Chapter 3

Chapter 3

“Mother, why don’t we buy a shop in town with living quarters attached? That way we won’t have to keep running back and forth.”

I made the suggestion to my mother-in-law.

It took more than half an hour to walk from our village to town and back. It was such a waste of time.

My mother-in-law thought it over for a while, then nodded. “That works.”

She was forty-three this year, right at the age where a woman was as fierce as a wolf and as hungry as a tiger. I figured she wanted to be closer to Uncle Ah Niu too.

We spent two hundred taels of silver and bought a shopfront with a small residence in the best part of town.

My mother-in-law was so pained she nearly died.

The courtyard wasn’t as large as the one in the countryside. Once we set aside space for vegetables, there was only enough room to raise three to five chickens.

We gave the ducks and geese to an auntie neighbor back in the village and asked her to help keep an eye on the old house.

My mother-in-law rented out most of the farmland, leaving only a small plot, just enough to feed the two of us.

Every ten days or half a month, we would go back to check on things.

The wonton shop did very well. From morning until night, customers never stopped coming.

My mother-in-law saved up quite a bit of money. Aside from the wages she paid me, she kept every last coin clenched tightly in her own hands.

She said that once she earned back the money we spent on the shop, she would raise my wages again.

I was already very satisfied with my two taels a month.

I didn’t have to pay for household expenses, and my mother-in-law even bought me new clothes and jewelry every season.

She and Uncle Ah Niu were getting along passionately. When Uncle Ah Niu wasn’t busy, he would even come help us chop firewood, carry water, and do odd jobs.

My mother-in-law would cook him a bowl of wontons, and he would be so moved that tears brimmed in his eyes.

In private, my mother-in-law taught me, “You can sleep with men, but you mustn’t waste money on them.”

She was overthinking it.

Shen Jingzhi had been “dead” for a year, and I still hadn’t found a suitable live-in husband. I didn’t even have a lover to warm my bed.

The main problem was that my mother-in-law and I had different tastes.

She liked brawny men, rough and rugged types.

I liked scholars. They had to have a handsome face, outstanding bearing, and a body that couldn’t be too muscular, but couldn’t be weak either.

My mother-in-law said I was too damn picky.

But no matter what Shen Jingzhi’s character was like, his looks really had been exactly my type.

Asking me to lower my standards all of a sudden was truly difficult.

About another half a year passed. One day, while my mother-in-law and I were on the road back to the old house, we picked up a severely injured man.

The instant I saw his face, it was as if I had been struck by lightning.

I had never seen such a good-looking man in my life!

His brows and eyes were even more handsome than Shen Jingzhi’s!

His bearing was even more outstanding than Shen Jingzhi’s!

And there was a cool, noble aloofness about him that Shen Jingzhi had never possessed!

My mother-in-law and I exchanged a glance and saw the exact same thought in each other’s eyes.

A meat pie had fallen from the heavens!

What a perfect father for my child!

We brought the man back to the wonton shop.

His injuries were serious, and he remained unconscious the whole time. We called a doctor for him, and after four days of treatment, he was finally saved.

Of course, it cost us quite a bit of silver.

My mother-in-law inevitably felt the sting again.

I personally looked after the man, changing his dressings, feeding him medicine, and wiping his body clean.

He woke once. His eyes were dark and heavy, carrying a lingering sorrow that would not disperse.

Before he could say anything, he fainted again.

I had read plenty of storybooks. Usually, a man picked up like this would lose his memory.

I would tell him, “I am your wife.”

He wouldn’t doubt me.

After that, we would live a shamelessly happy life together.

Later, he would definitely regain his memory.

But that didn’t matter to me.

All I wanted was a child!