Xu Huaqian's heart instantly warmed. It wasn't hard to tell from Chen Jinhu's t that this cloak was something Chen Liejiu had prepared for him, and it had been planned a long time ago.
How could his husband be so good?
Xu Huaqian's heart felt like a blossoming flower, blooming endlessly inside—not because of the warm cloak, but because he had such a wonderful husband.
"Little Brother, Little Brother, what about mine?" Chen Xiaomei couldn't understand the silent exchange between Xu Huaqian and Chen Liejiu. She only saw that Xu Huaqian had a cloak and figured she must have something too, so she kept chattering at Chen Jinhu.
"Every has something, every." Chen Jinhu had bought gifts for every.
For Chen Xiaomei, it was a pair of very pretty bells to tie on her little hair buns, eye-catching and novel.
For Chen Liejiu, it was a new dagger.
For Xu Huaqian, it was a wolf-hair brush.
He didn't take out Wang Wanwan's gift, knowing it was meant for their private moment as a young couple. Xu Huaqian and Chen Liejiu smiled and didn't say anything.
"I, I, I'll go cook." Seeing every teasing her, Wang Wanwan's face was so flushed it was almost unbearable to look at. She found an excuse to escape.
"Make more," Chen Liejiu called after her. "Today we have double reasons to celebrate—not only Little Tiger's return but also your Second Brother's recovered eyesight."
"—Huh?!"
Chen Liejiu's words were like a bolt from the blue, startling Wang Wanwan and Chen Xiaomei. They both looked at Xu Huaqian's eyes simultaneously, expressing the same confusion: "When did Second Brother's eyes get better?!"
"Right when Little Tiger came home." Seeing their astonished expressions, Xu Huaqian smiled, not blaming them for not noticing.
In that situation, any would have overlooked him, but his husband didn't. Sob, his husband was so good.
"Great! Great! Today is such a good day!" Chen Xiaomei, seeing the clarity in Xu Huaqian's eyes, was so happy she almost jumped up. She immediately said generously to Wang Wanwan, "Sister-in-law, today we kill a chicken!"
Wang Wanwan nodded emphatically: "Okay." A good day calls for good food to celebrate.
That night, well-fed and content, Xu Huaqian and Chen Liejiu lay in bed, both smiling at each other.
Chen Liejiu gently stroked the area around Xu Huaqian's smiling eyes: "I thought your eyes wouldn't recover before our wedding."
"How could that be?" He hadn't seen Chen Liejiu's first heat flush; if he couldn't see for their first wedding too, Xu Huaqian felt he would vomit blood in frustration.
"It's wonderful." Chen Liejiu caressed Xu Huaqian's eyes and sighed. His brother was back, A-Qian's eyes were better—everything was improving except for the family's lack of my.
"Yes, it's wonderful." Being able to see his A-Jiu again, Xu Huaqian also felt incredibly happy. His husband was so good-looking; if he were blind forever, he would die of regret.
Xu Huaqian described to Chen Liejiu: "A-Jiu, I must give you a very special wedding."
His husband was so good to him; he couldn't not give him something in return.
He had already thought it through: their wedding didn't need to be extravagantly grand, but it must astonish every.
"...Ahem," Chen Liejiu coughed lightly and very sheepishly told Xu Huaqian some bad news. "A-Qian, the family has no my left."
Not only was there no my, but he also owed quite a bit of debt. He was even considering scaling back their wedding.
"...Huh?" Immersed in the joy of the upcoming wedding, Xu Huaqian was stunned by Chen Liejiu's words for a moment before coming back to his senses. "I know, didn't I set aside some my?"
When they returned from the prefectural city, they had three hundred taels of silver left. One hundred was reserved for Xu Huaqian's medicine and medical care, hundred was used for road repair, and the remaining hundred was set aside by Xu Huaqian for their wedding.
He thought that once the road was built, Chen Liejiu's bricks should also be ready, and the returns would surely cover their daily expenses.
"...That cloak."
Chen Liejiu only said those two words, and Xu Huaqian understood. The cloak had used up their wedding my.
He couldn't blame his husband. Originally, the family's my should have been enough no matter what. He just didn't expect his body to be so troublesome.
Something always happened just as things were getting better.
Xu Huaqian didn't remember where he heard this saying: if every is fine when there's no my, but problems arise when the family has my, then it's better to stay poor, because spending my can ensure peace.
"It's fine. Wealth departs, peace arrives." Xu Huaqian was quite philosophical about it. Besides, the weather was getting colder, and he could less and less tolerate being outside. Having a cloak would expand his range of activity significantly. How good was that?
"Then what about our wedding?" Chen Liejiu, who never usually worried about my, was genuinely worried this time. No matter what, he couldn't give Xu Huaqian an extremely perfunctory wedding and birthday banquet.
"...Why hasn't there been any movement with our charcoal?" Mentioning this, Xu Huaqian was puzzled.
He had sent white charcoal to all his influential friends and relatives who could afford good charcoal, but sending it out was like a st sinking into the sea—there was no response at all.
Could it be that ten taels per cartload was really too expensive?
Chen Liejiu also sighed. He originally thought that sending out such good charcoal would bring a steady stream of business, just like the black charcoal did. He never expected it to go silent after being sent out.
Otherwise, they would have enough my for everything now.
It showed that business wasn't always smooth sailing.
"Don't worry. There are ways to live poor and ways to live rich. Difficulties are temporary; maybe a bigger surprise is waiting for us." After all, Xu Huaqian was a man. Although he usually relied on his husband, now that his husband was in difficulty, he couldn't just act helpless and pitiful.
He pulled himself together and calculated: the wedding banquet for him and A-Jiu wouldn't be expensive. Village folks didn't need delicacies; ten taels could host a wedding that would have the whole village singing its praises for decades, let al other things.
The my for the wedding Xu Huaqian wanted to arrange for Chen Liejiu was spent on decorations—buying knot thread, red silk, which were expensive.
The knot thread was manageable. Last time, when Pei Wangshu sent people to learn knot-making from him, he bought a lot from him cheaply. But red silk was another matter.
Silk was expensive. No matter how thick-skinned he was, he couldn't keep taking advantage of Pei Wangshu.
If they couldn't use red silk—
"Then use red paper," Xu Huaqian instantly thought of a solution. "I can see now too. We can save a lot of my by replacing red silk with red paper."
"A-Jiu," Xu Huaqian held Chen Liejiu's hand and smiled happily, "See? Problem solved."
"How would we use red paper?" Chen Liejiu was stunned, unable to imagine how to arrange a wedding with red paper.
Originally, he and Xu Huaqian had fantasized about being like wealthy families, decorating the whole house festively with red silk. His A-Qian would be the happy groom that day.
But now it seemed he had almost messed it up.
"Don't worry about it; you'll know when the time comes." Xu Huaqian kept it a secret. They say it's better for the wedding to be arranged by the bride, with the groom not involved. But Xu Huaqian thought, since he was marrying into Chen Liejiu's family, wasn't he the "bride"?
Letting this "bride" handle such matters, Chen Liejiu could just be a hands-off manager and wait to get married.
Xu Huaqian told Chen Liejiu not to worry, but Chen Liejiu still did. The next morning, he stopped working on the road and directly took people to sell charcoal in another county.
It was the beginning of winter. If white charcoal couldn't be sold, couldn't he sell black charcoal?
No matter what, he had to create the wedding Xu Huaqian wanted.
While they were talking in this room, Wang Wanwan and Chen Jinhu in the other room were also talking.
The difference was, slept on the bed, the other on a floor mat.
There was no other way; they were too young. Allowing them to have an early romance was already Xu Huaqian and Chen Liejiu being generous and open-minded. Allowing them to sleep together would be too beyond acceptable.
"Wanwan, I will also give you a proper wedding in the future." Returning this time, Chen Jinhu found everything at home different. After hearing Wang Wanwan describe what kind of wedding Second Brother wanted to give Big Brother, he was even more motivated.
"It's fine, what we have now is also very good." Wang Wanwan wasn't envious at all.
Every has their own destiny. Some like Big Brother deserved some like Second Brother.
As for her, being able to have a husband like A-Hu and a family like Big Brother, Second Brother, and Little Sister in this lifetime was already enough for her.
"I bought you a hairpin; see if it's pretty." Although Chen Jinhu earned quite a bit from this escort job, after buying gifts for the family, he didn't have much left. The remaining my was spent on this silver hairpin for Wang Wanwan. He took it out from his pocket and handed it to her.
Wang Wanwan took the wooden box from the bed and opened it. Inside was a silver hairpin in the style of an orchid. It wasn't very intricate, but it was beautiful.
"It's very pretty." Wang Wanwan took it out and pinned it in her hair. In the middle of the night, you couldn't see anything, but she was still very happy.
"As long as you like it." Even through the quilt, Chen Jinhu could hear Wang Wanwan's happiness. Seeing her happy made him happy.
During the escort trip, he had been thinking about Wang Wanwan constantly.
Thinking about her every smile and frown.
He didn't know why, but during that trip, he and Big Brother were resting at a temple—temple guest rooms were cheaper than inns, and the vegetarian meals were cheap too—they planned to stay night and leave.
Unexpectedly, they encountered bandits causing trouble down the mountain. That day, he saw Wang Wanwan in a light yellow dress being captured by bandits, her face full of despair as she cried. He immediately begged Big Brother to let him go save her.
Those in the escort business actually believed in avoiding trouble whenever possible. For bandit troubles like this, as long as they weren't targeted, it was best not to get involved.
But that day, Chen Jinhu didn't know what came over him; he really wanted to save her. Thinking about what a weak young woman like Wang Wanwan might endure if taken by bandits, he felt compelled to rescue her.
Although Big Brother didn't approve of his actions, he still agreed to report it to the authorities.
But the authorities were too slow. By the time they gathered people to rescue her, it would be too late.
As a last resort, he and Big Brother had to lead the agency men up the mountain first.
Fortunately, it wasn't a large bandit stronghold. The bandits were flashy but useless—impressive to look at but ineffective—and were easily cut down.
When Big Brother rescued Wang Wanwan wrapped in a blanket, Chen Jinhu didn't dare imagine what would have happened if they had been any later.
What he didn't expect was that even after rescuing her, it was in vain. Wanwan's family actually didn't want her because she had been captured by bandits.
He wanted to take her in, but their little sister was still fostered with another family. What could he do even if he took her in?
Unexpectedly, Big Brother saw his thoughts. He didn't know what he said to Wanwan, but afterwards, Wanwan wiped the dejection from her face, ran up to him, and said firmly: "I am willing to marry you, and I will never regret it."
At that time, Chen Jinhu didn't know what he felt. He only knew that some like him, born with a limp, would never have found a wife from a modest family like Wang Wanwan without this accident.
Since she was willing to marry him, he would cherish her with all his strength for the rest of his life.