Chapter 15

Ye Qingshui knew that when Xie Tingyu said he held grudges, he wasn’t joking—he really held grudges.

She had deliberately picked three short passages to memorize, but Xie Tingyu stopped her. With “kindness,” he reminded her, “A slow bird must start flying early. You’re already so far behind the others—how can you just pick the easy passages?”

“These three will do. Finish today’s work today. You can’t sleep until you finish memorizing.”

He picked out three classical Chinese texts and sent Ye Qingshui to the base of the wall to recite them.

Ye Qingshui stood by the wall, memorizing from the afternoon until dinner. After dinner, she continued into the evening. Chinese literature had truly been her Achilles’ heel in both of her lifetimes. By 9 p.m., the kerosene in the lamp was nearly used up.

She saw Xie Tingyu pull his own quilt out from under her bed, looking like he was ready to sleep.

She couldn’t help but breathe a sigh of relief, her eyes lighting up. “Why don’t we check tomorrow? Sorry for disturbing your sleep.”

But Xie Tingyu, being the grudge-holder he was, hadn’t forgotten how this little brat had cursed at him.

He said blandly, “Not disturbing me at all. You recite—I can listen while I sleep.”

Ye Qingshui braced herself and started reciting: “In the spring of the fourth year of Qingli, Teng Zijing was demoted to the post of magistrate in Baling Prefecture…”

Xie Tingyu lay comfortably on the floor. The quilt was newly made this year, giving off a fresh scent. The floor was cool, and the chill seeped into his body like a breeze passing over. The girl’s soft, gentle voice reciting the text was like a pair of delicate hands—it had a hypnotic effect.

Half-asleep, Xie Tingyu mumbled, “You said it wrong. Start over.”

Ye Qingshui stared at him with wide, glistening eyes and said angrily, “I did not!”

Then she lowered her head and obediently started reciting again from the beginning.

Xie Tingyu added, “You skipped a line. Again.”

“Reciting more times is for your own good.”

…

“Still wrong. Two more times!”

“Mistake again—three times…”

Xie Tingyu sighed. “Sigh. Recite it five times, then start again.”

Ye Qingshui ended up reciting it ten times over and over until she had it perfectly memorized. Only then did Xie Tingyu stop speaking. She rubbed her tired eyes. The man asleep on the floor was out cold—sleeping soundly. The faint moonlight cast a gentle glow over his pale face. His Adam’s apple stood out prominently. The breeze felt incredibly soothing. If he weren’t someone used to snoring, the sound of it now could probably shake the heavens.

When she was younger, this man had been the stuff of her dreams. Now, as Ye Qingshui looked at him, all she felt was a terrible itch in her teeth—she wanted to stomp on him.

……

The next day, Ye Qingshui no longer worked alongside the men and women. Instead, she went to the livestock station and brought back three piglets. Each piglet’s weight had to be recorded in the production team’s logbook. She also collected a small amount of pig feed from the station.

The pig feed from the supply and marketing cooperative was scarce. If she only fed them that, the piglets definitely wouldn’t grow fat. So Ye Qingshui would have to go up the mountain every day to gather pig grass.

In those days, raising pigs wasn’t a great way to get rich. Piglets weighing between 20–99 jin (about 10–50 kg) earned 2 work points a day. For pigs between 100–300 jin (about 50–150 kg), the max was 4 work points a day—far less than what one could earn from working in the fields. However, if she could raise all three piglets into full-grown pigs, then it might still be worth it.

Ye Qingshui was afraid of losing the pigs and ending up with zero work points or grain at the end of the year, so she made a point to find out about Liu Zhiqing, a young educated youth in the team known for being good at raising pigs. She’d heard he worked at the livestock station.

Before heading to the educated youth dormitory, she put on a mask, hoping to avoid trouble. She knew the youths over there had a low opinion of her because of Xie Tingyu.

It was honestly laughable—Xie Tingyu was quite popular among the educated youths. Back then, Ye Qingshui knew of at least three female youths at the dorm who were actively trying to date him, not to mention the eligible girls from the village.

In the end, a desirable man like him got snatched away by her halfway through. Naturally, behind her back, many people were gossiping and criticizing her. The city girls called her a mud-legged country bumpkin; the rural intellectuals said she had no shame; those from better-off families said she was a toad wanting to eat swan meat.

Thinking of this, Ye Qingshui couldn’t help but chuckle.

She went to the dormitory and asked someone to call Liu Zhiqing. One of the female youths shouted, “Liu San’er, someone’s looking for you!”

Liu Yiliang quickly came down. “Comrade, who are you?”

When Ye Qingshui saw Liu Zhiqing, her eyes lit up. Wasn’t this the young man who had crashed her place for a meal the night they caught the snake? He had a round face that made him look particularly honest, and that night, he’d been so scared he couldn’t even talk properly.

Seeing her with a mask on, Liu Zhiqing politely asked, “Is there something you need from me?”

Ye Qingshui secretly took off her mask. “Remember me?”

“I’m raising pigs now and came to ask for your expertise.”

Once she removed the mask, the chapped skin and redness on her face were almost gone, revealing smooth, fair skin. Her delicate nose was upturned, and her lips, light pink like a touch of rouge, looked soft and glistening like a shimmer of light. Liu Yiliang stared blankly at her.

Every night, Ye Qingshui had been applying beauty treatments, and she always wore a mask and straw hat to protect herself from the sun and dust. In her eyes, her recovery was just average, but in Liu Yiliang’s eyes, she had become the most stunning girl for miles around. Having seen so many unkempt, dusty village women who raised pigs while covered in filth, Liu Yiliang was completely tongue-tied when he looked at her.

Now he finally understood—why Yu-ge suddenly… got married!

Liu Yiliang felt like he had just uncovered some earth-shattering secret.

He asked her, “Why’d you come to the youth dormitory?”

Then, in a gossipy tone, he said, “You’ve become a bit of a celebrity here lately! After all, you’re Yu-ge’s wife…”

He even brought up what happened yesterday:

“I thought it was you—Yu-ge said you weren’t feeling well and took time off for you. He even asked the Party Secretary to switch you to pig-raising work. Seems like Yu-ge really knows how to care for a wife…”

His voice faded into a suggestive smile as he stared at Ye Qingshui’s slender frame, frowning slightly.

Such a delicate little figure—how could she handle Yu-ge?

Yu-ge could carry 200 jin of rocks up the mountain in one go. His frame might look slim, but his strength surpassed even the strongest laborers in the youth dorm, and even the village men couldn’t beat him. When they first came to the countryside, some local thugs thought Yu-ge looked refined and soft, so they tried to extort him. He ended up beating them so badly they were picking their teeth off the ground.

Liu Yiliang told Ye Qingshui to put her mask back on and warned her, whispering like he was sharing a state secret, “You’re famous now. If Sun Lingyu and her gang see you, they won’t let you leave.”

“Those women have wicked tongues. They can curse you out without using a single dirty word. Even I’m afraid of them. You’re not good at arguing—you’d be no match for them. Hey! Where are the piglets? Take me to see them. You should’ve called me to check them out for you. I can tell which piglet’s a keeper with just one look!”

Apparently, Liu Yiliang hadn’t witnessed the scene where Ye Qingshui single-handedly faced down a bunch of female educated youths at the dorm. In his mind, she was still that timid, fragile rural girl.

When he talked about piglets, a big smile spread across his face, and he started chattering away like a broken record—fast, fluent, and nonstop. Ye Qingshui couldn’t help but think: he really was scared that night—he’d been stuttering the whole time.

She focused on absorbing the important points and couldn’t spare attention to chat.

Liu Yiliang said, “Summer brings mosquitoes and germs. Keep the pigsty well-ventilated and clean it daily. If you’re diligent, you should disinfect it with lime once a month too.”

Ye Qingshui nodded quickly and repeatedly.

After inspecting her piglets at the Ye family home, Liu Yiliang said, “I’ll come give them a vaccine in a few days. That’ll keep them from getting sick—easier to raise. Ahem…”

His round face showed a trace of embarrassment and shyness. He kind of missed Ye Qingshui’s cooking. These past few days, he hadn’t been able to stomach the food at the canteen. He and Shen Weimin even tried catching snakes to make soup, but it just didn’t have that same delicious flavor.

“The food you make is really… really tasty. I was wondering—”

Ye Qingshui, still trying to memorize the important points, lifted her head in confusion when she heard him call her “sister-in-law.” She was just about to correct him—he got the title wrong.

But then a cool, icy voice cut in:

“Who are you calling sister-in-law—her?”

The voice belonged to none other than Xie Tingyu. He was standing just outside the pigsty. It looked like he’d just taken a shower—his whole body was clean and fresh, totally out of place with the dirty pigsty. His neatly pressed shirt clung to his skin, making him look refined and handsome.

In this era, aside from the masculine charm of soldiers, it was the scholarly elegance of men like Xie Tingyu that was most admired.

His dark eyes narrowed slightly as he looked at Ye Qingshui and Liu Yiliang…

Support Sansukini on Ko-fi

Thanks for visiting. If you like this story, then I’m shamelessly asking you to visit NovelUpdates and give a 5⭐ review. (人❛ᴗ❛)♪тнайк　чоц♪(❛ᴗ❛*人)

You can also check out my other translations Here