Old Madam Liang’s teeth were bad, so she couldn’t eat much meat, but she was especially fond of the pot of corn porridge Yu Yao had brought her.
“The corn porridge you made tastes especially good!”
The old lady drank a full large bowl and felt her breathing become much smoother.
Yu Yao reminded her,
“In another couple of hours, ask Liang Hong to heat up the rest of the porridge in the pot and finish it.”
She had added spring water from the spiritual spring into the porridge. It would help treat Old Madam Liang’s asthma and chronic phlegm condition.
The old lady nodded repeatedly.
“This porridge is delicious. I’ll keep it. Take the rabbit meat back with you.”
Yu Yao said,
“Liang Hui and I are both going out today. We won’t be back until after dark, so we won’t be cooking at home. If you can’t finish it, let Liang Hong eat it.”
Old Madam Liang hesitated, then vaguely hinted,
“When you go out, make sure you lock the door properly.”
Yu Yao blinked innocently.
“Got it. Though there’s really nothing in the room worth stealing.”
There truly wasn’t anything worth stealing.
Anything valuable had already been stored inside her space.
Liang Hui’s two buddies brought over several pieces of ash wood and elm wood along with carpentry tools to help repair the bed.
“Brother Hui, your bed creaks whenever it moves. How did you consummate the marriage with Sister-in-law last night?” Dongzi asked curiously.
Beside him, Liangzi’s eyes also lit up with gossip-filled excitement.
Liang Hui shot him a glance and replied casually,
“That’s why we didn’t.”
“You two better work harder and make it sturdy.”
“If we still can’t consummate the marriage tonight, I’ll beat both of you tomorrow.”
Dongzi: “…”
Liangzi: “…”
The two immediately buried themselves in work and didn’t dare continue teasing.
Yu Yao pushed open the door and smiled at them as a greeting.
After calling her “Sister-in-law,” both young men blushed.
Especially when they thought about how the bed they were fixing now would be used by her tonight, their faces turned even redder.
Yu Yao, however, had no idea what they were thinking and had no time to investigate.
She wheeled out the bicycle and said to Liang Hui,
“I’m going back to my parents’ house.”
A trace of vigilance rose in Liang Hui’s peach blossom eyes.
“What are you going back for?”
Hadn’t her own father just sold her off? Was she planning to let herself get sold again?
“I’m going to visit my great-uncle…” Yu Yao noticed the suspicion in his eyes and simply suggested, “Why don’t you come with me?”
“Mm.”
Liang Hui immediately agreed without hesitation.
Turning around, he instructed his two friends,
“When you finish working and leave, remember to lock the door!”
Yu Yao remembered a minor cannon-fodder character from the novel, someone insignificant in the story yet the only elder who had ever genuinely cared for and loved her.
This person was Yu Yao’s great-uncle, Yu Hongyuan.
Yu Yao had taken her maternal grandfather’s surname, so Yu Hongyuan was her grandfather’s younger brother.
After both her grandfather and mother passed away one after another, her live-in son-in-law father Hao Lizhi married Wang Yuelan and brought her home.
Yu Hongyuan would occasionally visit Yu Yao, his grandniece, and because of that, Hao Lizhi and Wang Yuelan didn’t dare openly abuse her.
Only after Yu Hongyuan became bedridden with severe illness and could no longer support Yu Yao did Hao Lizhi, encouraged by Wang Yuelan, sell his own daughter to an old bachelor.
In the original novel, Yu Hongyuan was described in only a few brief lines:
After hearing that Yu Yao had been sold by Hao Lizhi to an old bachelor in Hukeng Village, he became so enraged that his illness worsened, and he died soon after.
Now that Yu Yao had transmigrated into this novel, she not only wanted to change her own fate but also save Yu Hongyuan’s life.
He was the only blood relative and elder she had left on her maternal side.
Hukeng Village was also called Ten-Surname Village. Long ago, refugees fleeing war gradually settled in this rugged mountainous region.
The roads leading out of the village were difficult to travel, and the roads to the county town were even worse, making shopping inconvenient.
There was only one small shop in the entire village, selling oil, salt, soy sauce, vinegar, and basic daily necessities.
If villagers wanted something uncommon, they had to visit the market in another village or even travel all the way to the county town.
Liang Hui rode the bicycle while Yu Yao sat on the back seat. Together, they first stopped at the village shop.
Along the way, whenever they met villagers or neighbors, Liang Hui greeted them cheerfully.
After yesterday’s spectacle of carrying his bride through the streets and loudly “publicizing” his marriage, practically everyone already knew he had spent 2,800 yuan to marry a wife.
Seeing him now riding a bicycle with his wife seated behind him, villagers asked curiously again,
“Laoxi Liang, when did you buy a bicycle?”
The standard men’s bicycle Liang Hui usually rode had actually been borrowed from Dongzi. He had never ridden this curved-frame bicycle before.
Curved-frame bicycles were considered women’s bicycles. Without the horizontal top bar, they looked more delicate and were easier to ride.
Liang Hui answered openly,
“My wife brought it as part of her dowry.”
The villagers clicked their tongues in surprise.
“So there really was a dowry!”
Hadn’t Zhao Chunhua been spreading rumors everywhere that Liang Laoxi spent 2,800 yuan buying a wife who brought nothing with her?
Reality slapped her in the face. The bride had clearly brought a bicycle as dowry.
It proved once again that Zhao Chunhua lied constantly and never spoke honestly.
Liang Hui stopped in front of the shop and went inside to buy two packs of calcium milk biscuits, two bottles of malted milk, and half a jin of white sugar.
Just as he was about to pay, Yu Yao had already taken out the money.
She carried a cloth bag as cover.
All the money Liang Hui had entrusted to her was actually stored inside her space.
Liang Hui glanced at her, his gaze landing on her empty wrist.
Had she hidden the bracelet inside the cloth bag too?
Yu Yao blinked at him, signaling reassuringly:
Don’t worry—I hid everything safely.
Watching the young couple carrying gifts and riding affectionately back to her maiden home together, all the previous rumors naturally collapsed on their own.
“The young couple clearly gets along very lovingly. Who said Liang Laoxi forcibly stole her by paying extra money?”
“She obviously brought a bicycle as dowry. Who said she came empty-handed?”
“The little bride is pretty and always smiling. She looks like such a sweet girl.”
“Liang Laoxi is really blessed!”
Yu Yao’s maiden home was in Yujiagou Village, over ten miles of mountain roads away from Hukeng Village.
Liang Hui’s riding skills were excellent. He expertly maneuvered the bicycle through the rugged mountain paths with Yu Yao seated behind him, arriving in about half an hour.
Relying on the original owner’s memories, Yu Yao accurately found Yu Hongyuan’s house.
It was a three-room tiled-roof house that looked quite respectable compared to the surrounding grass huts.
Especially the black-painted double doors and gatehouse, which clearly displayed the owner’s financial standing.
According to the novel, Yu Yao’s grandfather had been a butcher, while her great-uncle Yu Hongyuan hunted and occasionally slaughtered pigs for extra income.
Yu Hongyuan had never married.
Later, while hunting in the mountains, he found an abandoned infant wrapped in swaddling clothes and brought the child home to raise as his grandson.
The boy was named Xiaoyong and was only seven years old this year.
Yu Yao knocked on the door, but no one responded, so she pushed the door open and entered.
Liang Hui carried the bicycle over the threshold and followed her into the courtyard.
“Great-Uncle!” Yu Yao called out.
Still no response came.
Her heart tightened.
Could Yu Hongyuan already… be dead?
Feng Xueqing’s eyes were swollen into narrow slits from crying.
Not only were her eyes swollen, but her face and head were swollen too.
Both her arms hurt so badly she could barely lift them, and bruises from the carrying pole covered her body.
Yesterday’s trip to Hukeng Village had truly ended disastrously for her.
Not only had Yu Yao slapped her hard twice, she had also smashed her head against a table leg and beaten her with a carrying pole until her head was covered in lumps.
Yu Yao had even stolen her bicycle.
Growing up, Feng Xueqing had never suffered such humiliation before.
Even after an entire night had passed, she still couldn’t accept this unbelievably unlucky reality.
Her mother Wang Yuelan tried persuading her several times, but nothing soothed her anger.
Feng Xueqing couldn’t help complaining,
“My dad should never have gotten greedy over that extra eight hundred yuan and resold Yu Yao to Liang Hui! If he’d just stuck to selling her to that old bachelor, none of this would’ve happened to me…”
“Shh!”
Wang Yuelan hurriedly gestured for silence.
“Don’t talk about selling people so loudly! Lower your voice before your father gets into trouble.”
At that moment, a neighbor came in asking,
“I heard Yu Yao came back to her parents’ home?”
Wang Yuelan walked outside with a surprised expression.
“Who told you that? I haven’t seen her.”
“Oh, villagers saw a handsome young man riding Xueqing’s bicycle, carrying Yu Yao back to Yujiagou Village!”