Whether it was Jiang Zhen or Zhao Jinge, when they came down from the ship and finally stood on the ground, they both felt like the ground was very unstable, as if it was shaking.

This was the aftermath of staying on the ship for a long time.

Although the dock here was quite big, it was not much bigger than the dock in Hecheng County. But, almost all the houses here were bigger than the ones in Hecheng County, and they looked very different.

However, the biggest difference between the two regions was probably the language. The dialect in the south of the Yangtze River was very different from that in the north. When the local men came to talk with them, Zhao Jinge didn’t understand a word.

But Jiang Zhen understood it; the words spoken by the people here were slightly similar to modern Mandarin. As long as they spoke slowly, he could still understand them.

Watching Jiang Zhen communicate with the locals, Zhao Jinge was struggling a bit again . . . Recently, he had finally memorized the multiplication table; his calculation was getting faster and faster, and he could recognize some words, but now . . . He needed to learn how to talk again, it seemed.

He really couldn’t compare with Jiang Zhen in any way. . .

Zhao Jinge was a bit depressed, but after Jiang Zhen held his hand, he became refreshed, and he squeezed back.

When Jiang Zhen held Zhao Jinge’s hand, he was ready to be shaken off, but unexpectedly, Zhao Jinge didn’t . . .

Since Zhao Jingo didn’t shake him off, Jiang Zhen openly held Zhao Jinge’s hand.

People these days were very restrained, and no one would hold hands on the street, so the two of them attracted a lot of attention.

Zhao Jinge discovered this later and hurriedly let go of Jiang Zhen’s hand. At the same time, he felt a little dizzy. He didn’t know what was going on recently, but he always wanted to cling to Jiang Zhen.

“Jinge, let me tell you something.” After Jiang Zhen took Zhao Jinge for a stroll, he suddenly said.

Zhao Jinge looked over in puzzlement.

“You can’t stop me when I want to buy something later. It will make me lose face, do you understand?” Jiang Zhen smiled and looked at Zhao Jinge.

His mother also said that when they are outside, he should give men some face and talk less . . . Zhao Jinge nodded obediently.

“Do you have anything you want to eat?” Jiang Zhen asked again.

Zhao Jinge smelled the steamed meat buns and subconsciously bypassed the steamed bun shop. He then pursed his lips, saying, “I want to eat something sweet.” He especially wanted to eat all kinds of sweet things these days—brown sugar wheat cake, sweet wheat dumplings, and bean paste bun . . . it was all he could think about.

But there were not a lot of ingredients on board, and if the little bit of sugar they had was used just to cook these delicacies for him, it would be too troublesome . . . so he just put up with it and didn’t tell Jiang Zhen.

When he heard that Zhao Jinge wanted to eat something sweet, Jiang Zhen immediately took him to a pastry shop.

The cakes here were made of glutinous rice, which look like glutinous rice rolls or sweet bean paste; there were walnut cakes and mung bean cakes as well. They didn’t look exquisite, but they smelled very sweet.

Jiang Zhen had tasted most of these pastries in modern times. He didn’t like to eat sweet things, so he didn’t react when he saw them, but Zhao Jinge, who had never tried any of these things, looked at them greedily.

When Jiang Zhen saw Zhao Jinge swallowing saliva, he suddenly felt a little heartbroken.

He didn’t have any money before, so he couldn’t let Zhao Jinge eat anything good. He also didn’t know that Zhao Jinge liked to eat sweets. . .

Jiang Zhen was very economical in spending money when he didn’t have any but generous when he did. At present, he said that he will take a kilo of each pastry. In the shop, there were only nine kinds of pastries, so all in the total, it would only weigh nine kilos.

If it weren’t for the fact that the pastries would spoil without a refrigerator, he would not mind buying even more.

Zhao Jinge felt that he should protest buying so much, but then he thought of what Jiang Zhen said before about saving face, so he didn’t say anything.

However, what if Jiang Zhen only said that just to buy more things for him?

Carrying all the pastries in his hands, Zhao Jinge looked at Jiang Zhen happily.

He clenched his teeth, and while others were not looking, he hooked Jiang Zhen’s finger with his own finger.

Jiang Zhen immediately felt that the pastries were worth it.

Jiang Zhen didn’t have any meat when he ate with Zhao Jinge these days. In fact, he really wanted to buy more meat to bring back, but thinking that  Zhao Jinge still couldn’t eat it, he endured.

But Zhao Jinge stopped Jiang Zhen. “Let’s go and buy some chickens. If it’s live chicken, I will be fine with the smell.”

When Jiang Zhen and Zhao Jinge went back, they brought a lot of food and several live chickens with them.

Liu Qianqian and Zhao Lingxi, who weren’t able to go out were lying on the bow of the boat and became jealous when they saw Jiang Zhen return with Zhao Jinge and the pastries he was carrying.

“If my parents hadn’t sold me, I might have been able to marry such a man,” Liu Qianqian couldn’t help but say.

“Who could know.” Zhao Lingxi also sighed. His family was engaged in business and had a little money. He used to make eye contact with the little brother from the shop opposite . . . However, his parents wanted to marry him to a scholar and even let him become a concubine for a man in his forties.

If he married the man he liked, he wouldn’t have to leave his hometown and meet misfortune. He and that person were childhood friends, and he was always very kind to him.

Zhao Lingxi couldn’t help feeling a little melancholic. Of course, they were not jealous of just Zhao Jinge but of all the gers and women with high statuses and strong temperaments who were either killed by bandits or committed suicide in others words too . . . They didn’t think they were much better than Zhao Jinge, and they naturally did not dare to really compete with him.

Zhao Jinge always liked to save good food for last or eat it slowly. But this time, he couldn’t control his appetite for some reason.

After buying the pastries, he ate more than a kilo on the way. After returning to the boat, he couldn’t help eating one piece and another, so after a while, the cakes actually became a third less.

This is . . . When you have money, you can’t help but want to spend money indiscriminately?

Zhao Jinge felt that he ate a little too much and felt very embarrassed, but Jiang Zhen didn’t think there was anything wrong.

Zhao Jinge had never eaten anything good before. Now that he could finally eat something good, it was natural to eat more. But it was not good to eat too much sweets.

“Jinge, it’s all right to eat like this once in a while, but don’t eat like this every day. What will you do if you became fat?”  Jiang Zhen touched Zhao Jinge’s belly. Forget about becoming fat, it was easy to get diabetes if you eat too much sweets.

In modern times, you can at least take medicine if you get diabetes, but it was not the same in ancient times.

Zhao Jinge become anxious when he heard Jiang Zhen’s words.

Yeah, how could he forget about getting fat? If he got fat, Jiang Zhen might no longer like him!

Zhao Jinge knew that Jiang Zhen liked his muscles very much; otherwise, he wouldn’t always touch him. Of course, he should maintain this advantage; otherwise . . . What if Jiang Zhen loses his interest in him?

“I’ll go to training with you tomorrow,” Zhao Jinge said.

Jiang Zhen nodded. If Zhao Jinge insisted on exercising, it wouldn’t matter if he eats more.

As the two men chatted, Xiao Ruo brought out the food to them, and there was chicken in it.

The chicken wasn’t greasy, but seeing Jiang Zhen eating chicken had a small effect on Zhao Jinge, and he was able to try a little piece of the chicken breast.

However, he had a heavy taste lately, and he felt that eating plain chicken breast was not delicious. He had to dip the chicken breast in the sweet and sour fish soup before he could finish it. Unconsciously, Zhao Jinge ate too much again.

He must get up early to exercise tomorrow!

No, he was going to train tonight. That sit-up thing he learned, wasn’t that the exercise that will make his stomach smaller?

Before going to bed at night, Zhao Jinge insisted on doing sit-ups.

Jiang Zhen agreed. “All right, I’ll sit on your lap and help you press them. Let’s do it fifty times first and then two hundred first.”

Zhao Jinge used to be able to do a hundred at a time, but recently, he was not feeling well, so he hadn’t exercised for some time. It was better to not be too intense all at once.

 

Edited by: Faro

Proofreader: XLB

 

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