A pair of black boots dusted with a thin layer of snow came to a halt before Cui Xiaoqi.
She looked up, and upon seeing that face clearly, her cheeks flushed with excitement as she unconsciously called out, "Husband."
Pei Ji extended his hand, palm open. Snowflakes fell into his palm and instantly melted away.
Cui Xiaoqi’s legs were so weak at this moment that she could barely stand. Placing her hand in his palm, she felt its warmth envelop her small hand as she was gently pulled up.
"You—you said you’d wait for me at Drunken Immortal Pavilion, I—"
Pei Ji could sense that this time, Cui Xiaoqi wasn’t pretending—she was genuinely frightened to tears.
He had arrived early, but had hidden in the shadows to observe whether the woman would reveal her true colors.
Unexpectedly… she was just a useless, foolish woman!
Was she afraid? Cui Xiaoqi was indeed afraid.
She wasn’t afraid of death, only of being humiliated and defiled.
And at this moment, she was grateful he had appeared.
In the two years since her transmigration, she had never dared to cry, no matter how much she missed home. But today, after enduring such an ordeal, her emotions finally collapsed.
She threw herself into Pei Ji’s embrace and began sobbing, "Wuwu~"
Pei Ji remained motionless, allowing the woman in his arms to weep.
With a flick of his wrist at his side, two figures silently emerged from the darkness, swiftly covering the mouths of the men kneeling on the ground and dragging them away.
Once Cui Xiaoqi had cried her fill, she also inhaled a bellyful of cold air.
Sniffling, she wiped her snot and tears all over Pei Ji’s lapel.
Pei Ji: …
"Th-thank you…" Cui Xiaoqi straightened up, her fingertips still trembling. "For my sake, you’ve stained your hands with a life. I can’t drag you into this. You should run—"
Pei Ji lowered his gaze to look at her nose, reddened from the cold, with fine ice crystals still clinging to her eyelashes.
Was she worried about him?
"As for the remaining two, they’ve done plenty of wicked deeds. I’ll dump them in front of the magistrate’s office and let them taste the bitterness of prison!"
After saying this, she turned to look back, only to find that where the two men had been kneeling moments before, there was nothing but the cold wind whirling snowflakes into eddies.
Even the body on the ground had vanished.
Cui Xiaoqi rubbed her eyes. If not for the bloodstains on the ground, she would have thought it was all a dream. "This—"
"They dragged their companion’s body and fled," Pei Ji said in a flat tone.
"We can’t let them escape," Cui Xiaoqi said, grabbing Pei Ji’s hand as if to chase after them together.
But Pei Ji yanked her back. "Dragging a corpse, they won’t get far. The patrol soldiers will stop them when they see them."
"Alright." Then she let out a surprised "Huh?" as she noticed that the quilt Pei Ji had been draped in was gone, and he had even changed into a set of pitch-black clothes.
His eyes were sharp and piercing, carrying a hint of indifference and a touch of wickedness. Cui Xiaoqi felt as though he could only be admired from afar—getting too close might ensnare one’s soul.
"Where are the clothes you changed out of?" Cui Xiaoqi suddenly asked.
Pei Ji was baffled by the question. "Thrown away!"
"That was my father’s clothes, a keepsake of my mother’s. They can’t be thrown away! Where did you toss them? Take me to find them!"
When Xu Qiaoqiao was alone, she would often take out that garment and look at it over and over. Cui Xiaoqi knew it was a way for her to remember the past.
The clothes had to be found and returned to her mother—they couldn’t be lost!
Pei Ji never expected that the clothes he had casually discarded would need to be retrieved. Suppressing his irritation at Cui Xiaoqi’s incessant chatter, he held back his anger.
In the darkness, Qiufeng and Luoye stood over three cold, lifeless bodies.
Watching their master board the ox cart and leave with that peasant woman,
the two exchanged a glance, their expressions as if they had seen a ghost.
"Do we have a mistress now? And she’s a rural huntress?"
Qiufeng nudged the corpse at his feet with his boot. "Daring to harass our Chief's wife—he died too easily. Shouldn't he have endured all thirty-six tortures in the Imperial Prison one by one?"
Luoye stroked the Xiuchun Blade at his waist, his eyes sinister. "Should we drag him back to the Imperial Prison for posthumous flogging?"
…
The oxcart stopped before a vermilion-lacquered mansion.
Lanterns swayed in the night wind, casting mottled shadows. Strangely, no plaque hung above the gate.
Cui Xiaoqi clung to the cart shaft, craning her neck to look. "We're leaving it here?"
Pei Ji remained silent, which she took as an answer.
She eyed him suspiciously.
"Your family is wealthy? Living in such a grand mansion?" Cui Xiaoqi's face was full of envy.
She had often wondered why she hadn't transmigrated into a wealthy household like this—at least then she wouldn't have to worry about survival.
Having lived a comfortable, modestly prosperous life since childhood, who could have predicted that crossing over would mean suffering? She really felt like cursing the heavens!
"No, the clothes were stolen."
Pei Ji's words were like icicles in the dead of winter, shattering her budding daydream before it could fully form.
"What?!" Cui Xiaoqi nearly tumbled off the cart.
"You… you're actually…" Before she could finish, she saw Pei Ji lightly tap his toes, soaring over the courtyard wall like a bird and disappearing into the compound.
She stared, dumbfounded. Was this the legendary Qinggong?
Who goes home by climbing over the wall instead of using the front door? So it really wasn't his home. Appearances can be deceiving—he was actually a "master thief."
A moment later, Pei Ji leaped back over the high wall.
Cui Xiaoqi jumped off the cart and ran forward. Seeing the garment in his hand, her heart leaped with joy. She reached out, took it, and hugged it to her chest. "Then let's go to your place now to get the household register."
Pei Ji glanced at the grayish sky and strode back toward the oxcart.
The mansion behind him was his private residence. Letting her catch a glimpse of it today was also a test.
The time it takes for an incense stick to burn later, the oxcart came to a halt before the Imperial Prison.
Eerie wails mixed with the scent of blood drifted out. Cui Xiaoqi's dangling feet trembled. Why had they come here?
Pei Ji suddenly seized her wrist, a dark glint flashing in his eyes. "Why did you choose me as your husband?"
His voice was so heavy it could have dented the ground.
His gaze was as sharp as it had been that night he woke up, piercing straight through her as if to hook out her heart.
"You!" Cui Xiaoqi felt a chill run down her spine under his stare. She violently shook off his hand and jumped down from the cart. "Are you paranoid or something? I chose you because you're good-looking!"
"If it weren't for that damned Marriage and Procreation Tax, I'd never marry in my entire life! Are men allowed to pick beauties, but we women can't choose handsome men?"
Cui Xiaoqi bit her lip. He kept interrogating her like a criminal!
Was it wrong to be attracted to his looks?
Fuming, she planted her hands on her hips, her ponytail swaying incessantly with the motion. "Pei Ji! I saved you, and you just saved me. We're even. Once the tax silver matter is settled, we'll divorce! If you don't want to help, I'm leaving right now!"
Pei Ji stared at her flushed face, the corner of his mouth lifting imperceptibly. "Fine."
His feet landed on the snowy ground as he stood up.
He heard her angry muttering from behind: "Fine, my foot! Goodbye!"
The right corner of Pei Ji's lips and the tip of his eyebrow lifted slightly, a hint of a mocking smile.
Silly woman!
Cui Xiaoqi drove the cart, but before going far, she stopped in front of a shop.
Quietly, she felt the three taels and one string of silver coins in her bosom, cursing herself inwardly for being too impulsive.
One shouldn't make things difficult for oneself.
Well, now she had gone in circles and ended up back in the same troublesome situation she started with.
A wise man knows better than to fight when the odds are against him. Should she go back and beg that guy again?
These three taels of silver aren't enough to pay the taxes either—what a headache.
On the long street, pedestrians gradually appeared as the sky brightened, the wind and snow ceased, and the weather cleared.
Cui Xiaoqi, with dark circles under her eyes, vigorously rubbed her cheeks to perk herself up, ready to head home.
"Little girl, you're really early for buying grain! Luckily, this old man came early today. Come on in!"
Cui Xiaoqi followed the voice and saw a spirited old man opening the door while warmly beckoning to her.
The words "Grain Shop" were prominently displayed on the door.
She jumped off the cart and entered the shop—no matter what, she couldn’t let her family go hungry.
Not long after, when Cui Xiaoqi came out again, she was carrying a hundred-pound sack of coarse rice on her shoulder.
In her hands, she held about twenty pounds of coarse rice, which she tossed onto the cart.
Without lingering, she turned back into the grain shop and came out again, this time carrying around twenty pounds each of cornmeal and white rice in both hands, which she also threw onto the cart.
The grain cost a total of eight hundred and fifty wen, and that was after haggling.
She then went to the neighboring shop for oil, salt, soy sauce, and vinegar, where she bought a pound of salt for one hundred and fifty wen.
One string of cash was completely spent.
Cui Xiaoqi drove the ox cart back to the village.
The return journey seemed much shorter. Before she could figure out how to tell Xu Qiaoqiao that the husband she had picked up had run away, the ox cart had already entered the village entrance.
From a distance, she spotted Wu Dafu and Wang Shougen standing in her courtyard.
Her heart sank sharply, and her grip on the reins tightened unconsciously.
What was bound to come had finally arrived.