Chapter 2

Chapter 2

After the father and daughter left, the matchmaker was in no hurry after all. Instead, she leaned in, curious. “You looked like you were lost in thought just now. Thinking about that rotten bastard from before, were you?”

“At the end of the day, you were husband and wife for years. Feelings are like thread in a sewing basket-the more you try to sort them out, the more tangled they get. It’s only natural if you still can’t quite let go for the moment.”

“So why did you suddenly agree to this?”

The way she said it made my teeth ache.

I answered offhandedly, “I just looked at him and his little girl and thought they were pitiful.”

I had been caught in the rain before, too.

I knew how miserable it felt.

I knew.

After Zheng Huaishu passed the provincial exam, he spent half a month hemming and hawing, unwilling to fulfill his husbandly duties.

In the past, he had needed to focus on his studies and winning an official title, so he had no time for that sort of thing.

Back when we had first married, he had known nothing of restraint.

He looked like a steady, proper scholar, but once it came to that, he went on and on without end.

When my waist and legs went sore, they stayed sore for the entire day.

Then at night, with just a little coaxing from him, I would fail to stand my ground and let him fool around again.

That was why Yu’er came so quickly.

Naturally, I began to wonder whether, now that he was older, he was perhaps… not quite up to the task.

So I specially kept a pig kidney and brought it home to stew into soup, thinking I would nourish him a little.

I simmered it for a full two hours.

By the time it was dark, Zheng Huaishu still had not come home.

He returned carrying two books.

Only when I was nearly asleep did he lie down in bed.

His voice was cool. “Don’t touch those two books.”

Half-asleep, I murmured, “Mm.”

But then I caught a whiff of a sweet, powdery scent on his inner robe.

I couldn’t help leaning closer to his chest and sniffing again.

He shoved me away at once, his brows drawn tight.

“I’m tired.”

He turned onto his side to sleep.

The back of my head hit the wall, and pain made me suck in a sharp breath.

He did not ask a single question.

“Hey, Zheng Huaishu. You’re taking your temper out on me. What did I do to offend you?”

“How long have you kept me living like a monk?”

After a long while, he replied blandly, “The greasy smell of meat on you is too strong.”

…

The sky was still clear when I closed up my stall that day.

I gripped the purse at my waist. It was bulging full.

After shouting my wares for most of the day, my throat had gone hoarse.

I went to the bookshop and used the money I had earned selling pork to buy two ink sticks and a stack of fine paper.

I wanted to coax Zheng Huaishu into a better mood.

Passing by the candy shop, I also asked for a packet of pine nut candy.

Yu’er had been pestering me for sweets for ages.

There was not much money left.

I pinched and scraped before finally allowing myself to buy one small piece of scented soap.

But of course, on the way home, it started to rain.

The rain came down hard, and the wind blew fierce.

I tucked all those little odds and ends into my coat and shielded them with my sleeve.

I was afraid they would get damp-that the paper would be ruined, the candy would melt-and that they would complain again, saying I was an annoying woman who knew only how to sell pork and reeked of greasy meat.