Zhou Sheng sat at the dining table, holding a large bowl of rice that was so sticky it barely looked like rice, yet too dry to be porridge.
Yesterday, the rice had been too dry, so today he had added more water while steaming it. Who would have thought he would still add too much?
Holding the bowl, he stared somewhat dazedly at the two dishes and one soup on the table, all of which looked, smelled, and tasted delicious.
This was the first time since he was fifteen that a proper meal of two dishes and one soup had appeared on this family’s dining table.
During the day, Zhou Sheng ate breakfast and lunch outside. He only returned home to cook for himself after leaving the county office.
No matter how terrible his cooking tasted, he insisted on lighting the fire and preparing meals at home, so that this cold and deserted household could retain at least a little warmth and the atmosphere of everyday life.
After pausing for a long while, Zhou Sheng finally picked up his chopsticks.
He first tasted the cucumber salad.
It was a simple dish, yet it was wonderfully refreshing.
Not only had it been seasoned with soy sauce and garlic, but vinegar had also been added, making it appetizing.
Even the stir fried meat was tender and rich without being greasy. It tasted even better than the food served at restaurants outside.
Naturally, it was also far better than the meat he had cooked until it became charcoal.
Zhou Sheng picked up the soup and took a sip.
The broth was rich and fragrant.
He took another large sip.
Before fifteen minutes had passed, only spotless bowls and plates remained on the dining table.
After eating his fill, he went to continue repairing the tables and chairs.
The Lu family was also eating dinner.
Lu Jinyou tasted each of the dishes she had prepared that day, and his eyes seemed to light up.
After eating for quite a while, he exclaimed in amazement, “Sister in law, when did your cooking become this good?”
Shen Qingyin calmly replied, “It is not that my cooking suddenly improved.
We simply have never bought such good meat before.”
As she spoke, she placed a piece of meat into his bowl and said calmly, “If you think it tastes good, eat more.”
Lu Jinyou said, “The meat is delicious, and the cucumber salad is delicious too.”
Shen Qingyin smiled faintly.
“Then I will make more new dishes in the future.”
After eating and drinking their fill, Lu Jinyou went to clean up and wash the dishes.
Shen Qingyin pretended to step forward as though she wanted to take the bowls and chopsticks from him.
“You go study. I will clean up.”
As she spoke, she turned her head and gave two muffled coughs.
Lu Jinyou immediately became nervous.
“Sister in law, you have been working day and night. You cannot wear yourself out again.”
“These household chores are easy. Let me do them from now on.”
Shen Qingyin put on a troubled expression.
“But these hands of yours are meant for writing essays. Your sister in law can endure a little hardship and fatigue. As long as you can study properly, that is enough.”
The original owner had always been reluctant to let her younger brother in law do these things.
But Shen Qingyin was not.
Lu Jinyou said, “Sister in law, I will study properly, and I can do these chores too.”
Without giving her a chance to argue, he carried the bowls out of the main room.
Shen Qingyin watched the boy’s determined back and clapped her hands.
She had only been pretending anyway.
When two people lived together, it certainly could not be that only one person earned money and did all the household chores.
But if she suddenly changed the way she behaved, the boy would definitely become suspicious. She could only change things little by little.
During the transition between spring and summer, the evenings were still chilly.
Shen Qingyin was busy in the kitchen and did not feel cold at all.
She kept herself occupied and occasionally heard banging and tapping noises from the neighboring courtyard.
She guessed that Zhou Sheng was probably repairing her tables and chairs.
She yawned, and after finishing her work, she returned to her room to rest.
She did not know when the sounds from next door finally stopped.
She slept soundly through the night.
Before dawn, she and Lu Jinyou were both already awake when someone knocked on the courtyard gate.
The aunt and nephew looked at each other, wondering who would come so early.
Shen Qingyin picked up the kitchen knife and gestured for Lu Jinyou to stay behind her, but he also picked up a stick and followed her.
Standing behind the gate, Shen Qingyin asked cautiously, “Who is it?”
A deep voice came from outside.
“The tables and chairs.”
Oh, it was their good neighbor from next door.
Shen Qingyin opened the gate.
In the dim light, Zhou Sheng’s gaze lowered slightly and landed on the kitchen knife pointing directly at him, its blade glinting coldly.
Shen Qingyin also realized what she was doing. She hurriedly hid the knife behind her and gave an awkward smile.
“Zao, I mean, Official Zhou, why did you come so early to return the tables and chairs? You could have just called out and had Jinyou come over to get them.”
How close.
She had almost called him Brother Chak.
Hearing her strange way of addressing him, Zhou Sheng frowned slightly, though he did not react strongly.
“You can carry them inside yourselves. I will not go in.”
After saying that, he turned and left.
Shen Qingyin and Lu Jinyou carried the tables and chairs inside.
She brought over an oil lamp and carefully examined the repaired furniture.
The legs of the table were still the original ones, but the entire tabletop had been replaced.
Several pieces of wood, which she had no idea where he had obtained, had been joined together to form a new tabletop.
As long as the table could be used, there was no need to ask questions.
Before leaving to set up the stall, Shen Qingyin first gave Lu Jinyou the tuition money she had prepared.
It was better to give it to him at home than outside, where others might take notice of it.
After reaching the stall, Shen Qingyin bought the day’s ingredients.
She cooked noodles for Lu Jinyou and put them into a bamboo container, then placed the stir fried topping into a small bamboo tube.
Lu Jinyou packed his lunch and went to private school.
Shen Qingyin watched the younger brother in law she had only known for a short time leave. Then she turned her gaze toward another direction and looked puzzled.
How strange. Why had her God of Wealth still not arrived today?
Could he have gotten tired of eating noodles so quickly?
If he was tired of them, he could just tell her. She could change the dishes and make something different.
Alas, it was a pity. She would probably never again have a customer who could eat so much and was willing to pay for it.
It was the fourteenth day since Shen Qingyin had transmigrated, and she had gradually adapted to the rhythm of this era.
Only when the night was deep and everyone was silent would memories from deep within her mind surface, making her miss the past.
During the day, she ran her stall and also paid the stall fee.
After paying Lu Jinyou’s remaining tuition and another five hundred wen for the stall fee, she had only a little over two hundred wen left.
The road to becoming wealthy was long and arduous.
Shen Qingyin continued running her stall as usual. After the busiest period had passed, she was just about to take a break when she spotted the neighbor she had not seen for several days.
She was about to raise her hand and call out to him to come eat noodles, but the man did not even spare her a glance.
Shen Qingyin pursed her lips and thought to herself that he really did have an issue with her.
Perhaps she had simply made a bad first impression and caused him to think she was frivolous.
She could not really be blamed either. It was that strange gust of wind that had blown her headscarf into his courtyard.
And his body was simply too beautiful, making her stare in a daze.
What a pity. A perfectly good connection had slipped through her fingers just because she had looked at him a little too much.
Shen Qingyin closed her eyes and lightly patted her eyelids twice.
When she opened them again, she saw Zhou Sheng talking with a middle aged woman outside a teahouse in the middle of the street.
The woman looked somewhat familiar. After thinking for a moment, Shen Qingyin remembered seeing her seven or eight days ago.
She seemed to be Zhou Sheng’s maternal aunt.
Not long afterward, Zhou Sheng and the woman entered the teahouse.
After about half an hour, Zhou Sheng and the woman came out, accompanied by another middle aged woman and a young girl.
The girl had delicate features and was dressed in bright, beautiful clothes.
She stood shyly in front of Zhou Sheng.
Shen Qingyin also remembered what she had overheard that day.
So Official Zhou was here to meet a prospective wife.
She smiled with curved eyes.
It seemed that before long, there would be a wedding in Qingshi Alley.
However, once this bodhisattva like man got married, she would no longer be allowed to entertain any inappropriate fantasies about him.
A moment later, the group went their separate ways.
Zhou Sheng turned his head and happened to see the woman next door staring intently at him.
He frowned slightly and shifted his gaze away before continuing to listen to his maternal aunt’s nagging.
“That girl is pretty, has a good temperament, and comes from a well off family. Stop looking so cold all the time and frightening the girl away.”
“Smile.”
Looking at her nephew’s cold face, she sighed.
“You really were given such a handsome face for nothing.”
Madam Chen had also given up on the idea of making her nephew more gentle.
“In any case, if that girl is satisfied with you, settle things quickly. It would be best if you could have a child next year. Then the house would not be as empty and cold as it is now.”
Zhou Sheng said, “That girl is afraid of me. It will not work.”
Hearing this, Madam Chen immediately snapped, “Is she really afraid of you, or are you making her afraid of you? Or perhaps you simply do not want to start a family?”
Zhou Sheng pressed his lips together without saying anything.
Madam Chen sighed.
“You are always so indifferent to everything. Your maternal aunt worries about you too. You spent ten years in the army, and there were times when we had no news of you. Whenever I thought of your uncle and your mother, I felt guilty that we had not been able to keep you here back then.”
“Now that you are back, no matter what you want to do, you must start a family first and make sure the Zhou family has someone to carry on the family line.”
Zhou Sheng remained silent for several moments before finally speaking.
“Aunt, I will start a family. At the latest, I will marry before I turn thirty. For these next two years, please do not worry about me.”
Shen Qingyin had finished preparing dinner, but Lu Jinyou still had not returned.
She looked up at the evening sky and murmured to herself, “Why is he still not back today?”
Shen Qingyin waited until the food had gone cold and night had fallen, but she could wait no longer.
Worried that something might have happened, she got up and prepared to go look for him.
Just as she was about to leave, the courtyard gate suddenly opened.
Before Shen Qingyin could see clearly, Lu Jinyou quickly rushed past her and headed straight for his own room.
When Shen Qingyin followed him, all she saw was the tightly closed door.
She hurriedly knocked.
“Jinyou, what happened?”
Although she had not seen clearly, she could tell that he looked disheveled.
After a short while, Lu Jinyou’s voice came from inside.
“Sister in law, when school ended today, I accidentally fell. My clothes were torn, and I was not properly dressed, so I could only come back at dusk.”
“Were you badly hurt?”
“I have a few scrapes. It is not serious.”
Shen Qingyin waited outside for a while before Lu Jinyou finally changed into another set of clothes and came out.
She wanted to examine the scrapes on his face, but he avoided her gaze and slightly turned his face away.
Although he tried to hide it, Shen Qingyin still saw that his left cheek was swollen and red.
It did not look like a scrape.
Instead, it looked more like a palm print.
Boys of this age had strong pride. Pressing him for answers would probably only make things worse.
Shen Qingyin pretended not to notice.
“We will boil two eggs later. Roll them over the swelling yourself to reduce it.”
Seeing that his sister in law did not question him, Lu Jinyou secretly breathed a sigh of relief.
“All right.”
“Go wash your hands first and eat.”
Lu Jinyou walked over to wash his hands, but it seemed that his foot was injured as well, because he was limping slightly.
Shen Qingyin watched the way he walked, her brows tightly furrowed.
This did not look like the result of a fall at all.
It looked more like school bullying.
The palm print on his face and the way he had avoided her gaze made it seem even more likely.
But this was ancient times, not the modern world. She could not simply go to the private school and ask the teacher what had happened.
Teachers in ancient times held respected positions. As for how they viewed fighting and brawling, they might very well consider both the person at fault and the innocent party to have brought shame upon the school.
If she handled it badly, she might not only fail to get justice for Lu Jinyou, but could also cause him to leave a bad impression on his teacher.
She first needed to find out exactly what had happened before thinking of a way to resolve it.
Perhaps feeling uncomfortable, Lu Jinyou ate dinner much faster than usual.
He barely picked up a few bites of the dishes before hurriedly finishing the rice in his bowl and saying that he was going back to his room to study.