Next, Qiu Huang dealt with the bandits one by one with a single punch, like chopping vegetables. In just a few moves, he finished them off easily.
“Husband, you’re really amazing.”
Yan Roujun and Yan Roujiao looked at Qiu Huang with eyes full of admiration. After all, which woman does not admire the strong? Everyone wants to find a capable man, and they were no exception.
Without a doubt, they had already found that person—Qiu Huang. He perfectly matched their ideal of a husband: capable, responsible, considerate toward women, simply the model of a perfect man.
“You two, come here and search their bodies to see if there is any silver or other valuables.”
“Alright.”
The two immediately went over and searched the five bodies. As expected, they found some copper coins and broken silver. There was not much—probably two to three taels in total—but since it was free money, they naturally took it.
“Husband, how should we deal with these corpses?”
After taking all the valuables, the next issue was dealing with the bodies.
Although these people were bandits, it was better not to let them be discovered. Otherwise, if the authorities investigated, it would become troublesome.
“Find a place and throw them away,” Qiu Huang said.
He was also a cautious person. He knew it was best if this kind of thing was not discovered. As long as no one found them, people would forget about it after a few days.
They spent some more time disposing of the bodies. After finishing, the three of them returned to the small mountain village.
“Husband and the others are back.”
Seeing Qiu Huang return, a group of women immediately ran out of the house. To them, Qiu Huang was now their support and pillar.
“How was it? Everything okay at home?”
Wanyan Meiling said, “Husband, overall nothing happened. There were just occasional suspicious looks from people passing by.”
“People spying on us?”
“Yes, probably.”
Qiu Huang fell silent. This was not hard to understand. After all, they had hunted so many animals yesterday, it was natural that others would cover them and try to take advantage.
At this time, the advantage of numbers became clear. They had eight people staying at home. Although all were women and individually not very strong, they had strength in numbers. If they worked together, dealing with a few petty thieves would be more than enough.
So even those who had their eyes on their meat would have to consider whether they could withstand eight women working together.
“Husband, are these all things you bought?”
Very quickly, the women’s attention shifted to the three bamboo baskets they were carrying. There were one large and two small baskets filled with various goods.
“Yes, these were all bought in town,” Yan Roujun and Yan Roujiao replied as they put down the baskets. The women gathered around and took out the items inside.
“Cloth, salt, and candied hawthorn—wow.”
The women were overjoyed. These were all good things they really liked.
“Husband, let us help you.”
They could see that what Yan Roujun and Yan Roujiao were carrying was only a small portion. The real heavy goods were still with Qiu Huang.
“Be careful, it’s a bit heavy,” Qiu Huang said as he slowly squatted down and placed the basket on the ground.
“Rice, flour… so much?”
Seeing what was inside Qiu Huang’s basket, the women were shocked. Just rice and flour alone weighed over a hundred jin. With other miscellaneous items included, it was enough for their family of eleven to last quite a while.
“Help move these into the house,” he said.
The whole family worked for quite a while before everything was moved inside.
“There are so many things that there’s barely any space left for people.”
Looking at the house full of supplies, the women felt happy. Originally, when the officials assigned them to Qiu Huang, they had no hope for the future and thought life would be miserable.
But now, they realized that following Qiu Huang not only did they not suffer, they were living quite well—having rice and meat, salt and seasoning, and no restrictions on how much they could eat.
Moreover, Qiu Huang was very good in character: capable, responsible, and caring toward them. A man like this was extremely rare.
From what they knew, other women assigned earlier were not doing well. Some were even beaten by their husbands as soon as they entered the household and forced to do all kinds of hard labor, living miserably.
Compared to them, their current life was far better—there was no comparison at all.
And all of this was thanks to Qiu Huang. They secretly swore in their hearts that they would be completely loyal from now on and never have any other thoughts, and would stay by his side and live a good life together.
Qiu Huang said, “In the next few days, we will expand the house and increase the space.”
Food, clothing, shelter, and transportation—these are the four basic necessities of life. Food was already mostly solved; next was to deal with the others.
The women looked at each other and had no objections. In fact, they had already wanted to do this. Eleven people squeezed into such a small space was already difficult, not to mention the large amount of supplies now making it even more crowded. Expanding the house was necessary.
“Tomorrow, go and hire three to five workers to help us expand the house.”
Hire workers?
Upon hearing this, the women were unhappy.
“Husband, why do we need to hire workers? We already have so many people here. We can do it ourselves. There’s no need to spend money.”
They were not delicate young ladies who avoided labor. On the contrary, they were very willing to work because they were afraid Qiu Huang might think they were useless and abandon them, which would ruin their good life.
Qiu Huang looked at them and said, “I have considered doing it ourselves. With our numbers, we can indeed manage it. But have you thought about this—if we do everything ourselves, we will inevitably become isolated. Once we are isolated, all kinds of problems can easily arise in the future.”
Society is a whole, not isolated individuals. No matter when, one should not try to handle everything alone. When it is time to hire people, one should hire people—that is the way to survive.