Liang Qi entered the house. Xiao Yue glanced at Liang Qi as he entered and saw that he wasn't wearing a hat in such cold weather. His hair was covered in frost, as were his eyebrows and eyelashes, and his face was purple from the cold.
He squeezed in front of Xiaoyue, pressed his frozen hands to the warm edge of the kang (heated brick bed), and turned to look at Xiaoyue. The person sitting next to him smiled and bumped into Xiaoyue.
Xiaoyue was so angered by his tactless bump that she jumped to her feet, put on her shoes, and left the house.
Ignoring the warmth of the heated kang, Liang Qi quickly followed Xiaoyue out, keeping pace with her.
Xiaoyue went to Li Lei's room first, closed the door, and leaned against it. Liang Qi pushed the door open and looked down at Xiaoyue with a grin.
Seeing that she couldn't get rid of Liang Qi, Xiaoyue angrily put on her hat and gloves, grabbed the axe and rope hanging on the wall, and went to Xiao Ma Hu Tou to chop firewood with her basket on her back.
No one goes up the mountain now. The snow on the mountain is so thick that in some places it's ankle-deep, and in others it's knee-deep. We walk on, fuming.
Suddenly, they encountered two pheasants foraging in the snow. Xiaoyue threw an axe at them, and the two pheasants flew away.
Xiaoyue trudged through the thick snow to retrieve an axe, and right there, she picked up some dry firewood and began chopping. She chopped as she went, without gathering the firewood, as if venting her anger towards Liang Qi.
Liang Qi followed behind Xiao Yue, picking up the firewood he had chopped and putting it together. After chopping a large bundle of firewood, Xiao Yue was covered in sweat, but her eyelashes were covered in white frost from the steam.
Liang Qi picked up a few pieces of firewood, went to a sheltered spot by a large rock, lit the fire, and gathered the rest around the fire. He then pulled the exhausted Xiaoyue to sit down on the firewood.
In the firelight, he smiled at Xiaoyue again.
Xiaoyue glared at Liang Qi and said irritably, "Bai Hongmei is a beauty."
Upon hearing this, Liang Qi frowned slightly, then casually added another piece of firewood, saying, "What does this have to do with me?"
"She told me that you two are engaged."
"Nonsense, I'm not engaged to her at all," Liang Qi said helplessly. "Bai Hongmei was introduced to me by my father through a matchmaker. It has nothing to do with me."
"Oh," Xiaoyue replied with a single word.
“Bai Hongmei has nothing to do with me, and I don’t want to marry her,” Liang Qi weakly argued.
"Do you know that we in Mu Kingdom have a rule called 'arranged marriage by parents and matchmaker'? It means that if your parents arrange a marriage for you, you must abide by it, or you'll be labeled as unfilial." Xiaoyue added firewood to the fire.
“That Bai Hongmei is quite pretty, she’d be a perfect match for you,” Xiaoyue added, stirring things up again.
Liang Qi looked up at Xiaoyue and asked, "Do you want me to marry Bai Hongmei?"
"What does it matter to me whether you marry her or not?" Xiaoyue turned her head away from Liang Qi.
"In Shiwei, young men and women get married as soon as they have sex and tell the adults. I really can't get used to this in Mu Kingdom."
"Then who sent you here? You could have been the third prince of your Shiwei!" Xiaoyue retorted irritably.
“I know that Bai Hongmei came to your house to look for you that day, and you were very unhappy. When I got home that day, I explained it to my father.”
Xiaoyue rolled her eyes: "You don't need to tell me your business."
"Why don't you understand?" Liang Qi threw a piece of firewood as thick as his arm into the fire and stormed off in anger.
Sparks flew everywhere. Xiaoyue dodged back a little, and by the time she stood still, Liang Qi had already run down the mountain.
Xiaoyue gathered the remaining firewood, doused it with snow to fuel the fire, and carried the firewood back home.
...
Three days later, Xiao Sun's body was found in a mass grave west of Hejia Town. That afternoon, the town's yamen runners dragged Xiao Sun's body to Old Man Ge's courtyard.
Since the constables were from the town, and the village chief was too old and in poor health in winter, someone specially notified Xu Fanyuan, who rushed from Xiaoyue to Old Man Ge's house to receive the constables.
Xiaoyue and Li Lei also came to see what was going on. When they arrived at Old Man Ge's courtyard, it was packed with people, some of whom weren't even from Niukou Village.
As Xu Fanyuan stepped into the courtyard, a constable surnamed Yu pulled him aside and quietly asked, "Has anything unusual happened in your village these past few days?"
Xu Fanyuan looked at the constable surnamed Yu with suspicion, and the constable surnamed Yu complained to Xu Fanyuan in a low voice: "Things in the government office have been very strange lately. A month ago, all the old and young people in the coffin shop died in the coffins that were made."
Two weeks ago, six bodies of varying sizes were found lying in the street; it was also a headless case. Today, a woman was found frozen to death in a mass grave outside the town.
The slightly overweight constable surnamed Yu quietly pointed to the already stiff corpse of Madam Sun.
These days, Ge Daming can't see his father or his mother. Leng Youding carried his mother's body into the yard and, without caring about anything else, lay down on her body and wailed loudly.
Upon hearing the constable's words, Xu Fanyuan was immediately startled. He quickly walked up to Old Madam Ge and asked in a low voice, "Aunt Ge, when did you and Old Man Yan's family begin discussing the engagement?"
Grandma Ge stared blankly at Xu Fanyuan with her cloudy eyes and listless expression, but she couldn't remember anything.
Xiaoyue then stepped out from behind the onlookers and said softly, "It's January 1st in the Gregorian calendar, and the 20th in the lunar calendar."
Xu Fanyuan looked at Xiaoyue and raised an eyebrow, asking, "Are you sure?"
“I’m sure that everyone was paid their wages on the first day,” Xiaoyue said, her hands tucked into her sleeves.
Xu Fanyuan then looked at the constable surnamed Yu and whispered, "He died on the seventeenth of the lunar calendar, how can he be engaged on the twentieth?"
The constable surnamed Yu approached Old Madam Ge and, facing the withered old woman, asked softly, "What did the people who came to arrange the engagement say to you that day?"
Grandma Ge moved her lips slightly, and said hesitantly, "They said they would give my family six boxes as betrothal gifts, and that they would send them back during the wedding procession."
"Is there any left?"
Grandma Ge thought for a moment and said, "Old Man Yan said his eldest son is a high-ranking official in the county government."
The constable surnamed Yu then asked, "What's your name?"
This time, Grandma Ge didn't hesitate and immediately said, "Yan Wen,"
"Yan Wen's master Pu also died a month ago," the constable surnamed Yu said coolly.
"What? What are you saying? Who died? He married my daughter just two days ago!" Old Mrs. Ge, with her thin, bony hands, gripped the yamen runner's clothes tightly and shook him.
Xu Fanyuan stepped forward and helped Old Madam Ge up, saying, "The whole family who owned the coffin shop died a month ago."
Upon hearing the news, Grandma Ge fainted with a sudden cry, but fortunately Xu Fanyuan was there to support her.
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