There is always trouble around a widow.
There are a few bachelors in this village. The weeds in their fields are growing wildly, but they don't care about them. They refuse to do any hard farm work and often hang around in front of Tao Yiru's house, afraid that others don't know what they are thinking.
That day, she was planning to pick some vegetables from the fields. As soon as she opened the door, one of the bachelors took the opportunity to squeeze into the yard.
He held a few flowers in his hand and smiled obscenely: "I just knocked on the door, why didn't you open it?"
"I only accept patients in this hospital. What's wrong with you?" Tao Yiru said with a cold face, glancing at the broom leaning against the courtyard wall silently.
The man had no sense of propriety. Seeing the disgust in her eyes, he still lingered and approached her: "Brother, I am indeed sick. I am suffering from missing you every day."
As he said this, he was about to pin the wild hairpin to her temples: "Flowers go with beauties, can you please relieve my longing for you?"
Tao Yiru quickly stepped back and tried to grab the broom near the wall, but before she could swing it, the bachelor hugged her. She immediately screamed, "I'm calling for help!"
"Don't be so ignorant," the bachelor said confidently, "My family is in need of a wife, and your family is in need of a man. I don't mind that you've been married before, and we can get along well."
Tao Yiru bumped her head against his chin and pushed him away fiercely: "Who wants to get along with you?"
The bachelor hissed, rubbed his chin with his hand, and raised his voice: "You are not a virgin anymore, why are you pretending? You must be crazy thinking about men at night, right?"
Tao Yiru picked up the broom and wanted to hit him, but she didn't have enough strength and the scoundrel snatched the broom away.
Shen, who had just finished feeding his baby in the room, heard the noise, quickly fastened his clothes, picked up a door bolt, and rushed out of the room.
When the bachelor saw a man suddenly rushing out of the house, he was stunned. He was a bully who only bullied the weak and feared the strong. If he knew that the "monster" in the rumor was not a sickly person who could not get out of bed, how could he dare to come and bully others?
Although he was terrified, he still had to save face. He pointed at the tip of Tao Yiru's nose and scolded her confidently: "It seems that what others said is right. You really have a man in the house. No wonder you don't want to follow me, you slut!"
Before he could finish his scolding, Shen Que came forward with the thick square door bolt. The bachelor raised the broom in his hand and wanted to fight with him, but the broom was broken by Shen Que as soon as he raised it.
The bachelor's legs went weak and he quickly turned around, but Chen Que chased and beat him again. This time he forgot to save his face and started yelling, making the neighbors prick up their ears to listen.
Although Shen's attack was ruthless, he didn't hurt his vital parts. Tao Yiru could see that he knew his limits, so she didn't say anything to stop him.
Seeing that annoying bachelor being beaten and running away, Tao Yiru laughed and spat out the door: "Serves you right, you bastard!"
Shen drove the man away, but he felt a little melancholy in his heart. The village was quiet, and the villagers were not well-informed. They just thought that the squire was a local emperor, and no one recognized his identity.
But the public security is not as good as that in Kyoto. There are some simple and kind villagers, but there are also many stupid and bad ones. These minor fights are not fatal, but when piled up, they are annoying.
Tao Yiru forgot about picking vegetables, closed the door, tilted her head and said, "Why don't you just live here from now on, and don't even think about leaving. I don't plan to look for someone else anyway. With you here, they can't bully me."
Her husband passed away early, and she had gone to see some men, but after much searching, she couldn't find any that caught her eye. Some of them were obviously there just for her small clinic, intending to be gigolos and be supported by her and her mother-in-law.
Tao Yiru didn't think highly of them, but now that she had met Chen Que, even though he was not a healthy man, after getting along with him, she felt that this mute was much more reliable than the men in the village. He could even write a few words and could recognize the herbs in the medicine cabinet without making mistakes.
She asked half-jokingly, but Shen was still reluctant to agree. She was tactful and interrupted the silence with a hearty smile: "I'm happy today. Let my mother cook a crucian carp for us. The fish soup is good for lactation. Drink more later."
Shen Que blushed immediately. She had never been shy about saying these things, but he was a conservative person and always felt that these words should not be said openly.
Seeing his red face, Tao Yiru found it funny.
Just as he was about to go to the kitchen, he paused and remembered the matter of picking vegetables, so he ordered the mute in a domineering manner: "Go to the field and pick some vegetables. Do you recognize Suzhou green?"
Shen nodded, picked up a basket and left.
The New Year is approaching.
Chen Que and Tao Yiru had been busy in the main room all night last night, collecting the herbs that had been dried in the past few days into cloth bags of different sizes.
Their small country clinic did not need so much medicine, so Tao Yiru dried the surplus and sent it to the town. Because her herbs were of good quality and well dried, several clinics in the town were happy to buy them.
Before dawn that day, Chen carefully put the sleeping kid into the backpack covered with a velvet blanket, and then he and Tao Yiru loaded the dry herbs onto the cart.
Occasionally, a few villagers carrying hoes and going to the fields passed by the cart. They saw that they were driving a donkey cart, with the woman sitting in the front driving the donkey, while the man was at the back carrying a child and watching the goods. This strange combination attracted their eyes to glance at the two of them along the way.
Chen was somewhat at a loss for words because of their glaring gazes, but Tao Yiru in front seemed to be used to it. She tilted her head slightly and said self-deprecatingly, "When my late husband passed away, I drove into town alone, and they looked at me like this all the way."
"People in the countryside, apart from the things on their own small piece of land, only care about watching other people's fun. After all, even the opera troupe doesn't come to our poor and remote place. If we don't watch the fun, there's nothing else to do."
She has been in this village for a long time and is an open-minded person. She doesn't care about the opinions of other people. But Chen is different. He has always been inferior and is afraid that others will look at him for a second. He wishes he could grow a hard shell like a tortoise and shrink himself inside it.
Tao Yiru knew that he would have a hard time getting used to it, so she changed the subject: "Have you named him?"
However, Shen moved closer, asked her to stretch out her hand, and slowly wrote two words on the palm of her hand.
"Think about it?" Tao Yiru paused, then recited it softly, her eyebrows curved, "Think about it, it sounds quite smooth."
Tao Yiru grew up in the town before she got married. Her grandfather taught her to read a little, so she could recognize a few characters.
"Are you still missing the past?" Tao Yiru asked him softly, "You are good at martial arts and can read. You must have lived in a wealthy family in the north. How could you have fallen to this point..."
She paused for a moment before saying, "If you don't want to answer, just shake your head. I'm not forcing you to speak."
There is only a small path here. If the donkey is allowed to walk on its own, it will not get lost. Tao Yiru turned around and stared at him for his reaction.
Shen didn't shake his head, but pointed at himself, and then wrote on her palm: "Servant."
Tao Yiru understood quickly and asked softly, "Are you a servant of a wealthy family in the north?"
I'm afraid he's not just a wealthy family, his master must be a powerful official. It's said that a seventh-rank official who works for the prime minister can teach him martial arts and reading, so that person must be no ordinary person.
But since he was close to a powerful official, how could he have fallen to this point?
Looking at the boy's eyebrows and eyes, he has some exotic style, but Chen has a genuine Han Chinese appearance, with long hair and shiny black eyes. Except for a few faint dimples on his cheeks, the boy has almost no similarities with Chen.
Tao Yiru had been staying in this water town all this time, and didn't even know who had become the emperor, let alone the foreign ministers in the court.
However, even in their south, there were few foreigners serving as officials, so she guessed that the boy's other grandfather must be a servant like Chen Que, but she didn't know if he had been abandoned or something.
But the man who let the mute escape to the south pregnant must not be a good person.
The mute refused to say anything more, and Tao Yiru did not want to ask any more questions. She just comforted him, "Since you have nowhere else to go and are forced to come to the south, just live a peaceful life. This place is deep and wide, even the emperor cannot catch up with you."
Their village was far away, and it was almost noon when the donkey cart arrived at the town. The baby in the basket was hungry and started crying. Tao Yiru had no choice but to borrow a small room from the owner of the clinic and let Chen Que take the baby in to feed.
The shopkeeper sent a little medicine boy to weigh the herbs she brought, and curiously asked: "Is that from yours? How come I have never seen it before?"
Tao Yiru just smiled and said nothing.
"The baby in his arms looks to be only one or two months old. The last time I saw you was in the middle of summer, and you didn't seem to be pregnant?"
Tao Yiru didn't want to waste any more words, so she just said, "What are you thinking about? He is my distant cousin."
The shopkeeper suddenly became more curious: "How can a man like him take care of such a small child? Where is the child's mother?"
"Gone." Tao Yiruyi said concisely.
"She ran away just after the baby was born?" The shopkeeper opened his eyes wide. "The mother is so cruel. How can such a small baby survive without breast milk?"
Tao Yiru stared at the medicine boy who was weighing the herbs, afraid that he might tamper with the scale, so she answered casually: "Why can't he survive? Put aside your pride and borrow some milk from everywhere. If you can't borrow milk, get some rice milk or goat milk. It's not your child, why are you so worried?"
The medicine boy weighed all the herbs she brought. After the calculation was done, he saw Chen coming out of the room holding the baby. The baby stopped crying after eating his fill.
"One string and five cents each," the medicine boy said, "you can check the amount."
Tao Yiru had just watched him calculate, and the medicine boy was honest and did not underestimate her, so she said, "I was wrong. I have done business with your master for several years, and I know he is an honest man and will not underestimate me."
The shopkeeper smiled and sent her out: "In the future, if you have good quality medicinal materials, just send them to me. The price I give you will always be higher than other shops."
After the people left, the shopkeeper came to his senses. When the man carried the baby into the room, he clearly didn't even have a water bag in his hand. How was he going to feed the child?
It's really strange, could it be that he is seeing things?
"Let's go buy some rice and flour over there. My mother loves the rice seeds sold in the Chen family shop, so buy some and bring them back," Tao Yiru said to herself, and then turned her head to ask the mute, "Is there anything you want to buy? We only come here once every one or two months, so you should take a closer look..."
Before she finished her words, she saw that the mute was still standing there in a daze, staring at a figure on the arch bridge in the distance.
"Chen Lang?" she called him.
Chen Que showed a look of disbelief on his face. He stepped back slightly, grabbed her arm, and ran quickly into the alley.
Tao Yiru's hand was so painful from being pulled by him that she chased him in confusion: "What are you doing? Why are you so mad for no reason?"
However, Shen pulled her straight into a small temple and hid her among the pilgrims coming and going. Then, as if he had just recovered from the shock, he wrote on her open palm: He saw me.
"Who?" Tao Yiru opened her eyes.
The mute seemed to find it difficult to speak. After hesitating for a while, he gently wrote on the palm of her hand: Silai, Grandpa.
Continue read on readnovelmtl.com
