“Little white rabbit, why are you here?”
Yuebao had not slipped into the kitchen. With nothing to do, he was digging holes and scraping dirt outside the courtyard gate when Chu Xingxi spotted him.
Fearing he would frighten the rabbit, Chu Xingxi crouched down at a distance from Yuebao. “The master of this house is a scumbag. Don’t let him catch you, or he’ll roast you and eat you as a rabbit.”
Yuebao was so startled that the dirt fell right off his paws. What did he just hear? Chu Xingxi said that his Immortal Lord was a scumbag!
“Chu Xingxi.” Bai Zhao’s voice came out from the kitchen.
Chu Xingxi hurriedly stood up from the ground and waved his hand to shoo Yuebao away. “Hurry up and leave, don’t stay here.” After chasing the rabbit away, he quickly ran toward the kitchen; as long as Bai Zhao did not step out of the kitchen, he wouldn’t see this little white rabbit.
“What’s wrong?” As Chu Xingxi entered the kitchen, he saw that Bai Zhao’s face was covered in soot.
“Do you know how to make a fire?” Bai Zhao crouched on the ground, tilting his head up to look at Chu Xingxi.
“I do.” Chu Xingxi nodded.
“That’s great.” Bai Zhao pushed himself up against the stove and directly tossed the fire-starting tools into Chu Xingxi’s arms. “I’ll leave the fire-starting to you. I’m going to prepare the white rice and cured meat.”
Without waiting for Chu Xingxi’s reply, Bai Zhao walked on his own to another corner of the kitchen where the white rice and cured meat were stored.
Chu Xingxi lowered his head to look at the fire-starting tools in his hands, momentarily unable to figure out what was going on.
In his previous life, Zhou Ming玉 (Zhou Mingyu) never stepped foot into the kitchen, let alone made a fire to cook. In his memory, all their meals were brought over by Madam Yang from last night.
Chu Xingxi stealthily turned to the side, casting a sidelong glance at Bai Zhao. Bai Zhao had his back to him, his right hand scooping rice out of the rice jar.
A dog cannot change its habit of eating feces; perhaps he just had a sudden surge of whim and wanted to try the experience of cooking.
Chu Xingxi had spent decades at Qingguan Sect. Although he was an inner-disciple, he was bullied by other inner-disciples for a long time due to his illegitimate background and lack of advanced immortal arts. Among those hardships, he had been framed and assigned to serve as a kitchen chores disciple for a few months, so his fire-making skills could truly be described as having reached perfection.
Before a single stick of incense had even burned a third of its way down, Chu Xingxi had successfully started the fire.
Not only that, but Chu Xingxi’s face remained clean and fair, entirely devoid of the disheveled look Bai Zhao had just moments ago.
Everyone has their own strengths, I suppose; even an Immortal Lord has things he is not good at.
With limited ingredients, Bai Zhao could only cook a simple cured meat porridge. When he served a pot of porridge onto the table, Madam Yang, who lived nearby, also brought over lunch.
The living room was too cramped, so they had to move a table outside to eat in the courtyard.
“I could smell the fragrance from far away! Marrying a wife is truly different; you can even cook your own meals now.” Madam Yang had a vegetable basket hooked over her arm, covered with a yellowish cloth to keep it warm.
Subconsciously, she still remembered the old saying that “a gentleman stays away from the kitchen,” and thus assumed this lunch had been prepared by Chu Xingxi.
Madam Yang pushed the door open herself and familiarly sat down by the wooden table. “Wife Zhou, go help me get a pair of chopsticks and a bowl.”
At first, Chu Xingxi did not realize that the title “Wife Zhou” was directed at him. It wasn’t until Madam Yang called out again that he snapped back to reality, softly muttered an acknowledgment, and went to the kitchen to fetch a set of tableware.
Meanwhile, Madam Yang took the food out of her basket. She had stir-fried a plate of vegetables and boiled two eggs.
“This meal has both meat and vegetables, which is quite decent.” Madam Yang looked at the dishes on the wooden table and gave a simple evaluation. As Chu Xingxi walked toward her with the tableware, she looked at his willow-slim waist and said, “Ah-Yu, you really need to fatten your wife up a bit, otherwise, it won’t be easy to bear children later on.”
Hearing this, Chu Xingxi’s grip slipped, and the ceramic bowl fell to the ground, shattering into several pieces with a crisp sound.
Chu Xingxi stared at the ceramic fragments on the floor, standing frozen as if hit by an immobilization spell, unable to move for a long time.
“Oh my, how careless,” Madam Yang exclaimed.
Bai Zhao stood up from his chair and walked toward Chu Xingxi. As he took a step forward, Chu Xingxi stepped back; he seemed terrified of Bai Zhao, his body trembling slightly out of his control.
“Our household only has three bowls, and now one is broken,” Madam Yang muttered in complaint from the side. Chu Xingxi’s body trembled at an even faster frequency.
This abnormal state reminded Bai Zhao of the contents of the pulp fiction book. In the story, after Chu Xingxi broke the bowl, Zhou Mingyu subjected him to seven days of torture. However, those were future plot developments, and none of those events had happened yet—why was Chu Xingxi so terrified?
“It’s just a bowl; I can just eat straight from the pot,” Bai Zhao comforted Chu Xingxi, raising his hand to grab Chu Xingxi’s wrist, intending to lead him back to the wooden table. Never expected Chu Xingxi to react as if he had been electrocuted; he let out a cry of “No!” and bolted toward the inner room, slamming the wooden door shut with a loud bang.
“What is the meaning of this?” A hint of anger colored Madam Yang’s tone. How could a wife so openly disrespect her husband’s dignity? She immediately prepared to rush into the living room to teach Chu Xingxi some proper decorum.
Bai Zhao stopped Madam Yang. “Let’s eat first.” If Madam Yang barged into the living room right now, things would only get worse.
Fortunately, Bai Zhao barely qualified as the head of the household now. Madam Yang heeded his words and sat back down at the wooden table, though she muttered under her breath, “Another day, I must certainly teach her the rules of being a wife.”
Autumn winds blew continuously, causing the tree branches to creak and groan. Dining in such an environment actually possessed a certain unique charm.
By the end of the meal, only the two boiled eggs remained untouched on the wooden table.
Madam Yang pushed the plate containing the boiled eggs toward Bai Zhao’s side. “Why aren’t you eating the eggs? Eggs are very expensive right now, and both of these were boiled specially for you.”
Bai Zhao extended his index finger to press against the edge of the plate. “Two eggs—you and Ah-Xiao having one each is just right.”
“There’s no such logic!” Madam Yang’s voice rose a notch. “You’re still growing, you need to eat more.” With that, she directly peeled one of the boiled eggs and tossed it into Bai Zhao’s bowl. “Listen to me, eat them both!”
Leaving the other unpeeled egg on the wooden table, Madam Yang stated she still had matters to attend to and left first with her vegetable basket.
After Madam Yang departed, Bai Zhao finally had time to clean up the mess. He first collected the fragments from the floor, then scooped a bowl of cured meat porridge, adding a few leftover green vegetables, and left the remaining boiled egg on the table. Once everything was arranged, he walked into the living room.
Upon entering the room, he saw Chu Xingxi curled up in the corner of the bed like a mushroom, wrapped tightly in a paper-thin quilt with his forehead pressed against the wooden wall.
“Time to eat,” Bai Zhao said.
Chu Xingxi was still facing the wall, not even the sound of his breathing audible.
Bai Zhao originally wanted to say some comforting words, but that did not fit Zhou Mingyu’s tyrannical character. Remembering the villainous persona from the script, he imitated it awkwardly, “Do I still need to wait on you just to eat a meal?”
God knows how helpless Bai Zhao felt saying those words; they completely contradicted his true nature.
Chu Xingxi still offered not a single response.
Bai Zhao deliberately put on an infuriated tone. “I’m in a rush to go out right now. When I get back, if it’s still like this…” Bai Zhao paused and let out two cold humphs.
With that, he walked out of the room and slammed the door shut with a heavy bang.
In this way, he should have perfectly played the role of a tyrannical scumbag.
If Chu Xingxi still refused to eat after this, then it was beyond his control. Bai Zhao wasn’t kind-hearted enough to coax him a second time.
However, saying he needed to go out wasn’t just an excuse; he genuinely needed to venture out to find some silver, otherwise, they were going to have a hard time surviving this winter.
An hour after Bai Zhao left, Chu Xingxi finally recovered from his terror. He gripped the paper-thin quilt tightly, as if it were the ultimate shield capable of granting him peace and safety.
In his previous life, after he broke the bowl and cut his hand, Zhou Mingyu seized the opportunity to blame his gambling losses on him. Afterward, Zhou Mingyu tied him up next to the outhouse, providing only a single meal of leftovers daily, beating him whenever he was in a bad mood, and forcing himself upon him at night. He was tortured to the point where life felt worse than death; that entire week had been worse than living like a dog.
Once his emotions settled, Chu Xingxi turned over and pondered what Bai Zhao had said. Compared to last time, Zhou Mingyu had merely threatened him with a single sentence today. This completely defied Zhou Mingyu’s usual nature—breaking a bowl usually warranted far more than just a light beating.
Wait. He suddenly recalled that Zhou Mingyu had gone out. Could it be that Zhou Mingyu was going to gamble again, and when he lost, he would take it out on him?
Chu Xingxi twisted the quilt, wringing wrinkles into it with brute force. The magic arts he had learned at Qingguan Sect were currently unusable, and sleeping powders wouldn’t work either. Once Zhou Mingyu returned from losing his money, he would once again plunge into that living hell.
At this thought, Chu Xingxi decided that running away was the best course of action. He would find a place to hide out, and once Qingguan Sect arrived in the coming spring, he would reappear and invent a reason to sneak back into the sect.
Wise men submit to circumstances. Lacking strength right now, seeking revenge was a matter best left for the future.
Action followed thought. Chu Xingxi quickly shifted off the bed; without eating lunch, he wouldn’t even have the energy to flee. He sprinted out to the living room, picked up the bowl left on the wooden table, and began rapidly shoveling rice into his mouth with a spoon.
Suddenly, he heard movement nearby. Lowering his bowl slightly, he saw the same little white rabbit from earlier in the day playing with a pale-skinned object near the wooden table.
Looking closer, Chu Xingxi realized it was a boiled egg with a slightly cracked shell.
He had rushed out in such a hurry earlier that he completely missed this precious boiled egg.
Madam Yang had brought two boiled eggs, both intended for Zhou Mingyu. Zhou Mingyu wasn’t kind enough to save an egg for him, so this egg could only be one that had been accidentally left behind.
Yuebao pulled back his paws in satisfaction. Surely the Immortal Lord would have to thank him properly this time; it was thanks to his intervention that Chu Xingxi noticed the boiled egg.
Chu Xingxi wolfed down the boiled egg in a flash, then scurried back into the living room to start packing.
With a single bound, Yuebao leapt directly from the wooden table to the floor. If Chu Xingxi had seen that, he probably would have died of fright.
What normal rabbit could jump down effortlessly from such a height?
Yuebao hopped a few times straight into the living room. Since the Immortal Lord and Feinu had gone to town, he bore the responsibility of protecting the Immortal Lord’s wife.
From a distance, Yuebao could only see Chu Xingxi’s back. To get a clearer view, he inched closer, only to find Chu Xingxi working frantically: a square piece of cloth was spread across the bed, and Chu Xingxi kept pacing back and forth, piling all his useful belongings onto the cloth.
Having never seen a mortal pack luggage before, Yuebao tilted his head in curiosity, watching Chu Xingxi bustle about.
What is the Immortal Lord’s wife doing? Putting so many things on a piece of cloth—is he planning to carry them all outside to wash them at once?
Once Chu Xingxi finished wrapping up the bundle, he reached down and scooped up Yuebao with one hand. “You aren’t safe staying here either. Come run away with me.”
Yuebao: “…? Run away? Why would he run away?”
Wait! Those things aren’t being taken out to wash! Immortal Lord, hurry back! Your wife is about to run away!