Chapter 2

Chapter 2

Ji Songzhu smiled faintly and put the drumstick back into my bowl. “You’re thin. You eat it.”

My mother-in-law urged me too. “Go on, eat. There’s more.”

I took a careful bite, and my eyes reddened before I could stop them.

Ever since my younger brother was born, I had never eaten a chicken drumstick again.

After the meal, my mother-in-law asked Father to stay the night, but he was in a hurry to leave. “There are too many things to do at home. I can’t get away.”

My mother-in-law gave him a bundle of boiled eggs. “Take these back for the children.”

Father declined a few times, then accepted them.

I followed him to the gate. He turned back and said, “No need to see me off. From now on, this is your home. Be filial to your mother-in-law and serve your husband well.”

The wind and snow had grown fierce, stinging my eyes. Yet I couldn’t cry. I only nodded. “Mm.”

He had already driven the cart a short distance away when he hurried back again. Taking a few small bits of silver from his waist, he pressed them into my hand. “Take this. Don’t tell your mother.”

In the countryside, when a family married off a daughter, the dowry was usually things like quilts and printed cloth.

The things Mother prepared looked large and plentiful, but as soon as my mother-in-law lifted them, her expression changed.

I knew those thick-looking cotton quilts were all stuffed with reed fluff.

I felt awkward and ashamed.

But I didn’t know what to say, so I could only gather the bowls and chopsticks and take them to the well to wash.

I had just hauled up a bucket of water when my mother-in-law came rushing over.

She snatched the bowls from my hands. “What sort of family makes a new bride do chores?”

She set the bowls down, then saw the mottled chilblains on my hands and let out a long sigh. “Go on, hurry inside and keep Songzhu company.”

My husband was sitting on the heated brick bed reading. He was not writing.

When he saw me come in, his fair ears flushed red, and he shifted aside to make room.

He spent the entire afternoon on that same page.

Soon it was time for supper. My mother-in-law filled a heaping bowl of white rice for me, saying I was too thin and needed to eat more.

She truly treated me well.

After supper, my mother-in-law lit the red candles and pasted two red Double Happiness characters along the edge of the bed.

She patted my hand. “Songzhu has had a hard fate. We didn’t dare make a proper fuss over the wedding either. You’ve been wronged.”

I shook my head. “I haven’t been wronged.”

The red candle had burned more than halfway down, but my husband was still reading the same page from the daytime.

I asked softly, “Husband, aren’t you going to sleep?”

He cleared his throat. “I’m going to sleep now.”

As he spoke, he moved to blow out the candle.

I caught hold of him. “You can’t blow it out. If you do, we won’t be able to grow old together.”

He sat on the edge of the bed. In the wavering candlelight, his expression looked a little dispirited. “I can’t shoulder heavy loads or do manual labor, and I keep failing the examinations despite all my studying. To grow old with me may be a hardship for you.”

Busybody villagers had told me about him long ago.

They said he was extremely clever and had already become a tongsheng scholar in the village at twelve.

Yet in the eight years since, he had failed every xiucai examination.

After each exam, the papers he wrote out from memory were praised by everyone who read them. But when the results were posted, his name was never there.

On top of that, both of his previous brides had died before the wedding night. Everyone in the village said he was the reincarnation of a jinx.

If not for that, with his family circumstances and his looks, someone like me would never have had a chance to marry him.

I gathered my courage and held his hand. “I think you’re very good. Mother-in-law is very good too.”

“Being able to marry you doesn’t wrong me at all. It’s just that I don’t know how to read. I don’t know if Husband despises me for it.”

He lifted his eyes to look at me, and then suddenly smiled, his voice so gentle. “We met before. Have you forgotten?”

“Last summer, there was a sudden downpour. I forgot to bring an umbrella…”

I remembered.

That day, I had taken thirty eggs from home to the market to sell. On my way back, I ran into a rainstorm.

There was nowhere by the road to take shelter. Fortunately, a kind farm woman gave me a large lotus leaf.

I walked with it over my head for a while, then came upon a scholar shielding a tall stack of books, drenched so thoroughly his nose and eyes could hardly be seen.

He looked terribly pitiful.

I had grown up enduring hardship and was not afraid of a little wind and rain, so I stuffed the lotus leaf into his hands and went home through the downpour.

I was very surprised. “So it was you!”

This marriage suddenly seemed to carry a hint of destiny.

With trembling hands, I fumbled for the buttons of his robe. “The bed is already warmed. You can read your book tomorrow!”