Shao Yunan’s smile could blind people. ”These silver taels are your military pay?” Wang Shijing looked back at Shao Yunan. “No. The military pay for three years only adds up to a dozen taels. The general I followed was very brave and seized a lot of money when he wiped out several mountain bandits who left a lot of money behind. I pawned some jewelry for silver.” After a moment, he also added truthfully, “The rest of the jewelry was originally intended to be left to Qing’s mother. Now that his mother and I have divorced, what do you think about these jewels?”

Shao Yunan closed the lid of the box and asked, “Do you hate your ex-wife?” Wang Shijing shook his head. “No, I don’t. Her life was too bitter. She was a kind-hearted and hardworking woman, but in my family her life was not easy, especially when I was not around. I can only apologize to her.”

Do you still love your ex-wife? Shao Yunan swallowed this sentence and just asked curiously, “How did you collect all these things, that they were not discovered?” Wang Shijing clenched his fist, his voice lowering a bit. “I didn’t bring it home. I found a place to hide it before I came back to the village.”

So a child could be taught!

“My parents don’t like me and by extension, they don’t like Song and my two children. When I was still there I was able to protect her. But when I was gone, because she was soft natured her life became even worse. Since she wanted to go, I am also willing to let her go free. Yunan, in the past I could not help myself, but now, I am already separated from my family. Since you are my wife, from now on you are in charge of the family.”

When he said these things, Wang Shijing’s expression was calm. He had already known for a long time that he was not liked in his family. He did not even have the slightest resentment for Song’s departure from the family.

Shao Yunan did not find himself blushing because of the other party saying, ‘You are my wife,’ but he suddenly no longer dared to directly look into Wang Shijing’s eye and just pretended to ask casually, “Since you have given me all your belongings, are you not afraid that I would run away? We’ve only been married for a few days.” Shao Yunan didn’t think much of Wang Shijing’s ex-wife.

“You won’t.”

“How do you know I won’t?” Shao Yunan raised his eyes unconvinced, but met a deep gaze that made his heart beat a little faster. “I know you won’t.” Wang Shijing said seriously. “You are a capable person. My appearance is ruined. I am blind in one eye and I have two children. I am not worthy of you and in this marriage you are aggrieved.”

Shao Yunan subconsciously mumbled, “I’m not a woman. What’s the point of being aggrieved? It’s good that you have children, so I don’t have to give birth to them.” Yuck yuck! Why was he talking about giving birth to a child? Shao Yunan hurriedly rushed to change the subject. “Why don’t you ask me where I got the money today?”

Wang Shijing glanced at Shao Yunan’s red earlobes and said, “I believe your money comes from the right place. If you want to tell me, you can tell me. But if you don’t want to, I won’t ask you.” After a pause he added, “There are also other people from the village that joined the army, but they weren’t with me. However, they know about military pay. I am the eldest son and since my family wasn’t separated, I knew that I couldn’t keep the money to myself. Originally, I wanted to give my parents some money, but when I came back to see Qing and Nizi like this and Song left, I said that my military pay was used to treat my wounds.”

“If I buy land to build a house, my family’s side will make trouble again. But now that you said that it was money made from selling stones, it would be difficult for others to ask how much money they were sold for. Even if they are curious, this money can be used. We will have a busy farming period soon. I want to buy some land and renovate the house, otherwise it will be very difficult to survive the winter. We can only build a new house at the beginning of spring.”

Shao Yunan thought that Wang Shijing would be like Wang Dali, kind of like a stuffy gourd, so he didn’t expect him to talk with him about these things, with every sentence very clear. But the main thing was that he was not a foolish and filial person. No matter what era, there are plenty of people who are stupid when it come to filial piety. 

Men who have their own ideas in the feudal ancient society and take care of their children and family could really be regarded as good men. But this is also the luck of this era. There was no Dong Zhongshu who ‘dismissed a hundred non-Confucian scholars from the government.’ Although there was some similarity to Confucianism, in general it was enlightened with all kinds of ideas that could be practiced in the world.

The State of Great Yan also advocated filial piety, but not to the extent that it developed into a monstrous kind of horrible period where filial piety could kill children at will. Clans and families existed and had a certain power, but they were still restricted by the law… not allowing the father to be unkind, but not the son to be unfilial. Otherwise, how could Wang Shijing get his freedom with marriage? If parents wanted you to marry, not to mention separating from the family without death. Shao Yunan was so reckless that he would have been killed a long time ago, but now it was up to him to make a decision with his family.

Wang Shijing was forced to get married, but now he gave all his savings to the person he had married for only three days. Since he married this person, he would give him his trust and sincerely want to live a good life with him. Shao Yunan had never met such a person in modern society. If Shao Yunan was upset at the thought of this marriage and this strange ‘husband’ when he first arrived, now he could calmly deal with this unfamiliar marriage.

Shao Yunan pulled over his bag of money and opened it. Wang Shijing’s one eye became obviously surprised. With just a glance he found that there were hundreds of taels of silver. He never thought Shao Yunan would have so much money. It was definitely not given to him by the Shao family and must have been earned by selling stones. How else could he have so much money?

Shao Yunan opened the box and put all of his silver in it, leaving only the copper coins. Wang Shijing’s one eye flashed as Shao Yunan looked at him and said, “At home you’ll not wear a eye patch, it’s uncomfortable to wear it.” Wang Shijing tightened his jaw and said in a deep voice, “It will scare you.” Shao Yunan said, “I am a big man, how could I still be afraid of your scars?”

Wang Shijing looked profoundly at Shao Yunan before he raised his hand to take off his eye patch. Then Shao Yunan saw Wang Shijing’s injured eyes for the first time. The scar came down vertically and horizontally from the center of Wang Shijing’s left eye. There was some dirt in the corner of Wang Shijing’s left eye, which didn’t seem to be very good.

Seeing Shao Yunan’s calm expression, Wang Shijing breathed a sigh of relief. Shao Yunan then asked, “Can’t you see at all?” Wang Shijing said in a low voice, “It’s all black. The military doctor said it was useless.” Shao Yunan felt a little uncomfortable. He got out of bed, put on his shoes and went out. Wang Shijing watched him leave, squeezing the eye patch in his hand out of shape.

Shao Yunan went to the kitchen. After closing the door, he used his mind to take some spiritual water into the washbasin. There was only one drop of spiritual milk all day so Shao Yunan didn’t plan to use it. In the basin, he scooped up two more ladles of water from the water tank and put some more spiritual water in the tank. Then Shao Yunan took a cloth towel and went out.

Edited by: Jaisland

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