Xiaoxiao felt quite good after parting with Yang Ming that evening and even had a sound sleep. She thought the insomnia the night before must have been due to not being used to it yet.
Early the next morning, Xiaoxiao sought out Yang Dong, "Fourth Brother, could you rush the ox cart for me these next few days? I need to go to the County."
"Mm, Third Sister-in-Law, I’m on my way."
And so the two of them made their way to the Xiangxiang Cloth Shop in the county. "Fourth Brother, I’ve got to be here for the whole day. Why don’t you head back home first? I can take the ox cart back by myself tonight!"
"No need. I don’t have anything else to do, so I might as well wait here."
"Why don’t you go stroll around the streets?" Xiaoxiao felt that asking Yang Dong to come was a mistake. She would have been better off paying for the ox cart herself. She was truly stubborn and couldn’t shake off her old habits—she was the type who wouldn’t take public transportation once she had her own car.
"There’s nothing much to look at, I’ll just wait here. You go on with your business."
Yang Dong ended up staying, sitting there waiting nonstop until noon, when Wang Xiangxiang offered to take them out for lunch. Xiaoxiao declined, "No, thank you. My husband said he would come over at noon and take us out for lunch."
"..." Recognizing that her husband was coming, Wang Xiangxiang tactfully refrained from insisting any further.
Yang Ming was already waiting outside, and just the thought of seeing his wife these next few days lifted his spirits involuntarily.
Upon spotting his wife coming out, he immediately went up to greet her, "Xiaoxiao..."
Before he could finish speaking, he saw Yang Dong follow behind her and his face darkened in an instant.
But Yang Dong was clueless about the situation, "Third Brother, where are you taking us for lunch?"
Yang Ming didn’t respond, instead he turned to ask Xiaoxiao, "Xiaoxiao, what do you feel like eating?"
"Let’s go for noodles." Xiaoxiao thought they’d better not dine at a restaurant—it was quite expensive. They might as well eat something simple to tide them over.
The three of them ended up at a noodle shop and ordered three bowls of shredded pork noodles.
Actually, the taste wasn’t bad at all. Hand-pulled noodles are indeed much tastier than dried ones. Xiaoxiao enjoyed her meal thoroughly, Yang Dong even more so, devouring his food ravenously, while only Yang Ming seemed to have difficulty swallowing his food.
He kept feeling that it wasn’t easy to get a meal with his wife, so why did they have to bring the Fourth Brother along?
"Third Sister-in-Law, without me this time, how will I ever get to do business again?"
"..." Yang Dong obviously had this matter on his mind constantly. He might seem easy-going usually, but he became a different person when it came to business.
"You? Start by learning to read!"
"I can already recognize about a hundred characters now."
"..." A hundred characters isn’t much; even modern children under two can do it. He’s already proud of his hundred or so characters, "Come back when you can recognize three thousand."
"Three thousand? How much is that?" Yang Dong, still eating, asked nonchalantly!
"You don’t even know what three thousand is and you want to do business? Who’s really doing the business here, you or the business itself?"
"..." Yang Ming had been dark-faced from the start, but his mood grew even darker upon hearing his wife’s words. They were outside, and she was speaking her mind without reserve.
Xiaoxiao and Yang Dong didn’t mind at all and continued their conversation, while the patrons at the other tables looked at the three of them with a peculiar gaze.
Feeling the staring eyes of others, Yang Ming lost his appetite. He kicked both his wife and younger brother under the table, gesturing for them to keep it down, to lower their voices.
But just after he kicked them, he heard both of them say in unison,
"Why are you kicking me?"
"Why are you kicking me?"
Yang Ming couldn’t help feeling that his younger brother and his wife were becoming more and more alike, which made him helpless. On the surface, he remained calm, "Keep your voices down, you two."