Chapter 45

Raising a child is a bottomless pit.

The house costs three hundred taels of silver. Between the mutual divorce, registering his household, and greasing the right palms along the way, plus hiring someone to help care for the child after buying the courtyard. He needed to have all that money ready in advance, especially for the period before his body recovered.

The daily expenses of two adults and one child were no small sum either.

All together, he needed to prepare at least three hundred fifty taels of silver.

Right now, he only had the remaining money from selling herbs today—two ingots, two strings, and seventy coppers.

Those cordyceps sold for fifty taels, leaving him two hundred thirty taels short.

He would need to spend this month diligently digging up herbs to earn money.

His belly was now seven and a half months along—at the very most two months until the birth. Time was running out.

Chen Jue looked around the room he had spent a fortune fixing up. He still needed to live here for another month.

Because no one would rent a house to a pregnant woman on the verge of giving birth.

This wasn't just a thing in ancient times—it's the same in modern times. Even the all-embracing Taoist temples refused to take in pregnant women and new mothers.

You could only visit the temple to fulfill a vow and burn incense three months after giving birth.

Becoming pregnant meant layer upon layer of shackles, and the first one was having no say over your own body.

He had never imagined that one day he would have nowhere to go.

In the end, he had no choice but to live under someone else's roof.

And of all people, it had to be Huo Jilin.

He had sworn to be mortal enemies with that man, yet here they were.

When you lack the power to stand on your own, every harsh word you've spoken is just empty talk.

Chen Jue glanced down at his protruding belly and curled the corner of his mouth slightly. It wasn't the child's fault—it was his own failure to plan. He hadn't anticipated what was coming, thinking that once Huo Lin was dead, he could take his time to plan.

Wrong. Completely wrong. When the village hooligans gathered everyone to drive him out, he should have woken up and found himself another escape route. Even a rabbit has three burrows—how much more so should a man?

He hadn't prepared properly, so now he could only live under someone else's roof.

Huo Jilin came in from outside carrying a basket of radishes, carrots, and greens.

Was he planning to feed all of this to the horse?

That vegetable patch wouldn't last a few days of this. Chen Jue felt a pang of resentment—all his hard work watering that garden had been for someone else's gain.

As he was thinking this, he watched Huo Jilin say to the horse stretching its neck: "You want more carrots? In your dreams!"

With that, he carried the basket into the kitchen.

Huo Jilin's swearing showed just how irritated he was.

The horse raised its head and snorted, flaring its nostrils, and Chen Jue watched it, not knowing what to say.

This horse was the nemesis Huo Jilin had chosen for himself.

Huo Jilin made dinner again. Of the takeout they'd brought back earlier, Uncle Liu had only taken half, leaving enough for one meal.

Huo Jilin cooked a pot of vegetable and lean pork congee. It was genuinely good—filled with minced pork, carrot chunks, green radish cubes, and chopped bok choy. It was easy on the eyes and delicious too.

Better than the leftover takeout they'd brought back. No matter what the dish, freshly cooked is always the best.

Chen Jue ate without lifting his head. Huo Jilin asked him, "Is it good?"

Chen Jue nodded. "Good."

Huo Jilin chuckled softly. "Not going to say anything else?"

Though he asked, he knew Chen Jue wouldn't waste words with him, so he simply picked up his own blue-and-white coarse ceramic bowl and drank his congee.

But this time, Chen Jue actually responded. He looked at Huo Jilin curiously. "Is cooking skill something you're born with? How did you learn to cook?"

Someone like Huo Jilin, born with a golden spoon in his mouth, shouldn't need to cook for himself, right?

Huo Jilin paused, looking back at Chen Jue, who was watching him with a serious expression. He genuinely believed Huo Jilin had been born knowing how to cook.

Huo Jilin didn't know what to say. Of course he hadn't been born knowing how to cook. Who would willingly cook if they weren't forced to?

He'd been born with every privilege—not only did he not need to cook, he'd even disdain it if servants tried to feed him.

But then he'd spent three years in the army.

One of those three years was spent on brutal wilderness training exercises.

The wilderness training was hard enough, but the food was inhumane.

His comrades went from eating raw ant eggs and grasshoppers to eating raw snakes and raw rats—they ate their way through an entire food chain.

Huo Jilin couldn't accept that. He'd spent twenty years in a household of luxury and refinement.

That was when he was forced to hone his cooking skills.

When a person is pushed to a certain point, they start doing things themselves.

Just like when he joined the military.

To secure the inheritance rights of the Huo family, he needed a military medal.

His father was a Party member who had served three years in the army, and Huo Jilin was replicating his father's path. Because the pharmaceutical company was a monopoly controlled by the state.

He needed a politically impeccable background.

And it proved to be the right choice. By the time he graduated from military academy and returned home with military honors, he was seated beside his father.

Three years later, he entered Zhonghai Hospital, using it as a pilot site to begin a new chapter for Huachen Pharmaceutical.

Holding up the nation's banner, he pushed forward with cutting-edge medical research. Going his own way, he had crushed everyone who tried to block his path, using Chen Jue as a warning example.

He believed it wouldn't be long before the 520 in-vitro embryo technology succeeded, and Huachen Pharmaceutical would enter a new era because of him.

Unfortunately, it all fell through.

He would never see that new era. He didn't know who would end up with the Huachen Pharmaceutical he had built with his own hands. Everything he had done was for someone else's benefit.

All his efforts—like drawing water with a bamboo basket.

His plane went down.

Huo Jilin slowly tightened his grip on the chopsticks, unable to keep thinking. Every time he got to this point, his mind just hit a wall.

The familiar tightness in his chest came right on cue. Huo Jilin looked at Chen Jue's face and took a slow breath, not wanting to dwell on the things that made it hard to breathe.

Look on the bright side.

Those three years in the military had been useful—at least they'd helped him survive on this brutal ancient battlefield.

He'd survived in this ancient world.

Huo Jilin, seeing Chen Jue still waiting for his reply, said casually, "It's talent. Not something just anyone can learn."

Chen Jue ignored him and went back to burying his face in his porridge.

Huo Jilin watched him eat—elegant but definitely not slow—and cleared his throat, "Eat something else. Have another duck leg?"

Good grief, he'd thought Chen Jue wasn't picky, since he'd even eaten the pig slop he'd cooked himself.

But now that there was fresh food, he wouldn't touch a single bite of the leftovers.

Chen Jue took a polite bite of meat. The duck leg had gone cold and wasn't as good as when it was warm.

But you couldn't reheat the duck leg either—it'd get a gamey smell.

So it was better to just stick with the pot of lean meat porridge.

The rice grains were really good. Aside from a little glutinous rice during the Dragon Boat Festival, he hadn't had rice in ages.

This region did grow rice, but not much. It was still up north, where wheat was more common than rice. The little rice that was grown went to taxes, and whatever was left was sold to buy coarse grains instead.

After four months of living here, Chen Jue had come to understand how hard life was for the common folk.

Huo Jilin ended up not fighting Chen Jue for the last bowl of porridge. He looked at Chen Jue's belly, like he wanted to say something but held back. This was the first time he'd been so torn up over a stomach.

Chen Jue knew he kept staring at his belly and didn't care about his lack of manners. By the time they finished eating, it was almost dark.

Chen Jue brought the other herbs drying in the yard back inside. The altar table in the main hall had long since become his spot for bamboo trays.

Huo Jilin was still in a standoff with his nemesis, the horse, wondering if he should use his usual "King of Hell" rep to cow it.

Anyway, by the time Chen Jue had washed his feet and climbed onto the kang, Huo Jilin finally came inside.

He was radiating cold air, clearly having lost the battle.

That meant he hadn't broken the horse.

Chen Jue looked at his ever-stony face and didn't bother with him, yawning as he got ready to sleep.

Huo Jilin was particular about his hygiene too. By the time he got back, Chen Jue was already out cold. He'd slept all day on the road, yet he could still conk out this early at night.

Huo Jilin stared at his face for a bit as he moved the little kang table aside.

In the middle of the night, Chen Jue woke up because the kang was too hot. He'd dreamed he was being steamed like a bun in a bamboo steamer.

Clutching his round belly, he rolled over hard and suddenly woke up. It wasn't a bun at all—it was his stomach, plain and simple.

What the hell was going on?!

Why was it getting hotter and hotter in the dead of night?

Chen Jue sat on the kang for a moment before he was fully awake. Only then did he realize someone was feeding the fire under the kang. Huo Jilin was up in the middle of the night feeding the fire!

Was he out of his mind?

Chen Jue sat on the kang, not wanting to get off at all. It was the middle of the night and he was exhausted, nowhere near caught up on sleep.

But the kang was definitely getting hotter and hotter. He was sleeping at the head of the kang, right where it was hottest.

Just as he was about to get off the kang, he saw Huo Jilin finally step out of the kitchen.

He carried a bucket of hot water over to the horse, which was standing there asleep.

So he was heating water to give his nemesis a bath.

Horses have terrible night vision—basically blind in the dark—so compared to its daytime fussing, the horse was calm at night.

Chen Jue leaned against the window and watched for a bit.

With the Mid-Autumn Festival approaching, the moon was getting fuller and brighter, enough to light up this little courtyard in his corner of the world.

Huo Jilin's technique was surprisingly gentle. He didn't take out the horse's stubbornness on it now that it was docile.

He patiently mixed warm water, rinsed it over and over, and used a clean piece of linen, wringing it out repeatedly to wipe the horse down. He truly treated it like an ancestor.

The look he'd given it during the day, threatening with his eyes "just you wait, I'll deal with you properly," seemed to have been forgotten.

Watching someone brush a horse turned out to be a soothing activity. The horse was tall enough, and Huo Jilin had a bit of obsessive-compulsive disorder—he had to wash it thoroughly from head to tail. Who knew how long it had been since this horse had last had a bath? Huo Jilin washed it a full three times.

No wonder he'd stoked the kang so hot. He hadn't just boiled one pot—he'd boiled several. He filled the basins and buckets first, then kept a pot warming over the fire.

When Huo Jilin wanted to do something well, he was very methodical. That was also why, in his previous life, no one could stop him once he decided to do something.

He had enough confidence in himself, clear logic, and executed with unwavering determination.

Chen Jue watched him for a while and got sleepy again. He yawned, and after seeing Huo Jilin finally dry the horse and apply medicine, Chen Jue crawled back under the covers. By then, the kang wasn't as hot anymore—just right. Chen Jue drifted back to sleep.

The next day, Huo Jilin was up early again. As soon as Chen Jue stepped outside, he saw the horse.

The chestnut horse, now washed clean, basked in the sunlight, every hair seeming to glow.

Although he'd expected the horse to look handsome after a good wash, it still stunned him.

A fine horse—truly a fine horse.

Unfortunately, its temper was still just as stubborn. It still wouldn't let Huo Jilin mount it. Every time Huo Jilin tried to get on, it would kick its hind legs.

Huo Jilin saw that Chen Jue was up and stopped his standoff with the horse, going instead to cook.

After they ate, he said to Chen Jue, "You go ahead along this road. I'll take it for a walk."

He pointed to the road in the opposite direction.

The mountains here were continuous. Huo Jilin planned to run a round trip.

Today he had to break it, or else what was the point of buying this horse—to keep it as an ancestor?

Huo Jilin gripped the riding whip in his hand. The horse had stirred up a long-dormant fighting spirit in him. He wanted to race.

Chen Jue watched that one-of-a-kind horse and couldn't help but remind him, "Your shoulder injury hasn't healed up yet. You should ease up."

Huo Jilin shook his head and led the horse in the opposite direction.

Chen Jue watched him mount, and the horse took off with him toward the wild grassland behind their house.

That area was huge, all waist-high weeds. If he fell, he'd probably live.

Chen Jue thought.

He still stood there watching for a while.

That horse really lived up to its rep as a twice-rejected mount—it flat-out refused to let anyone on its back. Chen Jue watched it rear up and kick out its back legs with Huo Jilin on it. When it couldn't buck him off, it spun him in circles.

The wild grassland was churned up by the man and horse like a lake that had just exploded.

Like a wrestling ring in a field—total chaos.

Luckily, they lived far from the other villagers, or it would've drawn attention.

Past that wild field was a cemetery, so few people came by.

Huo Jilin spent the whole morning going toe-to-toe with that horse.

That horse was a real wildcard—like it had a personal grudge against Huo Jilin, trying every trick in the book to buck him off.

Chen Jue watched, dumbfounded. He knew how to ride himself, and whenever he had free time, he'd take a few laps at the riding stable. He'd seen plenty of wild horse-riding moments, but never anything like this.

More than once, Huo Jilin was about to fall off. The last time, Chen Jue watched him drop from the horse and thought he'd finally been thrown, but Huo Jilin managed to swing back up from under the horse's belly—a clean leg-swing mount that took real skill.

Chen Jue figured Huo Jilin knew what he was doing—good enough that he wouldn't get himself killed. So he hoisted his basket onto his back and headed for the mountain.

About half an hour later, he heard the sound of hooves. Huo Jilin came riding up on that horse.

The horse was still moving at a fast clip. Chen Jue stepped aside into the bushes to let it pass first. From the way it was moving with him, it seemed Huo Jilin had gotten it under control.

Makes sense—after that all-out battle for an hour, even if the guy wasn't worn out, the horse had to be.

The horse pulled up in front of him. Huo Jilin reined it in and held out his hand to Chen Jue: "Hop on, I'll give you a ride. Don't worry, I've got it trained now."

Oh, yeah?

Chen Jue looked at the horse holding its head high in front of him and almost laughed. This horse wasn't broken—it had picked its rider. That whole fight earlier was it testing Huo Jilin, and him not getting thrown meant he'd passed.

Not bad. A horse with character.

Chen Jue reached out and wiped the sweat from its forehead, shaking his head: "Nah, I'm heading up the mountain soon. Let it rest a bit."