The family walked inside together, where Li had already prepared the meal.
Hearing their steps, she called out from inside, “Hurry over and help carry the bowls so we can eat!”
At the dining table, Li brought up the matter of breaking off the engagement with the Lin family, and neither Father Xu nor his two older brothers raised any objections.
“This engagement should have been broken off a long time ago,” Xu Sen said.
Apart from Li, no one in the Xu family had a favorable impression of Lin Lao-san and his wife. The whole village knew about their unreasonable personalities. However, since the marriage match had already been arranged and acknowledged by the villagers, as long as Li was happy with it, it had not seemed like a major issue. After all, despite their shortcomings, Lin Lao-san and his wife were exceptionally good to their only Ge’er. Since he was their only child, once Lin Qiong married Xu Qiu, they would all be one family.
Knowing how well Lin Lao-san and his wife treated Lin Qiong, it stood to reason that Xu Qiu, as Lin Qiong’s husband, would benefit from that affection as well.
In theory, that made sense. In practice, however, Lin Lao-san and his wife were incompetent, capable only of slacking off and playing tricks. In the future, their son and his husband would have to support them in their old age. No matter how one looked at it, Xu Qiu was coming out on the losing end without gaining any benefits. If there was a chance to choose a different path, it was naturally for the better.
So, as soon as Li spoke up, everyone voiced their support.
The next day, finding a suitable time while Lin Lao-san and his wife snuck home in the middle of their work shift, Li went over to bring up the matter of breaking off the engagement.
Xu Qiu was not idle either; he planned to head up into the mountains to gather some medicinal herbs.
He had studied medicine under the village’s old doctor since childhood. Now that the doctor was getting old and found it difficult to climb the mountains, Xu Qiu had learned enough to take over. For the past two years, he had been going up the mountain to gather herbs accompanied by his older brothers. Having awakened his supernatural abilities, however, Xu Qiu no longer worried about needing an escort and quietly went up on his own.
Besides, he needed to transplant some herbs into his private space, which was best done away from prying eyes.
The mountains behind the village stretched out in endless ranges, overlapping one another so that even from a high vantage point, the horizon was nowhere in sight. The trees were tall, lush, and vibrant green. Because wild beasts rarely came down from the mountains in recent years, villagers frequently gathered firewood along the outer perimeter.
Usually, people went in groups.
Xu Qiu walked along the path, hearing the sound of chopping wood from a short distance away. As he drew closer, he spotted a familiar, slender figure. “Lin Qu?”
Hearing his voice, Lin Qu turned around abruptly. “Xu, Xu Qiu, are, are you going up the mountain to gather herbs again?”
A clear trace of nervousness ran through his voice.
Looking at the ardent gaze Lin Qu directed at him and the boy’s distinctly shy gestures, Xu Qiu felt a bit awkward and replied, “Yes.”
“Are you out gathering firewood with your parents?”
He noticed Lin Lao-er and his wife standing not far off.
“Mm.” Lin Qu nodded, then added as if possessed by a strange impulse, “Grandmother had us come with Third Uncle and Third Aunt to prepare firewood for the winter. Third Uncle and Third Aunt said earlier that their stomachs hurt, so they went back first.”
Xu Qiu was speechless.
These so-called Third Uncle and Third Aunt were his future parents-in-law in name.
They were also the parents of the protagonist shou, Lin Qiong.
Lin Lao-san and his wife were the most adept at slacking off. Excuses like stomachaches, sore backs, or aching legs rolled off their tongues with complete ease. Expecting this couple to finish a full shift of work was entirely impossible.
Among the three Lin brothers, although the eldest was also taciturn, he was not without his own calculations. As the eldest son, even if Old Mrs. Lin favored the third branch, she could not risk alienating her eldest son.
In contrast, Lin Qu’s parents, Lin Lao-er and his wife, were the classic hard-working oxen of the family.
Cowardly by nature, they had no idea how to stand up for themselves.
Because of this, Old Mrs. Lin often paired Lin Lao-san and his wife with Lin Qu’s parents to work together. When assigned with the eldest brother’s family, Lin Lao-san and his wife would reluctantly do a bit more work, but when paired with Lin Lao-er’s family, they showed no restraint whatsoever. Sure enough, hardly after starting, the couple had already comfortably returned home to continue sleeping.
Having lived in the village for so many years and knowing the plot, Xu Qiu understood all of this inside out.
However, looking at the nervous Lin Qu, he felt a slight headache. Was Lin Qu subtly speaking ill of his future in-laws to him?
One of the most noticeable changes brought by recovering his past life’s memories was that he had finally opened his mind to romance, allowing him to recognize the affectionate look on the boy’s face.
Of course, it was also possible that because Lin Qu had reached the age for marriage and faced the constant risk of being married off, he had thrown caution to the wind and expressed his feelings more openly.
Logically speaking, as the fiancé of Lin Qu’s cousin, Xu Qiu should not give Lin Qu a warm reception for behaving this way. Yet, he found it genuinely difficult to feel any ill will toward him. Before Lin Qu dreamt of the future and decided to intercept the marriage match, Xu Qiu’s impression of him had been remarkably positive.
Aside from becoming excessively competitive and obsessing over competing with Lin Qiong after the story began, this young Ge’er had done nothing over the past dozen years that anyone could find fault with.
A person who worked so hard to live diligently and possessed such drive had spent the first half of his life suppressed by the protagonist’s family, suffering through endless hardships, and would never be able to rise above in the second half.
He seemed truly pitiable.
Because of this, Xu Qiu could not bring himself to say anything harsh. Seeing the boy staring at him expectantly, he felt it would be impolite to simply walk away, so he exchanged a few polite words instead: “How were things when you got home yesterday? Did your grandmother hit you?”
Lin Qu shook his head. “I went to work in the fields in the afternoon. When I got back, I hid in my room and skipped dinner, so Grandmother didn’t hit me.”
If he had dared to eat dinner as if nothing had happened, a beating would have been inevitable.
On the other hand, while he was working, his grandmother wouldn’t chase him down to beat him, partly out of fear that he would speak ill of Lin Qiong in front of the villagers.
Xu Qiu said in surprise, “Did your parents bring you anything to eat then? Did you eat this morning?”
If he remembered correctly, Lin Qu had not eaten lunch yesterday either, except for the pear he had given him. But a pear was not filling, and after working a whole afternoon in the fields, it would be strange if he weren’t starving.
Lin Qu shook his head again. “Father and Mother didn’t dare bring me anything, but I ate this morning.”
Xu Qiu sighed inwardly, having already guessed as much.
Who in the village didn’t know about the Lin family’s affairs? Lin Qu’s parents were completely useless. It wasn’t that they didn’t care about Lin Qu, and Xu Qiu believed they had probably suggested giving him food, but as soon as Old Mrs. Lin scolded them, they likely backed down immediately. Furthermore, breakfast was nothing to speak of; Old Mrs. Lin distributed all the food in the house, so how could she let someone who had talked back to her the day before eat his fill?
He set down his backpack and took out two steamed buns. “Here, take these.”
These were steamed by his mother.
Before leaving the house that morning, he had told his mother he was heading to the old doctor’s house. Since he often stayed there for a long time before returning, carrying some food with him was normal.
“N-no need.” Lin Qu took a step back in fright, having no intention of taking Xu Qiu’s food again.
He had simply wanted to talk to Xu Qiu a bit longer.
“Keep them for yourself. I already ate this morning, so I’m not hungry.”
“Just take them,” Xu Qiu stepped forward and pressed them into his hands. “Whatever your grandmother served definitely wasn’t enough to fill you up. Just keep them; if you aren’t hungry now, eat them tonight. Eat them whenever you get hungry.”
In these times, ordinary families could rarely afford to eat their fill every meal, especially in the Lin household.
Therefore, Xu Qiu did not feel that offering these steamed buns was excessive.
Just as they were pushing the food back and forth, a voice devoid of clear emotion sounded nearby: “What are you two doing?”
The two raised their heads and saw a youth whose skin was visibly lighter by several shades, dressed in a style that seemed out of place for this village, looking at them expressionlessly.
The newcomer was none other than Lin Qiong.