Chapter 34: Getting along like an old married couple
"Every time I come down the mountain, I will give Grandma Qi some hunted goods or some copper coins as a reward."
Lu Mingchao poured a glass of warm water, took two sips, and lazily leaned back on the chair, resting his chin on the armrest with his elbow, and asked nonchalantly, "Grandma Qi?"
She knew very little about the people in Changxi Village.
Except for the Feng family who are always causing trouble.
The dim candlelight flickered, emitting a hazy and faint light, which gently fell on her slightly closed eyes, as if the faint moonlight was lightly shrouded by mist, or like broken silver on the shimmering lake.
Xie Yan just thought it was very touching.
If he had the good fortune to grow up in the capital, he might have been awed by the Ming Dynasty.
Xie Yan smiled gently and said, "Grandma Qi was here before I came."
"Why does she also live at the foot of the mountain?" Lu Mingchao was a little confused.
Her father said that apart from Xie Yan, no one in Changxi Village was willing to build a house at the foot of the mountain.
Firstly, it is desolate and remote, and secondly, it is unsafe, and one has to be on guard against wild animals coming down the mountain all the time.
Xie Yan added some warm water to the cup in front of Lu Mingchao, and then slowly said, "I heard that Grandma Qi and the third son of Qi were born and raised in Changxi Village. They depended on each other for survival. Their only son died at the hands of bandits, and their daughter-in-law left behind a babbling daughter who was taken back to her parents' home and remarried."
"Since then, the old couple has raised their granddaughter."
"After the third son of the Qi family passed away, his brothers and uncles forcibly occupied the old house, which provided shelter from the wind and rain, and drove out Grandma Qi and her half-grown granddaughter."
"Grandma Qi is old and has nowhere to go."
"It just so happened that there was an abandoned, shabby house not far from the foot of the mountain, so Grandma Qi moved in."
"Mingchao, I have been living in Changxi Village for less than three years."
"Because of past experiences, I didn't want to deal with people, so I used money to buy a piece of land at the foot of the mountain from the village chief and built a yard."
"Grandma Qi is lonely and I have to go into the mountains every now and then. After we got to know each other better, I would ask her to take care of me."
Xie Yan whispered softly, which was obviously the most common household chores, but in the winter night with howling cold wind, the low and pleasant voice made people feel at ease.
Lu Mingchao nodded and said, "Then we should prepare something to express our gratitude."
"Where is Grandma Qi's granddaughter?"
In Xie Yan's words, it seems to be deliberately weakened.
Lu Mingchao raised his eyes slightly, with a faint smile on the corner of his mouth, and his expression seemed gentle and calm.
Her questions seemed like just a casual chat, or like the listeners in a teahouse quietly waiting for the storyteller to continue, everything was implied.
Xie Yan lowered his eyelashes and said, "I signed a contract to be a slave in the home of a wealthy businessman in Changhe County."
"There must be something wrong if he is hesitant." Lu Mingchao glanced at Xie Yan calmly and hit the nail on the head.
She is not good at deceiving herself, she would rather face the opponent's move.
"Are you secretly in love with her?"
Lu Mingchao's eyes were suspicious, and a layer of frost was quietly covering the depths of his eyes.
Xie Yanteng stood up and said, "No."
"Then what are you hiding?" Lu Mingchao asked back.
Xie Yan thought without hesitation, "Grandma Qi once joked about marrying her granddaughter to me, so that Huai Qian and the others could be stepmothers."
“But I refused at the time.”
"After that, I seldom went to Grandma Qi's house."
"However, Grandma Qi is not in good health, and she wants to find a home and support for her granddaughter before she dies, so she started thinking about it again."
Lu Mingchao smiled and said, "Grandma Qi must hate me very much."
Xie Yanzheng's rigorous correction "did not work."
“I never succeeded.”
Xie Yan's heart was in suspense, and he did not miss the frost in Ming Chao's eyes.
The Ming Dynasty was like the pine, cypress and green bamboo standing proudly in the wind and snow, calm and confident, bright and warm. But precisely because of this, it was particularly sober in its bones.
If there is negativity, there will not be even the slightest possibility of it coming back to life.
Lu Mingchao has the ability to walk independently in the world and weather all the ups and downs.
"Sit down and talk. You've blocked the candlelight."
"I heard a little about your market on the way back to Changxi Village."
“So, it’s not surprising.”
"But it's still the same words we said when we first met,"
"Since you are mine, you can't mess with other people anymore."
"Xie Yan."
Lu Mingchao smiled gently, his eyes sparkling, but he also exuded a seriousness that could not be ignored.
Xie Yan: "I will never let you down in this life."
The gorgeous smile spread rapidly across her lips like ripples, her brows relaxed, her beauty could not be described with three thousand strokes of the pen.
Lu Mingchao cleared his throat. He couldn't stand the beauty trap. He couldn't stand it at all.
She didn't know what other people's wedding night was like, but she thought it was definitely not like her and Xie Yan's, where an old couple chatted about family matters.
Then he glanced at Xie Jingyi who was sleeping soundly on the bed and sighed silently, unable to tell whether he was feeling more fortunate or regretful.
"Thank you." Lu Mingchao recalled the messy and erotic thoughts in his mind and took the initiative to find a topic, "Can you tell me about Ru'an's past?"
Xie Ru'an seemed to resist her closeness.
That kind of resistance is not disgust, but more like a fear that goes deep into the bones.
The smile on Xie Yan's face turned sad. "Even if you don't ask, I will tell you."
"My second brother and his wife were engaged by their parents when they were young. When they were old enough, they followed the engagement and got married smoothly. However, not long after the marriage, my second brother found out that his wife wanted to elope with someone. He then realized that she already had someone in her heart. The marriage was probably out of helplessness."
"Faced with this, the second brother thought about divorcing his wife."
"But my second sister-in-law was diagnosed with pregnancy, and she swore to never have another heart again and begged my second brother to forgive her once."
"After all, they grew up together as childhood sweethearts, and their parents are old friends, so my second brother softened his heart."
"It was only after the family was destroyed that I found out that since I was born, Ru'an had become a tool for my second sister-in-law to vent her emotions privately and suffered all kinds of abuse."
"Mingchao, Ru'an doesn't dislike you, nor does he not want to call your mother. It's just that in all his childhood memories, the word 'mother' represents a hideous and twisted face, a voice of angry scolding, and a body covered with bruises from repeated injuries."
Lu Mingchao frowned, full of disgust.
There are always some jackals, tigers and leopards in this world who are not worthy of being human parents.
"What about your second sister-in-law?"
"Dead."
"She died on the day when she was happily waiting to be taken into the mansion as a concubine by her lover."
Xie Yan's expression was cold, and murderous intent flashed across his face, like a sudden heavy snowfall that covered all the beautiful scenery, leaving only the bone-chilling cold.
Lu Mingchao was surprised and couldn't believe it. "She actually survived the disaster that wiped out her clan, and almost had the chance to rekindle her lover?"
It is true that good people don't live long, but bad things last for thousands of years.
"She is an insider." Xie Yan said in a deep voice.
Lu Mingchao: ...
It’s not too much to take a nap.】