They rented two vacant rooms from their neighbor, Li Yibao, to store the ferns. The two vacant rooms were thatched huts built next to the main house of the Li family. Li Yibao’s parents used to live there when they were alive.
Villagers said that Li Yibao was unfilial since he didn’t let his parents live in the main house, forcing the elderly couple to live in the thatched huts. When Li Yibao’s parents passed away, the two thatched huts became vacant.
Since the huts were vacant, they were rented to Su Qingyue for twenty cents a month.
While Su Qingyue was purchasing ferns in large amounts, she also hired workers to process all the fresh ferns into dried ferns.
Before going to sleep at night, Xiao Yuchuan beckoned Su Qingyue, “Wife, please come here.”
She walked over, “What’s the matter?”
“Wife, look at my face…” He pitifully pointed at the place where he had been injured a few days ago when he fell in the rain, “Will there be a scar on my face?”
Su Qingyue rolled her eyes. How could such a minor injury leave a scar? It was just a little scrape, not like the wound that Second Brother had, where the bear clawed so deep it was almost down to the bone.
Since she didn’t want Xiao Yuchuan to feel better about it, she nodded solemnly, “Yes. There will be a scar, a big one!”
“Really?” Xiao Yuchuan became distressed, “My dear, if I become disfigured and lose my handsomeness, will you despise me?”
“Of course, I will.” She nodded.
He couldn’t accept it, “Su Qingyue, you must not despise me!”
“I will.” She harrumphed, “If your face gets disfigured, how can I not despise you?”
“Second Brother also has a disfigured face, so do you also…” Xiao Yuchuan glanced at the Second Brother sitting at the other end of the bed and stopped speaking. Seeing that Second Brother’s expression was gloomy, he said, “Second Brother, I didn’t mean it. It’s just my wicked wife, who only liked me when I was handsome. As soon as my face is disfigured, she despises me….”
Upon hearing this, Su Qingyue fumed, “Nonsense! I never liked you even when you were handsome. If your face gets disfigured, I’ll hate you even more!”
After Xiao Yishan’s face was scarred by a bear at the age of 19, he lost any desire for women. If it weren’t for his two younger brothers, Xiao Yishan wouldn’t have minded if there were no women in the Xiao family.
When they brought Qingyue back from the Zhu family, the Third and Fourth Brother insisted that they should not let him be left out. Even if they only had one wife, the three brothers were resigned to share her.
However, the previous Su Qingyue was hated by the three of them. But after returning from the town with serious injuries, the new Su Qingyue made them all feel that their wife was too good, too capable.
Xiao Yishan used to not care about his disfigured face, but he didn’t know when he started caring about his wife’s opinion.
He wanted to ask her, could she accept his left face filled with scratch scars?
Yet, he felt too inferior to ask her.
He coma only stare at her with heavy gaze.
“You’re not allowed to hate me or despise me for my disfigured face!” Xiao Yuchuan yelled angrily.
Su Qingyue didn’t care whether Chuan was angry or not, in fact, the angrier he was, the happier she felt.
“Wife, quickly make me some miracle cure to remove my facial scar…” Xiao Yuchuan became anxious.
‘What a waste of medicine.” She gave him a hopeless look, “Just spit, and smear some saliva on your wound.”
She then turned around and left to sleep in the secondary bedroom.
Behind her, Xiao Yuchuan’s frustrated voice could be heard, “Wife, is smearing saliva really useful…?”
Xiao Yishan, after waiting for his wife to leave, still did not dare to ask her the question he had in his heart. He lay down on the bed with a sullen face, coldly saying, “Go to sleep!”
Only Xiao Qinghe, unconcerned with the matter, remained expressionless with his elegant and handsome face..