“Grandma, let me eat first. I’ll tidy everything up myself afterward.”
Gu Zhou’s voice came from the kitchen.
“Just focus on cooking. I can still handle this little bit of work. I still have to help you two raise children in the future.”
The old woman hummed a little tune as she happily busied herself.
Ji Yun…
Grandma really was thinking far ahead.
Sure enough, the ultimate end of the world was being pressured to get married.
She had only just entered the family, and Grandma was already imagining what her future grandchildren would look like.
Ji Yun hurried over to help. The old woman became even more pleased.
What a good granddaughter-in-law. She knows how to help without being told.
But how could such a good girl have ended up being forcibly matched by the official matchmaker?
“Yunyun, how many people are there in your family?”
Ji Yun remained silent.
It wasn’t because of her throat. She genuinely didn’t know.
Her memories were extremely hazy.
The old woman slapped her forehead and muttered to herself, “Look at Grandma’s memory. I actually forgot that you can’t speak these days. Ah, the older a person gets, the worse their memory becomes. Don’t think I’m being too nagging.”
Ji Yun silently helped hand her the wooden planks.
The old woman fitted several planks together and used stones to support the lower sections.
Then she spread a straw mat over them.
Just like that, a double bed was made.
“Yunyun, the conditions at home aren’t very good. I’m sorry to make you suffer.”
The old woman smiled apologetically.
Ji Yun waved her hand, indicating that she didn’t mind.
“You’ve been walking all morning. You must be tired. Rest for a while. I’ll go see if the food is ready.”
The old woman once again walked away on her little feet.
After she left, Ji Yun leaned against the wall and tried to activate the supernatural ability inside her body.
She didn’t know whether her ability had followed her here.
But after trying for a long time, there was no response at all.
“Could it be that my ability didn’t come with me?”
Ji Yun fiddled with her fingers as she thought.
“No, that can’t be right. I came here while being struck by lightning. If my ability hadn’t protected me, I would have been fried inside and out. How could I possibly still be alive?
“So my ability must still be here. It’s just temporarily hidden.”
In the kitchen, Grandma glanced toward the bedroom and asked quietly,
“Gu Zhou, is your wife really all right?”
“Grandma, actually…”
Gu Zhou wondered how he should explain things without shocking the elderly woman too much.
“So she really is mute?”
“No. She isn’t mute. She really isn’t.”
The physician had already confirmed it, so naturally Gu Zhou believed him.
“As long as she can speak, that’s fine.”
The old woman patted her chest in relief.
“If she couldn’t speak, I’d probably suffocate from frustration someday.”
“…”
“Oh, right. Once the food is ready, boil some medicinal herbs for her to soothe her throat.”
“Grandma, actually…”
She wasn’t mute.
She was just a little foolish.
“All right, I’m going to the vegetable garden to pick some greens. The weather is getting hotter and hotter. Even the vegetables are about to stop growing.”
The old woman hurried off to the vegetable garden.
Gu Zhou was completely helpless.
Why was his grandmother becoming more and more impatient?
After repeatedly trying to gather her power, Ji Yun finally managed to condense a faint blue light at her fingertips.
It was extremely weak, as though it would go out with the slightest breeze.
Ji Yun was overjoyed.
Her supernatural ability was still there!
Although it was weak, as long as she still had it, there was hope.
Just then, a spider descended from the roof beam.
Ji Yun opened her palm and caught it.
She needed its static electricity to increase her power.
“Little spider, help me. I need some static electricity.”
The spider desperately tried to escape, but how could it possibly get away?
Ji Yun grabbed it tightly.
“Little spider, I won’t hurt you…”
From the doorway, however, it looked as though Ji Yun had grabbed the spider and was about to put it into her mouth.
“Yunyun, you can’t eat that! It’s poisonous!”
With a loud bang, Grandma pushed the door open.
Ji Yun’s hand trembled, and the spider fell to the floor before quickly disappearing from sight.
“Gu Zhou, is the food ready? Hurry up. Your wife is so hungry that she’s eating spiders.”
Ji Yun…
She hadn’t eaten the spider!
She had only been trying to negotiate with it.
Gu Zhou…
Finally, Grandma had discovered it.
She had discovered that something was wrong with his wife.
Only then did Grandma belatedly realize that this might be the reason her granddaughter-in-law had ended up being forcibly matched by the official matchmaker.
Sigh.
What could they do about her strange eating habits?
She could eat spiders today, but tomorrow she might eat something else.
What if one day she became so hungry that she couldn’t find anything else to eat?
Wouldn’t she end up eating her grandson?
The more Grandma thought about it, the more frightened she became.
She threw down the vegetables and rushed into the house, sternly warning Ji Yun,
“Yunyun, there are many things you must not eat carelessly. You could get poisoned.”
Ji Yun hurriedly waved her hands, indicating that she hadn’t eaten anything strange.
Grandma took out her handkerchief and wiped Ji Yun’s hands clean.
“If I catch you eating random things again, I won’t let you off.”
The old woman put on a stern face and threatened her.
At the same time, her heart was filled with sorrow.
My poor grandson… What kind of wife did he end up marrying?
In the kitchen, Gu Zhou had already finished cooking and brought the food to the table.
“Grandma, dinner is ready.”
“Come on, let’s eat.”
Without giving Ji Yun a chance to refuse, the old woman took her hand and brought her into the main room.
At the center of the worn wooden table was a large bowl of wild-vegetable porridge.
It was dark and hardly looked appetizing.
Grandma took a spoon and scooped up a thick bowl of wild-vegetable porridge, placing it in front of Ji Yun.
“Eat. From now on, even if you’re hungry, you’re not allowed to eat anything else.”
Ji Yun…
How was she supposed to explain that she didn’t actually like eating spiders?
“Grandma, you should pay more attention to her in the future. She… has a problem here.”
Gu Zhou pointed at his head, finally deciding to tell the truth.
“What? You’re saying she’s a fool?”
The chopsticks in the old woman’s hand fell to the floor with a clatter.
Her lips trembled, and she looked as though she was about to cry.
“Grandma, actually, there’s nothing wrong with being a fool. As long as she has something to eat, we can keep her fed. Besides, she’s very obedient and won’t run around.”
“Grandma, since we’ve ended up with her, there’s nothing we can do about it.”
“How can your life be so difficult?”
The old woman no longer had any appetite.
Her heart was filled with despair.
Ji Yun also found herself unable to eat much.
“Grandma, the sky isn’t going to fall. We still have to keep living our lives. Eat. After we finish, I still need to go into the mountains.”
“Eat? How can I eat? The sky has fallen! Why did the government have to match you with a fool?”
“Grandma, since this has already happened to us, complaining won’t change anything.”
After a long bout of comforting and persuading, Grandma finally wiped away her tears.
After the meal, Ji Yun tugged on Gu Zhou’s sleeve, wanting to persuade him to take her with him.
There would definitely be animals in the forest.
If she had access to animals, she could absorb some of their electricity and increase her power.
“Stay at home. Don’t run around.”
Gu Zhou sternly warned her.
“All right, stop clinging to Gu Zhou. He has important business to attend to in the mountains. He isn’t going there to play.”
Grandma pulled Ji Yun away.
Then she began showing her around the courtyard.
“This is the kitchen. Do you know how to cook?”
Ji Yun nodded.
“At least you’re not completely foolish. All right, then you’ll make dinner tonight.”
Then Grandma took her to a small hut behind the house.
“This is the latrine. Be careful not to fall in.”
Ji Yun only took one look before quickly turning her eyes away.
It was simply too difficult to describe.
“The vegetable garden is behind it.”
Ji Yun glanced over.
Although the vegetables were somewhat wilted, they were at least still green—much better than the crops down the mountain.
“You think it’s pretty good too, don’t you? I water them every day. Otherwise, how could we have fresh vegetables to eat?”
Grandma shook her head.
“Never mind. Why am I talking to you about this? You’re a fool. You wouldn’t understand anyway.”
After walking around the yard, Ji Yun noticed that there was no water jar.
She gestured toward it, trying to ask about the water.
“What are you trying to say?”
Ji Yun made a drinking motion with her hands.
“You want some water?”
Ji Yun shook her head.
“Sigh. What a poor thing. Not only are you a fool, you’re also mute.”
After gesturing back and forth for quite some time, Grandma finally understood.
“You’re asking how we get our drinking water?”
Ji Yun nodded vigorously.
All that gesturing had exhausted her.
“If you need water, just go to the back mountain and fetch it. But the dry season has arrived, and there isn’t much water left in the back mountain either. If it doesn’t rain soon, even getting enough drinking water will become difficult.”
Ji Yun’s heart sank completely.
She knew it.
Even the mountains had been affected by the drought.
Meanwhile, Gu Zhou carried his bow and entered the forest.
As soon as he entered, he encountered someone he knew.
The buck-toothed young man looked at him smugly, with a woman standing behind him.
“Well, well, isn’t this Gu Zhou? How is it? You married a fool. Has your grandmother been angered to death yet?”