The crowing of a rooster woke Xiao Guiwan from her deep sleep.
She opened her eyes, still dazed. She stared blankly at the roof beams for several breaths before remembering that she was no longer in the Xiao Residence.
The bedding beside her had long since gone cold. He had already gotten up at some point.
She rolled over and buried her face in the coarse cloth pillow. A faint scent of soapberry lingered there—the clean, refreshing scent that belonged to Ye Daniu.
Fragments of the previous night slowly resurfaced in her mind.
After the effects of the aphrodisiac had faded, she actually remembered everything clearly—his kisses, his hands, and the hoarse sound of his breathing against her ear in the end.
She buried her face even deeper into the pillow, the tips of her ears turning red.
In her previous life, she had never known that intimacy between husband and wife could be so wonderful.
He might be a countryman, but he was handsome, strong, and exceptionally capable in every way.
Not a bad bargain at all.
Stretching lazily beneath the blanket, Xiao Guiwan still felt sore all over, but her mood had never been better.
She dressed slowly, slipped on her shoes, and wandered out of the inner room.
In the main hall, Mu Hanhe was crouching by the stove, tending the fire.
Water bubbled merrily inside the pot, and beside it sat a bowl of coarse rice porridge already served, topped with a few strips of pickled vegetables.
Hearing her footsteps, he didn’t even look up.
“You’re awake? The porridge’s in the pot. Help yourself.”
Instead of serving herself, Xiao Guiwan walked behind him and squatted down.
She rested her chin lightly on his shoulder and wrapped both arms around his waist from behind.
His body visibly stiffened.
“What are you doing?” he asked in his usual low voice.
“Hugging you.”
Her voice was lazy, thick with sleep.
“You’re my husband.”
The unspoken meaning was obvious—a wife hugging her husband wasn’t exactly a crime.
Mu Hanhe remained silent.
The firelight flickered across his profile, and Xiao Guiwan could clearly see his Adam’s apple bob once.
After a moment, he reached up and gently held the hands wrapped around his waist, giving them a light squeeze before letting go.
“The porridge’s getting cold.”
Xiao Guiwan smiled, rubbed her cheek against his shoulder one last time, then finally got up to serve herself.
She sat down with her bowl while Mu Hanhe carried his own over and sat opposite her.
The two quietly ate breakfast in peaceful silence.
After taking a couple of bites, Xiao Guiwan suddenly stretched out a foot beneath the table and lightly nudged his calf.
Mu Hanhe looked up.
She blinked innocently at him, her almond-shaped eyes sparkling with amusement, then lowered her head and continued eating as though nothing had happened.
He watched her for another moment before lowering his gaze again.
The corners of his lips twitched almost imperceptibly.
While she appeared focused on her porridge, Xiao Guiwan’s thoughts were racing.
She had her pocket dimension, the spirit spring, and the spirit fields. The fields could grow crops, while the spring water could accelerate their growth.
But that alone wasn’t enough.
She needed seeds.
Farm tools.
A stockpile of grain and medicinal herbs.
If disaster struck someday, she didn’t want to be caught completely unprepared.
As for the three thousand taels of dowry the Xiao family had given her…
Those could be openly used as legitimate cover.
The gold and silver she had emptied from the Xiao Residence and Prince Ning’s estate, however, could only be quietly mixed into her dowry little by little.
She just hoped this Ye Daniu wasn’t overly observant.
After breakfast, Xiao Guiwan set down her bowl, walked over to him, and naturally reached up to straighten his collar.
“I want to go into town and buy a few things,” she said. “The house is in terrible shape, and we’re missing all kinds of necessities. I still have some silver from my dowry, so let’s stock up.”
Her dowry?
Mu Hanhe recalled what his shadow guards had reported.
The Xiao family had married Xiao Guiwan off with only three thousand taels in silver, two maidservants, and twenty mu of fertile farmland.
Whether the silver was actually in her possession remained uncertain.
As for the two maidservants and the farmland…
He hadn’t seen any trace of either.
“Suit yourself,” he replied.
He lowered his eyes to look at her.
She stood so close that he could smell the faint soapberry fragrance clinging to her body.
Her cool fingertips brushed lightly across his collar, sending a strange tingling sensation through him.
Smiling, Xiao Guiwan turned to fetch the silver.
Left standing there, Mu Hanhe looked down at his collar and quietly drew in a breath.
This woman…
She was doing it on purpose.
Xiao Guiwan pulled several small pieces of silver from her sleeve.
In truth, she had taken them from her pocket dimension, but she made it look as though she were simply retrieving them from her clothes.
Today she had changed into a new outfit—a rosy pink ru skirt—with a small silver hairpin adorning her hair.
She looked noticeably brighter than before.
Mu Hanhe glanced at her without comment before heading to the village entrance to borrow Village Chief Wang’s donkey cart.
Soon the cart was creaking its way down the road.
Xiao Guiwan sat on the wooden platform while Mu Hanhe drove from the front.
Once they left the village, the road became rough and uneven.
The cart jolted violently.
Bounced from side to side, Xiao Guiwan finally scooted to the front and sat close beside him, wrapping one arm around his waist.
Mu Hanhe looked down at the hand around him.
“I’m afraid I’ll fall off,” she declared matter-of-factly.
He didn’t expose her excuse.
Instead, he simply slowed the donkey’s pace.
Leaning comfortably against his arm, Xiao Guiwan watched fields and rolling hills drift past while the wind carried the fresh scent of grass and earth.
She took a deep breath.
Freedom…
It felt wonderful.
When they reached town, Mu Hanhe parked the donkey cart near the entrance to the main street.
Xiao Guiwan hopped down and immediately began shopping.
The town wasn’t large, with only a single main street lined with stalls.
Vegetable vendors.
Cloth merchants.
General stores.
The sounds of merchants calling out to customers echoed nonstop.
Her first stop was the grain shop.
“Shopkeeper, how much is your rice?”
“Fifteen wen a jin.”
“I’m buying in bulk. Can you give me a better price? I want fifty jin.”
The shopkeeper looked her over before nodding.
“Thirteen wen.”
Without hesitation, Xiao Guiwan bought fifty jin of rice, thirty jin of white flour, and twenty jin of mixed grains.
After paying, she asked the shopkeeper to have everything loaded onto the donkey cart.
Leaning against the cart, Mu Hanhe watched as load after load was carried over.
His brows furrowed slightly.
Fifty jin of rice.
Thirty jin of flour.
Twenty jin of mixed grain.
For just two people, that was enough food for two or even three months.
Was she planning to turn all her money into food?
“We’re not short on grain,” he reminded her.
Brushing the dust from her hands, Xiao Guiwan smiled.
“It’s always good to be prepared. What if heavy snow traps us indoors during winter?”
He looked at her but said nothing more.
Next, she headed for the herbal pharmacy.
“Shopkeeper, I’d like ten pounds each of fresh ginger, brown sugar, mugwort, bupleurum root, and banlangen. Also, five packets each of wound medicine and trauma salve.”
The shopkeeper blinked in surprise.
“Madam… are you opening a pharmacy?”
Xiao Guiwan smiled.
“There are a lot of people in my family.”
Standing outside the entrance, Mu Hanhe listened as she listed off the herbs, a trace of confusion flashing through his eyes.
Ginger and brown sugar made sense.
Bupleurum and banlangen were used to treat colds.
But wound medicine and trauma salve…
Why would an ordinary farming household need such things?
He remembered his previous life.
Xiao Guiwan had been highly skilled in medicine.
Otherwise, she never could have cured Prince Ning’s illness.
These herbs…
They probably weren’t just for storage.
But who was she planning to treat?
After leaving the pharmacy, Xiao Guiwan visited a cloth shop.
She bought several bolts of coarse cloth, bundles of cotton thread, a packet of sewing needles, and, after some thought, a thick quilt.
“We already have blankets,” Mu Hanhe said.
“The old one’s too thin.”
She patted the new quilt.
“It won’t be enough once the weather turns cold.”
Then she glanced at him, leaned closer, and lowered her voice.
“Last night you wrapped all the blankets around me. Weren’t you cold?”
Mu Hanhe turned his face away without answering.
Xiao Guiwan noticed that his ears had turned red.
What a blockhead.
They continued strolling through town.
She bought oil, salt, soy sauce, vinegar, a brand-new kitchen knife, and an iron cooking pot.
Passing a seed shop, she spent quite some time picking through the selection before buying cabbage, radish, leafy greens, onions, garlic, and several other vegetable seeds she’d never planted before.
Mu Hanhe looked at the pile of seeds.
“You know how to farm?”
Dusting off her hands, Xiao Guiwan replied cheerfully,
“Nope. But you definitely do. You can teach me.”
She said it as though it were the most natural thing in the world.
He looked at her once before taking the seeds from her hands and placing them onto the cart.
“Alright.”
Just as Xiao Guiwan was about to continue shopping, a commotion broke out ahead.
Several ruffians had surrounded an elderly tofu vendor, shoving him around while hurling filthy insults.
The leader, a burly man with a brutish face, kicked over the tofu stall.
Snow-white blocks of tofu scattered across the ground.
The old man knelt, desperately begging for mercy.
Instead of stopping, the hooligans laughed even harder.
Frowning, Xiao Guiwan instinctively grabbed Mu Hanhe’s sleeve.
He patted the back of her hand, gently removed it from his sleeve, gave it a brief reassuring squeeze, and let go.
“Wait here.”
Then he strode forward.
Standing beside the donkey cart, Xiao Guiwan watched him approach.
The ruffians spotted him.
The leader cursed and threw a punch.
Mu Hanhe sidestepped effortlessly, seized the man’s wrist, and twisted.
Crack!
The thug screamed as he collapsed to his knees.
The remaining men rushed him all at once.
Three punches.
Two kicks.
Clean.
Efficient.
Within the span of ten breaths, every last one of them was sprawled on the ground.
Mu Hanhe calmly walked back, took the reins from Xiao Guiwan’s hand, and said,
“Let’s go.”
She didn’t move.
Instead, she looked up at him.
That fighting skill…
It was far too fast.
How could an ordinary country farmer possess abilities like that?
She remembered the muscles she’d seen after he removed his clothes the previous night.
Firm.
Well-proportioned.
Not an ounce of unnecessary bulk.
That wasn’t the physique of a farmer.
It belonged to someone who had trained in martial arts for years…
Perhaps even fought on the battlefield.
“What is it?” Mu Hanhe asked, lowering his head.
Without warning, Xiao Guiwan reached out and squeezed his upper arm.
Even through the coarse fabric, the muscles beneath felt as hard as stone.
“Daniu.”
She smiled sweetly.
“With strength like yours, it’s a waste to spend your life farming.”
Without changing expression, Mu Hanhe answered,
“I’m a countryman. Countrymen are strong.”
She chuckled but asked no further questions before climbing back onto the donkey cart.
On the journey home, Xiao Guiwan leaned against his back with both arms wrapped around his waist, her cheek resting comfortably between his shoulder blades.
The donkey cart rocked gently along the road.
She felt like singing, but since she wasn’t much of a singer, she simply hummed a few tuneless melodies.
Listening to the soft humming behind him, Mu Hanhe thought it sounded just like the contented purring of a little cat.