Chapter 17 Did you eat this much at the Shen family's house?
Tu opened her mouth, but swallowed the words back.
The phrase "unclean body" lingered in his throat, but he didn't dare say it aloud. If he did, the father and son in front of him would probably tear the roof off.
Anyway, this girl hasn't mentioned divorce yet...
Thinking this, Madam Tu glanced at her husband and son's protective expressions and a touch of affection welled up in her heart. She said, "It's rare for Aning to come home. I'll make you some steamed eggs with shrimp paste, and some tofu. I'll fry it until golden brown with the sesame oil your brother got the other day..."
Lu Bohong's eyes lit up upon hearing this, and he grinned, saying, "My little sister loves stewed taro, brother, go to the cellar and get a few taro tubers!"
As he spoke, he rolled up his sleeves and grabbed a bamboo basket by the door: "The taro I harvested a few days ago, each one is as big as a fist, and they're so sweet."
Only Lu Zhaoruo and her father remained in the room.
Lu Zhaoruo asked softly, "Why doesn't Father let my brother go to the capital to take the military examination? This is his long-cherished ambition."
The teacup in Lu's father's hand suddenly trembled, and a few drops of tea splashed onto his coarse cloth clothes.
He lowered his head, his voice low and slow: "The military examination... requires testing archery, horsemanship, and horsemanship..."
"Isn't my brother practicing every day?"
Lu Zhao asked.
Lu's father's knuckles turned slightly white: "Those examiners from the capital... love to make things difficult for poor students. If you go there, you might break an arm or a leg."
Lu Zhaoruo asked in confusion, "How did Father know about these inside stories of the martial arts examinations?"
Mr. Lu's expression suddenly changed, and he slammed his teacup on the table with a clang. He raised his voice: "I said he can't go, and that's final! Does he really think he can pass the exam with his mediocre skills? Besides, the court values civil officials over military ones. With his reckless nature, he'll only embarrass himself if he goes!"
As he spoke, he suddenly hunched over, revealing his advanced age: "Your mother and I are getting old... He needs to stay by our side to take care of us..."
In Lu Zhaoruo's memory, her father rarely got this angry.
Seeing his resolute expression, leaving no room for negotiation, she said no more, only softly, "Father doesn't want my brother to go to the capital to take the martial arts exam, so don't suppress him like this. It must be so painful for him to hear."
They didn't know—
Lu Bohong turned back halfway to get the shovel and was standing outside the door.
He smiled and smiled, then turned around and muttered to himself, "Father is right...."
Lu Zhaoruo lowered her eyes and pondered. After separating from Shen Rongzhi, she would take her brother and set off for the capital. The following spring, the triennial provincial martial arts examination would take place.
Lu Zhaoruo wasn't idle either; she rolled up her sleeves and helped tidy up the house.
After three years of absence, every table and chair in the house remained exactly the same as before her marriage, and even the paperweight on her father's desk was still pressed on the calligraphy she often practiced before she got married.
She found the copper seal.
Back then, in her youthful innocence, she secretly made a rubbing of the seal on the donation box of Jingci Temple using beeswax, and then melted down a copper hairpin to make her own.
She took out the two yellow talismans from her sleeve, dipped the copper seal in cinnabar, and gently pressed it onto the talismans.
The amulet in front of me is exactly the same as the one I got from the temple.
Mr. Lu suddenly walked in and asked, "What is Aning doing?"
Lu Zhaoruo did not hide anything and told the truth.
Mr. Lu then looked out the window to the east and said, "A-Ning is just as intelligent as your mother."
Lu Zhaoruo recalled Tu Shi's shrewish and calculating nature, and couldn't see where her intelligence lay.
As soon as the words left his mouth, Mr. Lu realized he had misspoke and quickly changed the subject: "Back then... when the old man from the Shen family... when Father Shen came to propose marriage with a betrothal goose, he stood outside our door for three hours in the snow during the twelfth lunar month when you were eight years old... his proposal was so sincere, but now..."
His face was full of guilt: "It's all your fault, Father..."
The scars on the back of his hand were from the frostbite he got when he stayed up all night copying books to save up for her dowry.
Lu Zhaoruo said gently, "Father, don't blame yourself. You also hoped for the best for your daughter. It was my own heart that was set on Shen Rongzhi, and it was my own choice to marry into the Shen family."
I was blind and mistook a fish eye for a pearl.
The mistakes learned with a lifetime of experience must be used to sharpen one's judgment of others.
The daytime eclipse is ready.
Lu Zhaoruo helped serve the dishes, and the family knelt around the wooden table.
Besides making steamed eggs with shrimp paste and tofu with sesame oil, the Tu family also made cabbage stewed in bone broth, and their staple food was millet rice.
There was also Lu Bohong's roasted taro, its charred skin cracked with several fine lines, revealing the golden and soft taro flesh inside, the steam mingling with a sweet aroma.
Outside, the wind and snow howled, while inside, the charcoal fire crackled. The family sat around a low table, creating a warm and cozy atmosphere.
Lu Zhaoruo was in a good mood seeing that all her loved ones were there.
Holding the steaming hot millet rice, I unknowingly added half a bowl more.
Madam Tu kept staring at her, wanting to speak several times but holding back. Finally, seeing Lu Zhaoruo eating taro again, she couldn't help but put down her chopsticks: "Did you eat this much when you were in the Shen family?"
No wonder she's not liked by her in-laws; she doesn't even know how to reduce her meals or offer food to others.
Lu Zhaoruo slowly swallowed the taro and said, "According to the Shen family's rules, if a new bride eats half a bowl more than necessary, her aunt and uncle will say that she is not frugal. If she is so hungry that she faints, they will praise her for being chaste and well-mannered. I have kept my mother's teachings in mind and dared not eat more. So when I came back, I was so hungry that I ate more."
Upon hearing this, Lu Bohong grabbed the earthenware basin and poured all the remaining millet rice into Lu Zhaoruo's bowl, then scooped out three full spoonfuls of steamed egg with shrimp paste.
His voice was hoarse and his eyes were red: "Little sister, please eat. If you go hungry at home, won't people laugh at the incompetence of the Lu family's sons?"
"The Shen family has none of those dirty rules."
Lu's father also put a piece of tofu in Lu Zhaoruo's bowl and said, "A-Ning, eat more."
Tu's face turned ashen instantly. She watched helplessly as the golden shrimp paste steamed egg and the overflowing millet rice were all piled into Lu Zhaoruo's bowl. Her heart ached as if a piece of flesh had been ripped out of it.
After finishing the meal.
Lu Zhaoruo helped clear the dishes.
Although Mr. Lu ran a private school, he charged very low fees, and he didn't charge children from poor families a penny. To supplement his family's income, he often wrote legal documents and land deeds for others. Now, with the end of the year approaching, his desk was piled high with red paper from neighbors asking him to write Spring Festival couplets.
Lu Zhaoruo spent the entire afternoon writing at her desk, her red paper covering half the room.
With her wrist suspended in the air, she carefully wrote the character "福" (fortune) and auspicious words, stroke by stroke.
Occasionally, I would look up and rub my aching shoulders, only to see Mr. Lu writing a legal document on the other side, his brows furrowed...
When Lu Zhaoruo was young, she often saw her father working late into the night, the oil lamp illuminating the words of his annotated Analects.
She once innocently asked, "Father, you are more learned than the instructor of the county school, why don't you take the imperial examination to become a scholar?"
Mr. Lu smiled and ruffled her hair: "Silly Aning, studying is for understanding principles, not for fame and fortune."
As evening approached, Madam Tu made no attempt to light a fire. She said to Lu Zhaoruo, "It's getting dark. If we don't go back to the Shen family soon, your aunt and uncle will say that our Lu family has no discipline."
The distance between the Lu family and the Shen family is not far, only about half an hour's journey.
Lu Zhaoruo put down her brush, her knuckles slightly stiff from writing, and said, "I'll go back now."
Lu Bohong insisted on taking her home, as he was worried about leaving her alone.
Before leaving, I still slipped the bag of chestnut flour cakes into her hand.
After saying goodbye in front of the Shen family mansion, Lu Zhaoruo returned to the courtyard, but Dongrou and Abao were nowhere to be seen.
When they searched everywhere without success, Shi Tou, who was beside Shen Qingshu, rushed over and whispered, "Madam, Dongrou and A Bao are... in the back kitchen courtyard. A Bao... is about to be beaten to death."
After saying that, he hurriedly turned and left.
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