That evening, Mo Yun indeed had dinner at his sixth uncle's house before returning home. Shi Lan sat in front of the oil lamp mending the clothes that Mo Yun had torn while traveling.
Mo Yun entered the room and saw his fair-skinned and elegant wife sitting upright under the soft light. Her upper body was shrouded in a hazy, dim yellow light. When she raised her head, her eyes were as gentle as water, yet strangely carried a hint of unreal holiness.
"Wife!" Mo Yun exclaimed in surprise, and hurriedly stepped forward, reaching out to grab her.
Shi Lan looked up at him. "What's wrong?"
With gentle words and a familiar tone, Mo Yun blinked, the halo disappeared, and her beautiful appearance remained unchanged.
Seeing his wife sleeping beside him, Mo Yun felt a little more at ease and smiled, "It's alright, I still have some silver here, all of which I've saved up over the years."
As he spoke, he followed the steps he had taken earlier and walked up to Shi Lan, taking out a worn-out purse and handing it to her.
Shi Lan looked at the bulging purse and asked, "Is it all silver?"
Mo Yun smiled and unbuttoned his bag, saying, "Not entirely." As he spoke, he turned the bag upside down and poured out all the contents.
There were pieces of paper and small, white silver ingots.
Shi Lan unfolded several sheets of paper, on which were clearly written words such as fifty taels and one hundred taels, and below were the names of a certain merchant firm recognized by the government.
"This is?"
Mo Yun unfolded the papers one by one, stacked them up, and handed them to Shi Lan. "These total more than five hundred taels. Some of them were rewards I received for my military merits, and some were valuable items that I secretly 'stolen' from the enemy and sold to save up the money."
Shi Lan folded the silver notes neatly and stuffed them back into her purse, saying, "So much money, all for me?"
Mo Yun nodded.
Upon receiving an affirmative reply, Shi Lan happily opened her purse, counted the money again, and then put it away, saying, "That's great, our family will never have to worry about not having enough to eat again."
Hearing Shi Lan say this, Mo Yun felt a pang of sadness and it took her a while to hold back the tears welling up in her eyes.
Shi Lan had already anticipated the effect of saying that, so she lowered her head, carefully put away the gold ingots, and asked, "With this money, will we still sell those cloths from before?"
Mo Yun sat on the edge of the kang (a heated brick bed), watching her put the gold ingots into her purse with a satisfied look on her face, and laughed, "Whatever you want, do whatever you want."
Shi Lan tilted her head and said angrily, "Then I'll sell it. Anyway, it wasn't bought for me."
Mo Yun chuckled and nodded, "Alright, then let's sell."
Shi Lan glanced at him.
Mo Yun lowered his head, looking as if he knew he was wrong and would accept any punishment as he pleased.
Having just taken a large sum of money from someone, how could Shi Lan really punish him? She could only be verbally abusive.
After mending the last two stitches on her clothes, Shi Lan got up and spread out the blankets.
While setting up the shop, he inquired, "Yuxiu is so old, hasn't your family arranged a marriage for you before?"
Mo Yun lowered her head and continued binding her legs, saying, "It's settled, but Brother Zhou went to the army, and she's all alone at home. She doesn't know how to do anything, so she can only live by pawning things. Before long, she pawned everything in the house, and when her fiancé's family saw this, they broke off the engagement. When I went there, her family didn't even have a table left."
"No way, she's a girl, how could she live like this?"
Seeing that Shi Lan didn't believe him, Mo Yun said, "It's true. When I went there, her family didn't even have rice. The slave traders had all gone to her house. If it had been any later, she might not have been there at all."
Shi Lan was speechless for a moment.
It turns out that her extravagance was in her nature, not because she thought Mo Yun was naive and rich and easy to fool.
"Then why did you bring her here? Wouldn't it be better to find her a husband's family there? A familiar place, familiar people, that's much better than this unfamiliar place, right?"
Mo Yun was speechless. Could he say that he was touched by her crying and felt that he would be letting down his friend if he didn't bring her back? Or that he acted impulsively and didn't know what he was thinking at the time, and just took her with him in a daze, only to find her already on the road with him when he came to his senses?
His wife was looking at him with her big, watery eyes, and he just couldn't bring himself to say that he had made a mistake.
Seeing that he remained silent, Shi Lan didn't press him. She snorted and threw the pillow at him, scolding, "You're always causing me trouble."
Mo Yun stole a glance at her, a barely perceptible smile playing on his lips. The feeling of being pampered by his wife filled him with joy. He lay down in bed, and this good mood accompanied him into his dreams.
Shi Lan kept staring quietly at the roof beam above her head. Having learned from last night's events, Shi Lan decided to wait a little longer and make sure he was asleep before making any attempts to probe him.
After silently counting three thousand sheep, Shi Lan summoned the Soul-Destroying Nail, quietly approached Mo Yun, and whispered his name.
Mo Yun's breathing was long and steady, the rhythm just as before.
Shi Lan nodded quietly.
It seems she's really asleep.
Carefully lifting the blanket, she inserted the Soul-Destroying Nail into his clothes and touched it a few times. Mo Yun didn't move. She put it down near his heart, but he still didn't move. Shi Lan frowned and thought for a while. She took her hand out of his clothes and ran to his feet, trying to probe up his trouser leg, but there was still no reaction.
Shi Lan was dumbfounded.
If a full-body search, right up to the flesh, can't evoke any resonance, then what else can she do?
Shi Lan rubbed her chin, carefully recalling what Mingxiao had said back then.
Suddenly, she remembered Mingxiao's unusual reminder, and the clarity under her tongue...
This might be the key.
Shi Lan perked up and quickly got up, climbing back onto Mo Yun's shoulder. Using her hand as her eyes, she touched his cheek to locate his mouth, then carefully placed the nail on his lips.
Please wait a moment...
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