Are you emperors? Why don’t you lick your lips and poison yourself to death?
Until Lu Hanbai came home, the atmosphere in the house remained unreconciled.
With a look of slight astonishment, he swept a glance at Jiang Queyun. He truly hadn’t expected this person to be capable of getting into an argument with a child.
“What on earth is going on? Lu Yu, you are a little man, you speak first,” Lu Hanbai said in a slightly lowered voice, carrying an unspoken weight of sternness and sharpness.
“There is nothing going on.”
“Hmph.” Jiang Queyun sneered.
Lu Hanbai shifted his gaze to him instead. “You are getting more and more childish, actually deigning to argue with a seven-year-old child? Then why don’t you tell me what on earth happened.”
Jiang Queyun had been furious for a long time, but retaining a shred of reason at the moment, he crossed his arms and looked at Lu Hanbai with deep suspicion. “If I tell you, will you render a fair and impartial judgment?”
“Naturally.” Lu Hanbai gave a light cough.
He never expected that one day he would end up playing the minor role of a judge in such a dispute.
It was novel and rare, indeed.
Thereupon, Jiang Queyun recounted the ins and outs of the day’s events from beginning to end. Being smarter than Lu Yu, he knew how to seek the arbiter’s validation: “You tell me, what did I do wrong? I was clearly as understanding and considerate as can be!”
Lu Hanbai’s gaze swept past Jiang Queyun’s huffy, puffed-up face and finally landed on Lu Yu.
He wasn’t finding fault with Jiang Queyun’s actions at all.
He simply felt that Jiang Queyun had acted too well, yet this goodness was not heartfelt; it was merely forced upon him out of coercion. That was why he felt displeased.
In short, he was just being sulky.
“Lu Yu, did he tell the whole story?” Lu Hanbai asked.
“The whole thing,” Lu Yu replied with a stiff little face, answering whatever was asked.
Lu Hanbai said, “What is valuable in a person is self-awareness and contentment. Why must you pursue the reasons behind everything? Since you have already enjoyed the outcome, you shouldn’t keep digging for the bottom of it.”
Of course, he understood Lu Yu’s mindset.
Jiang Queyun’s sudden transformation was something even he found a bit hard to handle, let alone a seven-year-old child; naturally, the boy couldn’t help being bewildered and wanting to grow close to him.
Yet Jiang Queyun had spoken with such merciless detachment, acting as though he was only being nice out of sheer necessity. In Lu Yu’s heart, a sense of grievance was naturally bound to arise.
“Are you really educating him? Why does it feel like you are taking covert stabs at me?” Jiang Queyun frowned slightly, as if his kindness toward Lu Yu couldn’t withstand any deep scrutiny.
He harbored no malicious intentions, yet they spoke as though his motives were sinister.
Lu Hanbai pressed his brow. “Stop looking for trouble over nothing.”
Like a firecracker ready to go off at the slightest spark, Jiang Queyun immediately flared up into an argument: “It’s me again? Besides scolding, hitting, and cursing people, can you ever talk properly for once? In my opinion, the two of you father and son are the ones leaving no way out for people. Being good to you brings trouble, and not being good gets your head chopped off. Are you emperors?”
Who wanted to come to this ghost of a place to suffer!
“You, what are you crying for?” Lu Hanbai looked at him in alarm. “I didn’t mean that. You asked me to judge this dispute, but who ever starts arguing with the judge? Am I not even allowed to speak? Fine, I won’t speak anymore, stop crying.”
Lu Hanbai’s usually stern face was filled with utter bewilderment. How did they go from talking normally to him bursting into tears?
In the past, Jiang Queyun had never cried even when scolded; instead, he would just wear a cheeky grin. Who would cry just from being yelled at two times, and he hadn’t even laid a hand on him!
With only two men in the house, one big and one small, both like sealed gourds, watching Jiang Queyun shed tears instantly reduced them to quails who dared not speak, leaving them to only stare at him in silence.
Jiang Queyun wiped away his tears with casual panache, his voice muffled as he declared, “I couldn’t hold it in, but your judgment was wrong. My kindness toward him was genuine. He picked a fight with me, and in this matter, he is in the wrong. He needs to apologize!”
Lu Hanbai was taken aback, then immediately looked at Lu Yu. “Apologize.”
Blinking, Lu Yu obediently said, “I’m sorry. It was wrong of me to throw a tantrum.”
“And you, you have no idea how to judge a dispute at all. You need to apologize to me, too.” Jiang Queyun turned his gaze back to Lu Hanbai.
The eyes that had just shed tears had been washed clean by water, sparkling bright beyond measure, yet circled with a red rim, looking aggrieved and pitiful to the extreme.
That lingering trace of dissatisfaction in Lu Hanbai evaporated once more. Giving a light cough, he said, “Fine, I was in the wrong in this matter. I apologize as well.”
Jiang Queyun was satisfied.
Taking a deep breath, he purged the remaining wisps of displeasure from his body, lifted his chin, and put on a rather triumphant air: “I forgive you both. Let’s eat, I already cooked.”
Jiang Queyun was never one to make a fuss through endless crying and howling, and he knew perfectly well when to quit while he was ahead. Tearful vulnerability was useful for the moment, but if used too often, it lost its value. Seizing the moment while Lu Hanbai still held a shred of guilt toward him, acting a bit docile to reap some benefits was quite enough.
Dinner shouldn’t be too greasy, and with the hot weather, what he made was still a refreshing bowl of noodles.
The three of them finished eating and sat under the eaves to catch the breeze.
Only, the eaves of this thatched cottage were rather short; unlike tile-roofed houses that could feature wide overhanging eaves, the sunlight inevitably beat down on them.
“Once we earn some money, can we rebuild and renovate the house?” Jiang Queyun asked while wiping his sweat.
Perhaps due to growing up in an orphanage since childhood, he had a very strong sense of belonging when it came to a home.
A home couldn’t just be a patch of roof to shelter from wind and rain; it also had to give him a sense of security. Lu Hanbai and the others might not live in this poor, destitute thatched hut for long, but it might well serve as his own refuge moving forward.
If he could renovate it properly while the protagonist gong was still around, he wouldn’t have to spend extra silver in the future.
Lu Hanbai hadn’t expected him to proactively bring this up. After all, right after they had first married, he had considered renovating the house, but Jiang Queyun had always brushed it off with the excuse of wasting silver.
Naturally, the other man had also fished a fair amount of silver out of his hands, presumably using it all to subsidize his maiden family.
Back then, in hopes that Jiang Queyun would take care of Lu Yu, he had simply pretended not to know about those matters. As Jiang Queyun grew increasingly irritating, he stopped leaving him silver altogether, figuring the house must have been turned upside down and searched through by the man from top to bottom.
“How do you want to build it?” Lu Hanbai asked.
“The way it is now definitely won’t do. I think building a brick-and-tile house would be pretty good! Brick houses are sturdy and can last ten or twenty years!” Jiang Queyun said happily, almost able to picture how blissful it would be to have a large brick tile house all to himself.
Since he couldn’t afford a courtyard, building something similar of his own would do!
Lu Hanbai narrowed his eyes slightly. “Don’t you think a brick-and-tile house is a bit too wasteful for us?”
Jiang Queyun frowned, slapped his thigh in disagreement, and said, “How can this be a waste? A house is a family heritage, something people will always live in! Build it better now, and we won’t have to struggle with it later. What if A-yu needs to get married and have children in the future? They’ll need a place to live!”
Who cares whether you lot stay or live here in the future?
At any rate, he was going to live here later, and before he left, he had better get the house built for him first!
Lu Hanbai sneered inwardly. They certainly weren’t going to stay here for very long.
However, if this was Jiang Queyun’s wish, then building him a brick-and-tile courtyard house was no big deal.
“I originally thought that once we earned silver in the future, we could buy a house in the town or the county seat. But if you want to build one, then…”
“Spot on!” Jiang Queyun hastily interrupted him, his eyes shining brightly enough to rival lanterns. “Are you saying we’ll buy a new house with a large courtyard in the future?”
Lu Hanbai nodded.
Jiang Queyun chuckled, giving an imaginary playful flick of his hand in a coquettish gesture: “Look at you, if you had this in mind earlier, you wouldn’t have made me waste breath talking about all this. Then we won’t build one, we’ll buy one. We’ll buy a big mansion.”
Lu Hanbai looked at him expressionlessly. “Speak like a normal person. Don’t make people sick.”
Jiang Queyun choked, the smile freezing slightly on his face. Why don’t you lick your lips and poison yourself to death?
Lu Yu kept shaking his head back and forth, watching Jiang Queyun get shut down, and lowered his head to stifle a couple of laughs.
He never expected that initially just throwing a stone at Jiang Queyun to teach him a lesson would end up knocking his brain straight. If he had known, he should have hit him sooner and made him improve sooner.
“Since you feel unaccustomed to living in a thatched hut, once we save up a couple of months’ wages, we’ll renovate the house, and then later we can just buy a new courtyard in town,” Lu Hanbai said softly.
Privately, this was his form of compensation to Jiang Queyun.
Compensation for abandoning him in the future.
Jiang Queyun naturally had no idea what thoughts were churning in the man’s mind; hearing him speak thusly, the smile on his face grew all the more brilliant. “I’ll leave everything to Husband’s arrangements!”
Lu Hanbai raised an eyebrow with a soft hum, looking quite pleased with this pragmatic attitude of his.
Slap.
Jiang Queyun swatted and killed a large mosquito, wincing as he hurried toward the house. “I’m going back inside. If you aren’t afraid of being bitten, stay out here and help me draw their fire.”
“Mosquitoes only target you. Even if we stripped naked, it would be a waste,” Lu Hanbai replied with unruffled composure. “You’re so sweet and fragrant, at least we’ll be able to get a good night’s sleep.”
Jiang Queyun detested this trait of his the most. The man refused to lose a single verbal sparring match!
The weather was growing hotter and hotter.
After cooking early in the morning, Jiang Queyun would head into the mountains to forage for medicinal herbs, prepare lunch, and then go into the hills to meet Lu Yu, bringing it to him in the afternoon. Along the way, he would dig up more herbs in the forest and wait to walk home with them both at dusk.
For a whole month, he labored industriously from dawn till dusk, growing noticeably tanner and thinner. In the eyes of the villagers, however, he had turned over a new leaf and become a steady, family-oriented person.
At dusk.
After finishing dinner, Jiang Queyun sat under the eaves fanning himself, watching Lu Hanbai scrubbing up in the courtyard, and said, “I want to go to town with you tomorrow.”
Lu Hanbai was shirtless, his honey-toned, solid muscles rippling with tension as he casually wiped away droplets of water. “Your herbs have been piling up for a month. You’re finally willing to sell them?”
Jiang Queyun gave two smug hums. “Naturally. My black thoroughwax has piled up to thirty catties. Selling it all at once will net quite a bit of silver.”
Madder root couldn’t compare to black thoroughwax in price, nor could it match its volume.
At first, he had managed to dig up madder root that month, but the vines spread everywhere like Boston ivy. Not only was it troublesome to clean up, but it was far less abundant than black thoroughwax, so he simply focused exclusively on digging black thoroughwax.
A catty of black thoroughwax fetched the equivalent of several catties of madder root. Naturally, there was no need to hesitate over which was heavier in the balance.
“Then tell Auntie so she can look after A-yu tomorrow,” Lu Hanbai said.
“It will only take up the morning. Why not let him come along?” Jiang Queyun caught Lu Yu’s gaze and instinctively spoke up for him. “It won’t delay anything much.”
Lu Hanbai glanced sideways at Lu Yu, his voice cold as he refused, “Studying is a lifelong endeavor. If one always relies on wishful thinking and assumes half a day doesn’t count as a delay, then we might as well just pack up and come home for good, and not worry about delays at all.”
“Your words sound awful. Don’t talk to me.” Jiang Queyun frowned, a look of disdain flashing across his face as his gaze swept past the man’s face and slid down to linger, somewhat stickily, over his waist and abdomen.
Discontent flickered through Lu Yu, though he didn’t press the issue further.
Lu Hanbai took in all their expressions without intending to offer any comfort, leaving them only with a cold and ruthless back.