the lady s sickly husband
Only after collecting bowls and chopsticks and entering the kitchen, did Mo Qianxue know what sister Zhao was busy with.
The pig’s hind leg now couldn’t be called a hind leg, but a leg bone.
What a neat cutting!
Even more skillful than a master butcher. No matter how excellent Mo Qianxue’s cutting skill was, she was left with no chance to scrape out one more piece of meat from the bone.
Was it necessary for just some meat?
If sister Zhao had asked, she could give her the whole leg. How much money it was worth? Why to disguise her in this way?
Looking at the abnormally clean bone, Mo Qianxue didn’t get irritated but smiled.
Good. She should be schemed.
She didn’t mind being taken advantage of, but she hated most when others played tricks on her.
Of course, she wouldn’t rush to their home to confront them in person, because they must have made full preparation. That would be asking for insults.
To make a scene? She couldn’t bear the shame.
To hit the ceiling? Unnecessary. She didn’t have to harm her own health because of rats.
However, she wouldn’t just let it go.
There is abundant time ahead! Such a nasty person as Zhao, she would definitely fall into my trap one day!
The autumn wind was rustling against the dark sky.
Collecting herself, Mo Qianxue, after washing, took out a brand-new quilt from her package to make the bed.
“Where did you get it?” Ning Shaoqing’s face changed and, pointing at the new quilt, regarded Mo Qianxue with discontent.
“I bought it today. No one will take your quilt in the future.” Mo didn’t notice his discontent as she made the bed with things on her mind. She tucked the old quilt inward and replied, “Hey, this one is yours and this is mine. From this day, we don’t have to bother each other.”
Finishing her speech, Mo, with an unnatural expression, took off her clothes and slid into her own quilt.
Mo certainly wouldn’t tell him what was on her mind. If they continued to sleep in the same quilt, she was afraid that even if he could remain a gentleman, she wouldn’t be able to constrain herself.
Every morning when she woke up, she found herself cuddling in his arms, which made Mo Qianxue so ashamed from shyness.
This old-schooled man noticed nothing wrong from her, lying on the bed motionlessly like an inanimate log, so it couldn’t be he who took the initiative to hug her. Absolutely, it was she, a shameless old virgin, that voluntarily rolled to him.
Although she felt puzzled, but she had to come to this conclusion: Was she too thirsty to move into his arms in sleep because of having been a virgin for too long?
So embarrassed!
Fortunately, every morning she woke up earlier than him and quickly got out, otherwise if this was found out by the shy and bashful guy, he must fall ill again from fear.
Therefore, when going downtown, her top priority was to buy herself a new quilt.
Mo Qianxue was exhausted from a whole day’s work.
Ning Shaoqing, lying in the quilt, couldn’t fall asleep. For the first time, he wondered why the quilt was so thin, so cold!
*
As early as dawn, sister Fang and sister Guihua came.
Mo Qianxue directed them to clean up a room, next to the kitchen and the main room, that had been deserted for many years. The old broken staff was thrown away and dirty stained stuff washed. This side room could function as a stock room.
It was near noon that Mo let sister Guihua go back, leaving only sister Fang.
Mo described to her the wooden rack and drawer for making tofu. Then she took out one hundred notes and gave them to sister Fang to ask her husband Fang Datang’s help in making these tools.
Most men in this village were good hands in every aspect. Carpentry was easy job for them.
At first, sister Fang refused to take the money, but by Mo Qianxue’s persistent persuading, she finally agreed to take fifty notes.
Her husband now worked at the dock and painstakingly earned merely a dozen or twenty notes at most each day. To make a few wooden pieces only took him two or three days, much easier than working at the dock. And the wood was easy to get from the mountain forest, so she felt guilty to take money.
After arranging all this, it was afternoon. She cooked lunch, served Ning Shaoqing to take a snap, then went to the mountain alone, with a shovel.
Since ancient times, there were three arduous jobs, boat-rowing, iron-forging and tofu-making. Of course, she wasn’t too ignorant to think she could become rich by making tofu, which was a simplest transition for her to gain the first pod of gold.
She was able to make tofu without learning. In the past life, before every new year’s eve, her mother would make tofu to feed guests. She had been the assistant, so after a few times, making tofu was a piece of cake for her.
As the saying went, use brine to make tofu! The most important ingredient was brine, which was the black liquid left after stewing crude salt. It could solidify bean liquid into pudding state.
She remembered that when her mother made tofu, she always had to ask for crude salt everywhere. But in this life, crude salt was accessible everywhere. She didn’t have to ask for it because she had within her own kitchen.
Yet as for the straw mushroom used to make soy sauce, she couldn’t find any across the whole city of Tianxiang. Here, people didn’t dare to eat mushrooms randomly, so there were only a few most ordinary kinds mushrooms on the market.
Without straw mushroom, soy sauce wouldn’t taste refreshing and the color was lighter. Besides, it lacked certain nutrients as well.
Therefore, she must climb the mountain to search for straw mushroom by herself.
*
At this time, it was late autumn, the mountain was all covered by withered leaves, displaying patches of golden color like a beautiful painting.
However, Mo Qianxue had no mood to appreciate the scenery at all. She couldn’t be more alert when walking in the forest, because for many times just now, she almost dropped into the traps set up by hunters.
Many kinds of mushrooms were in her back-basket, but none of them were straw mushrooms.
She raised her head to wipe out the sweat. The sun set.
Since it was late, she planned to go back home along the road she came. By accident, she spotted a patch of straw color at the root of a tree not far from her.
Great! Loads of straw mushrooms…
Mo Qianxue hummed a song and headed for the mushrooms in a good mood. A figure, however, popped up from behind her, rushing at her with open arms.
By instinct, Mo Qianxue smelled a rat. Taking a glimpse by her peripheral vision, she found a black figure rushing over. She reactively stepped aside, and the figure dropped onto the ground with a ‘bang’ like a stupid pig.
At the sight of the lots of straw mushrooms yet to be gathered under the person, Mo Qianxue’s mouth twitched in the corner, feeling pitiful for the smashed mushrooms instead of realizing the danger in the air.
Damn it! Who was this man? How dare he ruin her mushrooms? With the small shovel in her hand, she sprinted over.
The man rose to his feet, not a bit angry. Instead, he, all smiles, walked toward her, “Wow, so glad to see you here, Lady Ning.”
“Li Kaishi? You? What are you doing here?”
Mo Qianxue recognized the person at once. He was the notorious rogue in the villiage.
That day, one the way to visit Zhang Baozhang, the village head, with sister Zhang, they met this rogue, who then had fixed his eyes on her face, making her very uncomfortable.
Sister Zhang also gave full play to her non-stop talking to tell in detail Mo everything notoriously-disgusting the rogue had done before.
In a word, the guy wasn’t a good person. He was a villain of dirty deeds from cheating, robbing, stealing, to taking liberties with women… Though having done such things, he never made big troubles and had a father who was one of the clan elders, so the villagers could do nothing to him.
“Lady Ning, judging from your loose eyebrows and tight buttocks, I bet your sick husband must be a useless one…” On hearing her question, Li Kaishi didn’t stop his steps toward her and spat out filthy languages along the way.
Mo Qianxue sensed the danger. She slowly retreated two steps, waved the shovel in her hand at Li Kaishi’s head all of a sudden, and turned to run away while carrying her back-basket.
For a man and a woman alone, the isolated wildness was a hotbed of sin.
She couldn’t defeat him, so she only had to run.
Li Kaishi was hit by the shovel right in the face, on which cracked a split of bloody wound.
When he regained mental clarity, Mo Qianxue was a hundred meters away.
He wiped out the blood, seeing clearly the direction in which Mo was escaping, and chased after with an evil smile.
The woman must be so terrified that she should run up instead of down the hill. It seemed that he was blessed today. The thought of enjoying taking the pretty young woman into his arms made him less painful and run faster.
The distance kept narrowing, one hundred meters, eighty, fifty, ten…
Only one meter away…