultimately failed to dawdle. Xie Hong would give him instructions every ten minutes or so, telling him if he was thirsty, hungry, had a backache, needed to go to the outhouse, needed to get some fresh air, or needed to turn over. He was practically torturing him in different ways.

Fortunately, Xie Hong didn't have the habit of taking a bath in winter, so Zhu Mingyue luckily escaped the task of helping him take a bath.

As night fell, Xie Hong finally stopped ordering him around, patted the bed, and invited him to come up and sleep with him.

Zhu Mingyue was naturally unwilling. He hadn't eaten a single grain of those four bushels of rice. Why should he have to work and sleep with her?

Zhu Mingyue was dissatisfied, but she couldn't say it outright.

She had to greet him with a smile and persuade him that the young masters of wealthy families nowadays sleep on small couches with their maids, and that she could also follow their example and sleep on a footstool, so as not to disturb his recovery and to make it convenient to take care of him at night.

It must be said that these remarks greatly satisfied Xie Hong's vanity. He imagined himself as a young master from a wealthy family, surrounded by countless beauties, while Zhu Mingyue was just one of them, only worthy of sleeping on his footstool and serving him.

Zhu Mingyue had no idea what Xie Hong was thinking; he only knew that he would no longer have to endure the disgust of sleeping in the same bed with the other person.

Although the footstool was hard, Zhu Mingyue slept soundly for eight or nine days.

For reasons unknown, Xie Hong never once tried to persuade him to come up and sleep, which saved him from having to come up and try to fool people with different tricks.

The only drawback was that Xie Hong still kept a close watch on him. Most of the time, he had to stay within Xie Hong's sight, and even getting up at night to drink tea could be quickly noticed by the other party.

On the tenth day after Xie Hong fell ill, the family ran out of medicine.

However, his chest tightness did not seem to improve at all; he only felt a little better for two hours after taking the medicine.

Xie Hong didn't know what was wrong with him. It was just liver stagnation turning into fire, so why hadn't he gotten better after so many days?

However, he wasn't worried that it was a serious illness. In his mind, if the town doctor said it was nothing, then it was nothing. Since he couldn't get better after ten days of drinking, he would just keep drinking until he got better.

Anyway, during his time bedridden, he was taken care of meticulously and experienced the life of a "young master in a county town," which made him extremely happy.

“This medicine is almost gone,” Zhu Mingyue said, picking up the last pinch of herbs and putting them back into the medicine pot. “Should we go to town and get another dose?”

Of course he had to be caught. Xie Hong valued his life more than anything else. Even if the medicine wasn't very effective, he would still drink it just for those few hours of relief.

"Then I'll go..."

“Don’t go,” Xie Hong interrupted him, “Let that little bastard Xie Pei go.”

"They clearly have many similarities in their features, so how could he be a bastard?" Zhu Mingyue thought to himself. But this was someone else's family matter, and he didn't dare ask any further.

"Then I'll go call him." He left those words and ran out of the house.

Last night there was a moderate snowfall, and the mountain roads were difficult to climb. Xie Pei did not go up the mountain to collect firewood; he was currently weaving bamboo baskets in the yard.

Zhu Mingyue walked right up to him without attracting his attention.

Over the past few days, he had grown accustomed to the other person's aloofness. He didn't force the other person to communicate with him, and he was grateful that the other person hadn't revealed his secrets.

"Xie Pei, your brother's medicine is out of stock. He told you to go to town and get some medicine."

Xie Pei nodded indifferently, without even raising his head, as if Zhu Mingyue did not exist.

Zhu Mingyue bit her lip, and seeing that the message had been conveyed, she left.

Xie Pei entered the house in the evening, covered in snow and carrying several packets of medicine.

That very night, at Xie Hong's request, Zhu Mingyue immediately began brewing the medicine.

Who knew that Xie Hong's condition worsened in the middle of the night after taking the medicine, and he vomited blood several times.