Chapter 57 "Why take in a little old man..."
Leng Cuizhu: "What did you say? Leaving him for you?"
"Didn't you promise Yin Yuan last time that you would never seduce me again? How come you're doing this again..."
"We'll be married next month, so my actions won't be considered seduction anymore; they'll just be normal intimacy between husband and wife."
“If Yin Yuanru continues to harass you, then he is committing a morally corrupt act of seducing a married woman.”
"...Aren't you engaged to the county princess?"
"For you, I would not hesitate to break my engagement with the princess. Anyway, my parents and brothers have all passed away, and I am all alone."
She muttered to herself, "You're really dreaming."
Now, Leng Cuizhu understood.
The first two things were just a prelude; the latter two were the real purpose—not only to marry her, but also to have the child adopted by him.
"Si Qing, I cannot grant you this request."
It's sad that she's with Yin Yuan now, but that doesn't mean everything will get better just because she's changed husbands.
She didn't want to be tied to any man anymore, including Si Qing. What if, after more than ten years together, their relationship ended in heartbreak? No one could guarantee that they would love each other as much as they did for ten years, especially since the love between them was minimal, and there was more lust than love.
Having learned her lesson, she will no longer entrust herself to others; she will take responsibility for herself.
The love she desires comes not from anyone else, but solely from herself. Therefore, she no longer wants to cling to being loved; love originated from her. She wants to enjoy all things in this world, instead of kneeling and waiting to be picked by others.
Si Qing was stunned: "Why?"
“Because I don’t love you,” she replied with a smile, “You’re like a vixen—charming and cute, but nothing more.”
"Marriage isn't just about love; it also requires your spirit, your emotions, your life... It consumes so much. You can't guarantee that you'll still be able to maintain your initial feelings after going through such a tumultuous experience. Even if you could, I couldn't. I don't love you at all."
"Not even a little bit of love?" the man frowned. "Why can't you spare even a fraction of the love you have for that man for me?"
“But,” she shook her head and smiled bitterly, “I don’t love him either, so how can I give even a little bit of him to you?”
“Yes, so,” he bent down, put his hands on her shoulders, and advised, “it’s okay if you don’t love each other. You can get married even if you don’t love each other, and you can stay together even if you don’t love each other… just like you and him.”
He suddenly burst into tears: "Sister, after I die, you can remarry, you don't have to be a widow for me..."
"What did you say?"
"We only need to be husband and wife for less than six months, really."
He wiped away the tears from the corners of his eyes, his voice heavy with sorrow: "The doctor said I won't live more than six months, and after that, I will surely die."
"Several of my brothers also passed away at my age... without exception."
Leng Cuizhu found it hard to accept.
She even hoped that Si Qing was lying to her, just like before, and only wanted her to agree to her request.
But she asked again and again, and each time Si Qing answered her with absolute certainty: what he said was true, and he didn't lie to her at all.
“My father was born to my cousin and was born with birth defects. He died at the age of thirty-two from an incurable disease, and his misfortune was passed down to my generation. In the past ten years or so, my brothers have passed away one after another, and now I am the only one left.”
Why didn't you tell me before?
"How should I put it... and in what capacity should I approach you?"
"Just as you said, you don't love me, there's no affection between us. So what right do I have to disturb your peace of mind by threatening my own death, how can I possibly beg you?"
His sorrow deepened, and he closed his eyes, tears streaming down his cheeks: "Just because I'm a dying man?"
"...I promise you."
She looked up, her mind made up: "We will fulfill all the requests you've made, one by one, including getting married."
"I'm willing to marry you."
She was actually extremely unsure of herself.
It's no use that she's willing to marry Si Qing; Yin Yuan definitely won't let her leave. Even if she tells him everything about Si Qing's situation, Yin Yuan will at most just sneer and then threaten her with the indenture.
Therefore, this matter needs to be considered carefully, but not for too long, as Si Qing will not live much longer.
She took the rooster home with her.
As soon as she closed the door, she started spanking its bottom.
"How can you eat food from strangers? Are you that greedy? What if you get food poisoning?"
Ouch!
The rooster cried incessantly, then flew to the bed, transformed into human form, and wrapped its naked body in a blanket.
"But everyone's eating! Why can't we eat? Besides, aren't you close to him? I heard it all: he wants to marry you!"
"One thing at a time."
"Just remember this from now on: don't eat anything from people you don't know well, no matter how tempting it is." She walked to the bedside, covered him with a blanket, and picked the dead leaves from his hair.
Dodder suddenly raised its head and nuzzled her hand with its head, looking preoccupied: "Are you really going to marry him? Don't you already have one? Why are you getting married again... How many are you going to marry anyway?"
If he had known this would happen, he wouldn't have eaten that man's food; he should have pecked the man's eyes out.
"Sit down." She withdrew her hand, stretching one arm out on the bed, her hair disheveled and hairpins hanging down. "These things are not for you to think about. If you're really too idle, how about I find you some work to do? I'll teach you a lesson for your haphazard way of doing things."
"What? I'm nothing like that."
"Why not?"
"Wasn't that how you were at the beginning? You kept urging me to do missions with you, but once I finished one, you acted like you'd forgotten about it and just stuck to my side all the time. I don't know what the point was."
She raised her hand and gently tapped his forehead: "Do other systems also have inappropriate relationships with their hosts like you do?"
Dodder blushed and chuckled, "How would I know? I don't care at all."
"I haven't forgotten about the main quest, it's just that the time isn't right yet. It's not that I'm not going to do it, but that I'm going to do it slowly and methodically."
"Besides, don't you dislike doing that? As a system, how can you force your host to do something she doesn't like..."
Actually, the dodder just forgot about it.
Not only did he forget all those tasks, but he also forgot his main storyline and his purpose for coming here.
And he didn't want to remember it, content to be so happy that he forgot all about home.
When he first started his onboarding training, he was locked in a small room all day, listening to a dozen robots playing the system guidelines on a loop in his ear.
He had long forgotten those precautions; all he remembered was the robot's cold voice, which kept echoing in his mind...
The administrator told him that the characters in the book were merely created from a few lines of text, living by habit, and that their beginnings and endings were predetermined.
No, that's not true.
How could a person's fate be planned from the beginning? It's all up to human effort. Just like Leng Cuizhu successfully steered the plot astray, to an extreme degree.
After spending time with her in person, Dodder realized that she was not the flat character the administrator had described.
She is very charming.
She was not cannon fodder.
Beside her, he felt a warmth he had never felt in decades.
If we can never go back, then staying by her side until death is not so bad.
So he quit; he didn't care about performance bonuses. What could the administrator do? Remove him from the system? Fine, he can be a normal person, a regular chicken, that's good enough.
As long as I can be by her side.
No matter how much the authorities condemn his choice, he will not regret it.
"Why is your hair getting more and more yellow?" Leng Cuizhu smoothed his hair and went to the dressing table to get a comb. "Anyway, I don't care. Do whatever you want with it."
"I'm going out tomorrow. You stay home and take care of the house. I'll bring you some candied hawthorns when I come back, okay?"
"real?"
"My tooth hurts, I don't want to eat candied hawthorns, can you bring me a roujiamo (Chinese hamburger) instead? I want it cut in half." He smiled, revealing his shallow dimples.
"...Alright then. You'd better keep a close watch on the house. If anyone comes looking for me...lock the door and don't let them in."
"Is this 'whoever' specifically referring to your husband?"
The dodder was clever in this regard: "So when you said 'going out,' you actually meant going on a date with your second husband?"
The next day, when Leng Cuizhu went out, You En happened to be there as well. Leng Cuizhu then explained to You En in detail the things she needed to pay attention to at home.
Yuen reassured her more than the dodder; once was enough, unlike the dodder which had to warn her repeatedly.
"Sweetie," she said, raising her hand to stroke Dodder's cheek, "I'll bring you a roujiamo (Chinese hamburger) when I come back."
"I don't want to eat anymore... I don't want to eat candied hawthorn either!"
Dodder bit her lip and gripped her hand tightly: "Why do you insist on going? Can't you not go?"
"What's wrong with you?" Leng Cuizhu asked in a daze. "Do you have a fever?" She touched Tu Sizi's forehead. It wasn't hot. She didn't have a fever.
"Didn't I tell you yesterday that I was going out today...? What's with this attack now?"
"I don't like that man! Why do you insist on marrying him? Don't you already have a husband... why do you need another husband?"
"Then what do I become? Your lapdog?" After saying that, Dodder glanced at Eun.
Their fragile friendship was ultimately shattered by him. If anyone was to blame, it was that old raven, Eun, couldn't win over his host, allowing him to take over.
Leng Cuizhu was too lazy to reason with Tu Sizi, so she patted his head and said gently, "Don't be so childish."
“This isn’t childish! I’m all grown up, why do you still treat me like a child? I’m not acting impulsively, I’m just speaking from the heart!”
Dodder stomped its foot, snorted angrily, and turned to go back into the house.
Her hand was left hanging in mid-air.
"This child..."
“Eun, why don’t you try to comfort him later? He seems to have run inside and started crying. Don’t let him get the sheets wet.”
“Okay.” Ewan nodded. “Madam, this is for you.”
He took out a palm-sized white glazed bottle from his sleeve.
She opened the bottle and smelled the sweet aroma of osmanthus and the slightly bitter scent of tea. Curious, she asked, "Where did you find these fragrant tea leaves?"
This was a rare treat; vendors in the county seldom bought it, and few people used it. It was generally used by wealthy families who would suck on a few pieces whenever they had a spare moment to cleanse their mouths. Once, Madam Yin gave her a piece of the fragrant tea tea snack, which is why she recognized the taste.
"I'm glad you like it, Madam." The man smiled but did not answer.
"I certainly like it..."
These kinds of lozenges were very familiar to the girls in brothels, and she used to use them often too. She would use them when kissing someone to leave a pleasant fragrance on their lips and teeth.
She didn't understand what Eun meant by giving her this.
In comparison, she felt that the dodder's reaction was normal.
After all, no one can accept that someone they've been intimate with will abandon them and devote themselves to someone else.
And what about Eun? Did he just naturally push her into another man's arms and bless her?
He's not sad at all? Not jealous at all?
Is it because the feelings aren't deep enough...?
She didn't want to think about it anymore and chose to ask him directly: "But, what do you mean by giving me this?"
The man countered with a question: "Do you love him?"
"...Probably."
She still chose to lie to Eun.
"That is enough."
The man smiled as he looked up at the rolling clouds on the horizon.
In the following days, Leng Cuizhu and Si Qing met secretly outside, and she rarely returned home during the day.
Yin Yuan, on the other hand, stayed in the medical clinic.
She heard from Madam Yin that Yin Yuan's new illness had not yet healed, and his old illness had relapsed. Under the double torment, his body was extremely weak, and he lay in bed all day in a daze, rarely speaking.
"I won't be with you tomorrow," she said after a moment's thought.
The man sitting in the main seat of the carriage, teasing the pigeons, looked up and asked her, "Why? Are you feeling unwell because you've been in too much wind today?"
He released the pigeons out the window, sat down beside her, and stared at the half-finished tea in her hand: "Sister, where do you feel unwell?"
"No..." She gripped the teacup and gently shook her head.
She planned to visit Yin Yuan at the clinic tomorrow. After all, she and Yin Yuan had been in love. What if he died of grief, and Madam Yin really sold her to some remote mountain village to be someone else's concubine? She had never received her indenture, so she was always at risk of being sold.
Si Qing hesitated for a moment and said, "Alright, if you don't want to accompany me, then don't. But at least let me take you to your doorstep, okay?"
She replied, her mind preoccupied, "Hmm."
The carriage stopped in front of her house. Si Qing led her down from the carriage, and the two of them noticed the boy squatting at the door at the same time.
Leng Zhen squatted on the ground pulling weeds, then looked up in embarrassment: "Mother, Master..."
He was still wearing the same clothes he had worn a few days ago, the cuffs were a little dirty, and his hair was a mess, with a few straws mixed in.
It seems that Leng Zhen was released from prison by the government when her time was up.
"What are you doing squatting at your front door?" she asked. "Didn't you bring your keys?"
“I brought it,” Leng Zhen sighed, “but it was stolen.”
"House keys aren't made of gold, why would you steal them?"
Leng Cuizhu took out the key from her pocket, turned to Si Qing and said, "My lord, I'll take him back first. It's almost lunchtime, you should go back too."
“Yes, it’s time for lunch,” Si Qing nodded her chin. “Why don’t we eat at my place? That way you won’t have to cook.”
"Xiao Zhen, would you like to eat at Master's place? He can make whatever you want to eat."
Leng Zhen opened her lips as if to answer, but suddenly closed them. After thinking for a long time, she nodded in agreement.
"Mom, shall we go to Master's place to eat? I'm so hungry. I haven't eaten for days, and I just want something ready-made."
She really wanted to yell at Leng Zhen: "...Fine."
Si Qing's residence was filled with servants. The three of them had been sitting in the pavilion for a short while when the maids and servants began to serve the dishes one after another.
Leng Zhen seemed to have ordered every delicacy she knew, such as shark fin soup, sea cucumber soup, abalone and chicken soup... With each dish served, Leng Cuizhu's face would fall a little more.
How embarrassing.
"Can I eat now?" Leng Zhen picked up her jade chopsticks, took a piece of fish and brought it to her mouth. "I'm so hungry."
Si Qing: "Of course."
"Sister, you should eat too. These dishes won't taste good when they get cold."
She forced a smile and said, "Okay."
She lowered her head and took a sip of soup, then remembered: "Is the whereabouts of Princess Anning still unknown?"
“Hmm,” Si Qing replied, “After so many months, I still haven’t found her. I guess it’s hopeless. A few days ago, the Prince sent someone to ask me if there was still no trace of the County Princess after half a year. My engagement with her can be dissolved.”
"As you know, whether or not the contract is terminated after six months is irrelevant to me, and I have never felt that the engagement was a constraint."
“That’s true…” she stirred the jade spoon in the bowl.
Yes, Si Qing won't live more than six months, so whether the engagement is dissolved or not makes no difference. A man like him should enjoy life while he can.
While eating meat, Leng Zhen kept staring at the two people opposite her, her eyes darting around.
After he finished eating, he asked, "Can I take this home? I want to take it back to feed Nuomi. Nuomi hasn't eaten for several days."
Leng Cuizhu: "..."
"Please go ahead." Si Qing smiled. "Or, how about I have them bring over a few bowls and plates to help you pack it up? Anyway, we live close by, so there's no need to worry about too much or too far to carry. We can just send it all home to you later."
Leng Zhen smiled, but there was no joy in her eyes. Instead, her eyelids drooped, and she looked fearful and dejected: "Thank you, Master."
After finishing her meal, Leng Zhen took a large amount of food and went home. She stayed at the mansion, chatted with Si Qing for a few minutes, and then went into her room.
The room was decorated exactly like the one he had been in before, with a whole wall of mirrors, carpets covering the floor, and exotic treasures scattered throughout the room.
The only difference is that the tiger that used to lie on the carpet is no longer there.
"Didn't Little Crispy Dates come?"
“No,” he replied, “Little Bamboo Leaf didn’t come either. The city is too polluted and unsuitable for them to live in. It wouldn’t be good if they ran out and scared passersby. Besides, if I really brought them both, Lord Yin would take me away.”
"Let's sit down and talk."
She sat down on the edge of the bed with the man, and then the man showed her the gold ingot in the quilt, saying it was newly made.
So she took off her shoes and socks and went to bed with him.
The surface of the small circle was carved with cloud patterns, and fragrance wafted out from the small hole at the top.
She shared a blanket with the man, inhaling the scent of gold incense, her head feeling dizzy, as if floating in the clouds.
"What kind of incense is burning in here?" She leaned on the man's shoulder, her cheeks flushed, her hair disheveled from the touch.
"It's not a famous fragrance; it's mostly dried flowers, gardenias, orange blossoms, hydrangeas, and dried cotton."
"Add angelica, agastache, and half a piece of white angelica."
After the man finished speaking, she was already feeling sleepy. She curled up under the covers and closed her eyes in a daze.
"So many... Is there any more?"
"There are indeed other ingredients."
The man pulled her into his arms and began to explain: “Lotus leaves and perilla leaves are tied together, boiled in water until thick, and then some Chinese medicine is added to remove impurities and turbidity. The dregs from the decoction are dried, ground into powder, and added to incense.”
"Um……"
She fell into a deep sleep in the man's arms, her face resting against his chest, the tip of her nose slightly red from the embroidery on his collar.
“Of course,” Si Qing gently brushed a strand of hair from her temple, “this incense contains a lot of sleeping potion.”
"Sister, after so many times, why do you still trust me again and again?"
You see, he could make up countless lies just to see her, explain himself again and again, and set countless baits for her until she willingly took the bait.
The idea is that those who are willing will take the bait. The entire lake is filled with bait, densely packed with fish, forcing them to try one of the baits. This is also a case of those who are willing will take the bait.
Si Qing often thought that it would be great if he were a snake, so that he could wrap her up as tightly as possible and have intercourse with her.
Soft and tender, cold scales crawled over her skin inch by inch, his body licking her entire body, leaving no crevice untouched.
So he gripped the skin of her wrist and inserted the silver needle, soaked in snake venom, deep into her body.
He then licked the remaining blood off his wrist.
The blood contained a trace of snake venom, which he swallowed entirely.
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