Lu Hanbai stood frozen in place.
He was coming along to wash clothes too?
It was not that he was unwilling to go, but previously, all the clothes at home were washed by Jiang Queyun to please him and avoid him. Most importantly, whenever the other person washed clothes, he would never call for him, practically doing everything he could to stay away from him.
At first, he only thought Jiang Queyun had changed his ways, but analyzing it closely now, he realized something strange.
Did he seem to not remember what happened before?
“Don’t misunderstand. I don’t want you to wash them. I just hope you will come with me, or even just stand nearby and watch.” Seeing Lu Hanbai’s suspicious look, Jiang Queyun assumed he was annoyed.
The suffocating terror washed over him once more, and he could only tremble as he asked, holding back his fear.
Lu Hanbai lowered his gaze to look at him. “You would never say anything like this before. You would only dodge me and run away like a rat.”
You are acting strange.
Lu Hanbai kept these words to himself.
For a moment, he still could not figure out why there was such an eerie sense of dissonance about Jiang Queyun.
It was clearly a very calm statement, yet it caused dense beads of sweat to break out across Jiang Queyun’s back.
Although his adaptability was strong, those memories from the original owner felt like something from before the Common Era to him. Even though they had melted into his mind, they were still so distant that he would subconsciously overlook them.
He had not expected that due to his own negligence, Lu Hanbai would notice something was amiss.
“What is my husband saying? Why can’t I understand a single word? Did you misunderstand something?” Jiang Queyun blinked his round, glistening eyes at him, his face filled with innocence.
Na. Ya. Ne.
Using these classic, pretentious filler particles was most effective when trying to brush off an old antique like Lu Hanbai.
Lu Hanbai was clearly disgusted by him, standing frozen in place without making a sound.
“I will go with you. There is no need to be so…” Lu Hanbai left his sentence unfinished.
Hypocritical, Jiang Queyun mentally supplied the two words for him.
However, as long as he could achieve his goal, it was fine.
Lu Hanbai was a man of action, conveniently gathering all the clothes in the room into a wooden basin. Under Jiang Queyun’s murderous glare, he gave Lu Yu a few parting instructions, picked up the basin, and walked toward the river.
Joy spread across Jiang Queyun’s face, and he followed with brisk steps.
Just below the farmland at the entrance of Beihe Village ran a wide river. The river divided two settlements into a northern and a southern section, thus earning them the names South River Village and North River Village.
Further up the hillside was a path leading to the neighboring Shanzao Village. If Lu Yu was going to attend private school later, he would have to take this path.
It really did feel a bit like wading through mountains and rivers.
When they arrived at the riverbank, some of the village women and matrons were already there. At first, seeing Lu Hanbai took them by surprise, though they were used to it. After all, when he and Jiang Queyun first arrived in Beihe Village, Lu Hanbai used to wash the clothes, and only after marrying Jiang Queyun did the task fall to him.
They were still wondering why Lu Hanbai had come today when they spotted Jiang Queyun following right behind him. Every single one of their faces underwent a miraculous transformation, unwilling to spare even a single glance in his direction.
A few matrons standing close by began whispering to each other. Village matrons often had poor hearing, and though they thought they were whispering, everyone could hear them clearly.
Jiang Queyun sighed softly. Was it really a bad idea for Lu Hanbai to tag along?
He rummaged through the original owner’s memories for the women’s names, looked at the two who were gossiping, and smiled. “Aunt Guifen, I heard you mentioning my name. Is there something you need?”
Aunt Guifen’s heart suddenly skipped a beat. Waving her hand while speaking in a raspy voice, she replied, “Nothing, nothing at all. Is your Yu Ge’er feeling better?”
“Much better.” Jiang Queyun gave Lu Hanbai a look, signaling him to bring the wooden basin over to Aunt Guifen, while he found a spot to sit down right beside her.
He looked just like a clinging plaster.
Helpless, Lu Hanbai pulled a few pieces of clothing out and tossed them to Jiang Queyun, then carried the heavy wooden basin further away.
As a man, he naturally loathed listening to village women gossip. Besides, the way Jiang Queyun was acting clearly meant he was up to something, so it was better not to get involved.
Jiang Queyun was not trying to stir up trouble; he simply wanted to chat with these aunties, matrons, and grannies. To change their perception of him, he first had to immerse himself among the masses.
He was quite happy to wash fewer items of clothing. He dipped his hands in the water, applied soap balls, and began scrubbing away, from time to time shamelessly chatting with Aunt Guifen. He answered whatever anyone said, and even when met with cold glares, he did not mind or kick up a fuss.
The surrounding women and matrons were secretly alarmed. For this notorious troublemaker to suddenly become so diligent and amiable, could he be plotting something malicious again?
“Are there really such interesting stories in the village? Tell me a bit more; it will be enough to keep me entertained for days back in the thatched shed.” Jiang Queyun could not help curving his eyes into a smile. The thatched shed naturally referred to the Lu household.
Since they were currently living in a thatched cottage, wasn’t it a thatched shed?
The villagers still held prejudices against him and found him intensely annoying, refusing to continue chatting with him. Yet Jiang Queyun acted as if he noticed nothing, chattering away incessantly.
“I heard that the short-legged fellow in the village. Ow!” Before Jiang Queyun could finish his sentence, he let out a sudden cry of pain and clutched the back of his head. He turned his head sharply to see that Lu Hanbai had finished washing the clothes, standing with the wooden basin in hand and glaring at him coldly.
The feeling of suffocation rushed over him again. Jiang Queyun efficiently rinsed the clothes in the water a few times to get rid of the soap suds, then quietly stood up and left.
God of slaughter! Cold-faced King of Hell! Eternal antique!
“Do not curse me in your mind. As for you, why must you shamelessly cozy up to them and talk?” Lu Hanbai asked, frowning in incomprehension.
He had lived in the village for three years. Though he knew everyone and exchanged pleasantries when meeting them, their relationship remained merely that of nodding acquaintances.
If someone truly came to him for help, he would not refuse, but he would never act like Jiang Queyun, throwing himself forward so brazenly.
The villagers’ disgust toward Jiang Queyun was written plainly on their faces. Even if the women did not say anything, none of their expressions were pleasant, making him look like a total clown.
Utterly ridiculous.
Jiang Queyun was surprised that he would say such a thing. In his view, the village had never alienated him for being an outsider; instead, they treated him with the same warmth as a local, and if anyone needed help, they would seek him out, which, in the village, was a sign of good popularity.
Yet in Lu Hanbai’s eyes, that did not seem to be the case at all.
Did he look like he completely wanted to avoid contact with the villagers?
On second thought, if this followed the plot where Lu Hanbai eventually rose to prominence and left the village, his reluctance to get too close to the villagers made complete sense.
Human relationships always shifted due to gatherings and partings. If separation was a predetermined outcome, not growing too familiar was actually a good thing.
“Human relations in the village are all about reciprocity and etiquette. We have to interact with them eventually, and I don’t want to keep living under their disapproving stares,” Jiang Queyun said softly.
His situation was different from Lu Hanbai’s.
He was just a pure cannon fodder character. As long as he didn’t court death and managed to survive, he would inevitably have to live in Beihe Village for a few more years.
The original owner had committed too many misdeeds, and the villagers only tolerated him out of respect for Lu Hanbai. If he kept acting like that, once Lu Hanbai rose to power and left, he would have no good days left to live.
“To think you are actually considering these things,” Lu Hanbai could not help sneering. “I thought you would just run back to your maiden family the moment you suffered a grievance. Who would have thought you actually have some backbone.”
Mentioning his maiden family, Jiang Queyun could not help recalling what Lu Yu had said. The original owner seemed to frequently drain the household’s money to subsidize his family. But those people in his family, words could barely describe them, and they were completely unreliable anyway.
If those people ever found out that he and Lu Hanbai had divorced, they would probably beat him to death on the spot.
“I am not a three-year-old child. Besides, they are completely unreliable,” Jiang Queyun lowered his gaze and said softly.
He had never experienced the warmth of parents, but family, he did have that once, and plenty of it.
Lu Hanbai glanced at him sideways. “What? The money you stole to please them didn’t work either?”
A great question.
Seizing the opportunity, Jiang Queyun assumed a sorrowful expression. “I was just being stubborn before, unwilling to admit that they didn’t love me. Now I see right through them completely, and I won’t go trying to please them anymore.”
Even Lu Hanbai had not expected him to say such a thing.
The face that should have been bright and charming was slightly lowered, eyes cast downward, hiding the expression within. Yet one could sense his sadness from his tone and the aura surrounding him.
To be able to utter such words meant he had truly seen through them.
Lu Hanbai cast a sidelong glance at him and remarked, “You really are starting to look like a normal person now.”
Jiang Queyun, standing there with lowered eyes and a drooping expression: He’s treating me like a fool again!
Well, that did not matter. As long as Lu Hanbai accepted his explanation, it was fine. The original owner’s so-called family were not normal people at all; they only incited the original owner to engage in petty thefts, and the original owner would do bad things to others just to make his family happy. It was a very complicated family, yet somehow par for the course.
As for the original owner being lazy, the Jiang family simply had nothing to eat or produce. Whenever he worked hard to find food and brought it home, his parents would immediately give it to his younger brother. After this happened too many times, he simply stopped doing anything and went to steal from other people’s fields instead.
Jiang Queyun certainly wouldn’t follow the original owner’s path and steal things to please the Jiang family, that would make him an absolute fool.
The two stopped chatting and walked home side by side.
Looking through the window, Lu Yu saw the two of them returning together and even drying the clothes side by side, leaving him with a bizarre sense of betrayal.
How could Dad get along so harmoniously with this troublemaker!
Thump, thump.
Lu Hanbai, sharp-eyed and quick-witted, heard the knocking sound and walked toward Lu Yu’s small room. The clothesline he had been pressing slipped from his hand and snapped right back upward, nearly hanging Jiang Queyun by the neck.
Jiang Queyun: I really owe you people!
“What is it?” Lu Hanbai asked.
“Dad, why are you hanging out with him? Don’t hang out with him,” Lu Yu said, sounding a bit unhappy.
Lu Hanbai smiled and rubbed his head. “I am naturally closest to you. He washed your clothes too, so cut him some slack.”
In reality, he had washed all the clothes himself, but coaxing a child came first.
Lu Yu was easy to coax, and knowing that if his father was home, the troublemaker must have been the one to wash the clothes, he figured his dad must have just been feeling merciful and tagged along this time.
“Alright then.” Lu Yu let out a mature-sounding sigh.
Having placated him, Lu Hanbai went back outside to help hang the laundry. The sun was very bright, and the summer clothes were thin, so they would dry in no time.
As soon as he stepped out hurriedly, he saw Jiang Queyun hopping around trying to grab the clothesline.
“You look like a flea,” Lu Hanbai muttered, finding it somewhat unglamorous to watch. He stepped forward, raised his hand, and effortlessly pulled the rope down. “Useless.”
Jiang Queyun: Is it me again???
“Indeed, apical dominance suppresses lateral growth. Congratulations on being short on one end and long on the other.”
As he spoke, he couldn’t resist glancing up at Lu Hanbai’s head and down below, his expression dripping with provocation.