Chapter 15

Sun Guixiang had completely torn off any pretense of civility with Ye Wanqing. That same day she made quite a few sarcastic, cold remarks. The next day, even the three newly arrived stall owners began showing Ye Wanqing no good face.

“Yo, looks like she’s really made money—can’t even look at the stalls prepared by the bus station!”

“That stall isn’t light when pushed back and forth, right? But she has a wild man putting in the effort—how would she mind the weight?”

“Looking like a little fox spirit, smiling so happily at everyone she meets—no wonder her business is so good. Those men see her and can’t move their feet, so of course they all go to her place?”

“Willing to spend money to keep a wild man yet unwilling to give the family a few extra yuan. Never seen such an unfilial daughter! Tsk!”

“……”

Besides making cold remarks to her face, someone also filed a complaint with Director Li, saying that Ye Wanqing had privately replaced the counter prepared by the bus station—this was a violation—and demanded that Ye Wanqing switch it back.

There was also an anonymous complaint saying Ye Wanqing was improperly involved with men and had improper conduct, suggesting that the bus station revoke her qualification to set up a stall in the waiting hall and rent the stall to someone else.

Director Li of course did not agree.

When Ye Wanqing learned of it she rolled her eyes and did not want to argue with this kind of people.

Arguing back with this kind of people would only play right into their hands. At that time it would not only affect business but truly ruin her own image.

Did they really think she had no other means to deal with these “old acquaintances”?

Fortunately, not everyone was brain-dead.

Wang Fang need not be mentioned—she was definitely standing on Ye Wanqing’s side.

Unexpectedly, Jiang Yan, whom Ye Wanqing had felt was not easy to get along with and who looked fashionable and a bit shrewd, also did not join in the gossip and even spoke a few fair words for Ye Wanqing.

When Ye Wanqing went to thank her, Jiang Yan’s red lips curved slightly as she smiled with disdain. “Just a few loose-tongued women, that’s all. Don’t take it to heart either, or you’ll only be making things hard for yourself. Being pretty just invites jealousy. If I weren’t pretty myself, I’d also have to say bad things about you.”

“……Still, thank you.” Ye Wanqing could not help laughing. She placed a full bowl of oden on her counter. “Extra dish for you at noon.”

“Thanks.” Jiang Yan also picked out a delicate water-red hair clip and gave it to her. “Your skin is fair. This will look good on you.”

Courtesy demands reciprocity.

“Thank you.” Ye Wanqing’s front bangs had grown a little longer recently. She directly used this hair clip. Not to mention, it truly added a few more points of lively, pretty youthful air, making her look even more spirited and attractive.

Seeing her like this, the smile in Jiang Yan’s eyes grew even denser.

Ye Wanqing returned to her own stall, warmed the leftover buns from the morning, and treated them as lunch.

The buns were still brought to her by Ge Yuan in the morning. Every time he bought her breakfast according to his own appetite—six at a time—enough for her to eat two meals. In the evenings she also went to Ge Yuan’s place to cook. During this period she had not eaten a single grain of rice at the Ye family; she had been eating Ge Yuan’s.

Those green-eyed monsters saying she spent money to keep a wild man—actually it was that wild man supporting her!

And she did not consider it shameful, but rather an honor……

Thinking of this, Ye Wanqing could not help the corners of her lips rising.

However, while Ye Wanqing was too lazy to pay attention to these rumors and gossip, a young man in a floral shirt suddenly stood up. His fierce gaze swept a circle over the faces of the people gossiping, then he turned and ran out of the bus station.

In a short while he ran to the Ge family’s small courtyard and “bang bang bang” pounded on the door.

Ge Yuan happened to be at home. When he opened the door, the moment the young man saw Ge Yuan he shouted, “Brother Yuan, someone said you’re a soft-rice-eating wild man. Should we grab some tools and teach those people with holes in their brains a lesson?”

“……Speak clearly. What do you mean?” Ge Yuan put down what he was holding and asked with a cold face.

It had been a long time since anyone was so bold as to say this kind of thing!

“Didn’t I have to take a ride to the provincial city today? I was waiting for the bus in the waiting hall. Unexpectedly I heard someone bullying our sister-in-law and even saying you’re a wild man being kept by sister-in-law! I felt these words were too ugly and hurried over to tell you.”

Ge Yuan’s cold and sharp gaze instantly stiffened. “……Like this?”

“Am I, Houzi, the kind of person who talks nonsense?”

Ge Yuan: “……”

“Brother Yuan, what do you say?” Houzi looked furious and waved his fist. “Just say the word and I’ll call the brothers to get back face!”

“Fool!” Ge Yuan slapped Houzi on the back of the head, making him stagger, and said in a rough voice, “Go handle your own business. I have a plan for this matter.”

Having a plan—did that mean he was not preparing to fight?

“Brother Yuan, what idea do you have?” Houzi was particularly puzzled. “You’re not really being kept by sister-in-law and too embarrassed to fight over this, are you? In the past you would’ve grabbed the iron rod and charged right in!”

Ge Yuan’s eyes glared. “How is that possible? I’m a towering man standing upright between heaven and earth. I absolutely do not eat a single grain of your sister-in-law’s rice!”

Ge Yue was unhappy. Hugging her small water bucket she “scrape scrape scrape” ran over, raised her little head and looked up with disdain, then extended one palm and particularly righteously exposed her own older brother: “Big Brother, yesterday you ate three big bowls of rice! All made by Beautiful Sister-in-law!”

“Illiterate, shut up!” Ge Yuan relied on his tall and sturdy build to cover Ge Yue’s mouth with overwhelming force, tucked the small-armed and small-legged girl under his armpit, and walked toward the courtyard.

Clearly, this was to silence her!

Houzi: “……”

In the current situation, he should pretend he didn’t hear, right? The reputation of Qingshui County’s top dog was a banner. He had to maintain his Brother Yuan’s iron tough-guy image!

Besides…… he didn’t want to get beaten ahhhh!

In the evening when Ye Wanqing finished packing up the stall, she discovered that Ge Yuan who walked over to pick her up had a face full of words he wanted to say but stopped himself, as if there was something he wanted to speak of.

“What’s wrong?” she asked.

“……Nothing.” Ge Yuan folded up the support legs of the stall and easily pushed the stall toward the outside.

Seeing that she could not get anything out of him, Ye Wanqing could only quickly follow, planning to ask carefully once they got home.

There was no problem that one kiss could not solve. If that really didn’t work, then two kisses.

When the two of them walked to the entrance of the bus station, suddenly a small bus stopped two meters away from them. The door opened and a pretty young woman with two large black braids ran down—it was none other than Ye Mingzhu who had already started working.

The vehicle closed its door and entered the station. Ye Mingzhu charged directly in front of Ye Wanqing and sweetly called out the moment she opened her mouth, “Sister!”

After calling, her smiling eyes carried a few points of curiosity as she looked toward Ge Yuan, secretly looking him over.

“……” Ye Wanqing slightly furrowed her brows and looked at her lightly. “What is it?”

“Ah…… this!” Ye Mingzhu held out the bag in her hand in front of her, slightly raised her chin, and her rosy, pretty face carried pride. “These are the red Fuji apples I brought for you from the provincial city. They’re rare at this season!”

Ye Wanqing took the cloth bag and looked. The apples inside were each large and red; one could tell the quality was not bad.

In her previous life when Ye Mingzhu first started riding the routes, she had also brought her quite a few good things. Whether it was deep sisterly affection or guilt toward her was unknown.

Only the red Fuji apples, snow cream, hand cream, scarves…… many things gradually changed from carefully selected to ones that had been used and were no longer liked, just as with the passage of time the feelings between them also became more and more perfunctory.

“No need to give them to me.” Ye Wanqing stuffed the apples back into Ye Mingzhu’s hands. “You’ve always been filial. Better take them back for your parents to eat.”

With that she lifted her feet and left.

“Sister!” Ye Mingzhu hugged the cloth bag and caught up to her. She wanted to say something, even to joke and ask whether Ge Yuan was her future brother-in-law, yet the moment she met Ye Wanqing’s water-clear and cold eyes she surprisingly could not say a single word.

She bit her lip and stood in place, watching Ye Wanqing walk far away. Once again she felt that her sister had truly changed.

“You don’t like eating red Fuji?” Ge Yuan suddenly asked.

Ye Wanqing smiled and glanced sideways at him. “I like eating them, but I don’t want to eat what the Ye family gives me. I don’t want to have trouble arguing later about how many benefits I took from their family. Why suddenly ask this?”

“If you like eating them, I’ll buy them for you!” Ge Yuan immediately puffed out his chest.

Ye Wanqing laughed lightly. “Mm.”

“What else do you lack? Clothes, pants, snow cream, and the little women’s…… uh, the bubble gauze and dacron that you women like—I’ll also go buy a few sets for you. Do you like them or not?”

Ye Wanqing looked at him teasingly. “What, we’ve only kissed a few times and you already want to support me?”

“……” Ge Yuan’s face suddenly exploded red, yet he still nodded hard and firmly said, “Support!” He was not a soft-rice eater at all. At most…… at most he liked eating her little mouth.

Thinking of this, Ge Yuan both despised the impurity of his own thoughts and could not help recalling that sweet soft taste. His footsteps unconsciously quickened a few more points.

He was already walking faster than Ye Wanqing while pushing the cart. She could not quite keep up and could not help calling him, “Why are you walking so fast?”

Ge Yuan’s footsteps paused. “……Go, going home.”

“So urgent?”

Ge Yuan: “……”

Rushing home to kiss—how could he not be urgent? But he did not dare say it.

When they arrived at the Ge family’s small courtyard, Ge Yuan pushed the cart to clean it thoroughly and changed the spent coal in the coal stoves. Ye Wanqing entered the kitchen.

On the kitchen floor were basins upon basins of ingredients cut by Fatty Wang’s mother. On the stove top there were also finished fish balls, meatballs, and lotus root balls, looking clean and exquisite—very good.

A small stall was definitely not Ye Wanqing’s goal. In the future she still wanted to open her own shop and planned to continue hiring Fatty Wang’s mother to help at that time.

She knew that near the Ge family’s small courtyard there were still quite a few people who wanted work, and she had also told Fatty Wang’s mother that if she needed to hire more people for work in the future, to let her arrange the manpower. Fatty Wang’s mother, having received these words, felt she had a lot of face and worked even more actively.

Ye Wanqing pressed her lips into a smile, rolled up her sleeves, and began making dinner.

Tonight she planned to braise a fish, steam a bowl of preserved vegetable and pork, make white jade tofu, and add a plate of blanched green vegetable hearts.

She did not want Ge Yuan to know about the words others used to fabricate that he ate soft rice, yet she still felt he had been wronged and wanted to treat him a little better, make him a meal more abundant than usual.

As a result, she had only just scooped a fish out of the water vat when the courtyard gate was “bang bang bang” pounded on. Outside voices were noisy, and it seemed someone was also cursing and shouting at the door—it sounded like Liu Lizhen’s voice.

Something had happened!

Ye Wanqing quickly threw the fish back into the water vat and hurried toward the doorway.