The Lady’s Sickly Husband

Translator: Antonia

Three women would make a drama.

Juniang was a reserved person but Yunniang was the opposite. She was such a talker that formed a rival to sister Zhang, Zhang Genbao’s wife.

When she first sat on the same cart with Mo Qianxue, she still felt a little constrained. After she found that Mo Qianxue was quite easy-going, she began to share gossips about other households, chattering all the way nonstop.

The oxcart arrived the hill at the back of the Wang village, not too far from it.

Juniang had sharp eyes and she pointed to a horse carriage parking in the forest, “Look! Isn’t it Zhang’s horse carriage? Why does it park there?”

Everyone looked with her fingers. There indeed parked a horse carriage of which the horse was eating grass while the carriage was shaking and staggering.

“Where is Zhang Genbao? Why does he leave his carriage there?”

“Yeah, and the carriage is shaking…”

“I’m afraid something is wrong. l take a look there.” Wang Xiaolei released the ox rope in his hand and walked towards the carriage, worried.

“I go with him.” Yunniang jumped off the cart too. As a talker, naturally she was also a curious person, so she joyfully followed Wang Xiaolei to see what was happening over there.

The two tiptoed their way noiselessly to the carriage. As they got nearer, they heard groaning of a man and a woman. The noise sounded unbearably oppressive but comfortable.

In an instant, Yunniang blushed, reaching out in an attempt to pull Wang Xiaolei back, but she missed the catching. Wang Xiaolei had eagerly stepped forward and lifted up the carriage curtain.

In the carriage, there was a man and woman making love like a fight.

As it went up and down, Wang Xiaolei’s heart followed suit to jump violently up and down.

The two naked moving bodies all fell into Yunniang’s eyes.

Wang Xiaolei released the curtain, turning around and covering his eyes with both hands, his face heated like a lobster… Even a chump would know what was going on.

He stood there, having no idea of what he should do and turning dumb!

The two people enjoying the fight were at a critical juncture, not a bit noticing the noise outside. At this moment, they wouldn’t pay attention even if the sky broke.

They eagerly tossed and wrestled. With their movement, the carriage shook in a regular rhythm.

While Wang Xiaolei’s heart beat fast, under fierce dashing, the carriage staggered more and more violent as if it would fall apart at any moment.

Zhang Genbao growled a sigh of comfort, and the woman under him seemed to reach a certain vertex and screamed too.

Wang Xiaolei finally came back to earth by this loud growling and scream, numbly turning and walking back.

The two had set off with curiosity and came back with flushing faces. Behind them was the slightly swinging horse carriage.

In addition, the sound upon finishing was so loud that Mo Qianxue immediately understood what was going on over there in the carriage without thinking. She just didn’t expect that Zhang Genbao, an honest-looking man, should betray his wife to have a love affair with another woman.

What a good mood to enjoy field battle!

Wang Xiaolei and Yunniang’s faces couldn’t be redder, but Juniang was slow to find out and kept asking, “What on earth did you see? Why are you so quiet? …”

Wang Xiaolei didn’t answer and buried himself in pulling the ox. With the red color on his face already creeped to his neck, he walked on.

Yunniang at first smiled with shyness but later burst into laughter.

As a big mouth, after the shyness, she soon recovered and became talkative again.

She played up what she had witnessed to tell a spectacular story, totally ignoring whether Xiaolei, who was still an unmarried adult man, could bear it or not.

“Sister Zhang keeps watching her man all day long like a prisoner. Now what? He has an affair anyway…”

“Who is that woman?” Juniang was curious. Which woman could be so bold?

“Pity that I didn’t see clear. I only stared at Zhang Gengao’s naked bottom.”

“You mischievous woman. you’ll have eye disease later.”

“No! Hell no! …”

Mo Qianxue laughed and disdained, and then, thinking of sister Zhang’s cutting eyes, she felt a little uneasy.

She didn’t want to get into trouble, so she specially told Yunniang not to gossip about it.

Yunniang thought for a second and understood quickly. If this came out of her mouth, that crazy woman sister Zhang who believed that her husband was more important than the sky, would definitely come to her house to question her who the lover was.

In the end, very likely she would make a scene at the restaurant and spoiled her hard-won job. Therefore, she concealed the excitement in her eyes and nodded seriously.

Naturally, Juniang couldn’t agree more, “I feel shy even only listening such a shameless affair. I’ll never tell anyone. I fear trouble will come at me.”

Wang Xiaolei didn’t squeeze out a word until a moment later, “I saw nothing.”

Mo Qianxue just got in the door when Awu came back too.

The owner of the valley lived in the forest behind the valley. His courtyard was hard to discover due to a row of tall trees around it.

Mo Qianxue felt relieved and decided to head right for the courtyard tomorrow to visit the owner. It was unnecessary to waste time with a guard.

Zhang Genbao returned home as usual, but sister Zhang immediately smelled a rat. The carriage wheels had been repaired a few days ago, but now they went loose again.

Then she intently eyed her man’s look, which made her suspected more.

She also smelled her husband’s shirt which smelled slutty.

She thought over and over again and got so upset that she went to sister Guihua’s house again to insult her. Only when she saw sister Guihua crying miserably in neat clothes did sister Zhang turned away and went home with satisfaction.

*

In a month, it would be Spring Festival. In the evening, there was snow .

In the dark wing room.

“Awu, did you figure out who the valley owner was?”

“Yes, lord. From their costume and lineup, they seemed to belong to Tong family who had retired from the capital eight years ago.”

“Tong? The first-class noble family?”

“Yes.”

“Why do they live there?”

“I don’t know yet. The courtyard forbids any approaching. Only because I came into contact with the guards of Tong family a few years ago in the capital, judging from the guards’ manner, the layout of the courtyard and by inquiring hunters living nearby, who said the owner surnamed Tong, I make the guess about their identity.”

“The Tong master was an awe-inspiring presence in the capital a few years ago. He is already the third-generation single son in the family, but his hard-won son suffered a certain disease. So many years have passed, but no one ever saw this lord Tong. I’m curious what disease lord Tong suffered?”

“Sorry lord. Please allow me to investigate it now.” Hearing the question, Awu immediately got up and planned to explore again.

“Come back!” Ning Shaoqing stopped him, “I’m afraid you couldn’t get back alive if you really approached the courtyard. Years ago, the master of Tong family massacred all females in the family, threw the bodies to mass grave and forbade others to bury them. That cruel scandal is still a hot topic among every household in the capital.”

Awu replied, “I heard that it was because of the feuds between those females that madam Tong was killed, and their young son fell ill.”

“What is the possibility do you think that lady could get the valley?”

“The courtyard sits at the foot of a mountain, and in front of it are tall trees which form a natural shelter, yet in front of the trees is the vacant valley. The location gives it a clear view of the subtlest unusual situation taking place outside the courtyard. I’m afraid the possibility is zero.”

“Ok.”

“So…do I have to take lady there tomorrow?”

“Take a rest now! Tomorrow morning you still follow lady’s orders and take her there. She’s a determined woman. No one can stop her until she tries herself.”

“Yes.”

“Asan, go to inform uncle Yu and let him bring money to negotiate about pooling capital with the future soy sauce factory.”

“Yes.”

…

When they woke up in the morning, the ground had been covered with a thick layer of snow.

Looking at Mo Qianxue arranging Awu to prepare the oxcart, Ning Shaoqing was a little down.

For the first time, he wanted to complain why other women could stay at home to accompany their husbands and children while she must get herself busy every day outside.

He had tried to persuade or stop her, but it didn’t work.

His judgment couldn’t be wrong. She was not a person longing for money because she didn’t lead a lavish life. Neither was she an ambitious person who enjoyed keeping a high profile. But why on earth was she so zealous about making money?

Was it—

Was it because she needed money for certain unspeakable reason?

Last time, when Asan and Awu had first arrived here, uncle Yu let them bring one thousand taels of silver which was all given to her.

But he never saw her using the money…

Ning Shaoqing couldn’t figure it out and wished to talk with her candidly.

Perhaps, he should tell her that although he was in a terrible situation, he wasn’t poor.

Yet, if he confessed one thing, he must confess every aspect about who he was.

For certain, all his scars would be exposed too…

*

Yunniang really couldn’t keep a secret. She felt so tortured with no one to share this interesting big scandal with that she was even unable to fall asleep, tossing and turning on her bed all night.

Early this morning, when she went to the riverside to wash clothes, she began to whisper to one of her friends.

“Okay, I know. I won’t let that jealous crazy woman know. Rest assured.”

As soon as Yunniang left, the friend began to whisper to another young wife too, “I only tell you. Don’t tell others…”

…

In this way, when sister Zhang walked around in the village, all her friends with who she gossiped with looked at her differently. There was a kind of weird smile. At first, she thought something wrong with her clothes and then with her face.

But when she got home to check in the mirror, she found nothing wrong.

Unable to find it out, sister Zhang pissed off for half a day, so she went to tofu workshop to curse sister Guihua again but was beat up by sister Fang who in the end made a conclusion, “Don’t be so shameless to blame other women if you can’t keep your own husband.”

Only then, sister Zhang got the answer.

Her ungrateful husband really had an affair outside. But it wasn’t this slut.

Thinking so hard of every woman in the village one by one until her head swelled, she just couldn’t figure out who the slut might be.

Suddenly she recalled the weird thing that the carriage wheels broke twice recently.

She instantly got up. This dishonest man must have done it in the carriage, so the bitch must be someone who recently went downtown.

She put down the work she was on and hurried out.

This time, sister Zhang had a thing to do.

Every day, near the road that Zhang Genbao took to get home, she would always hide somewhere to secretly conduct an X-ray screening.