Chapter 15: Husband, Are You Going to Abandon Me?!

Just as Zhao Chujio was preparing to eavesdrop a little longer, two copper coins flew straight at his face through the crack of the door.

“Go buy some sweets,” Jiang Chengyan’s deep voice pressed down on him.

Zhao Chujio pursed his lips, unimpressed, and muttered, “It’s only medicine—what’s so fragile about that? Are you marrying a wife or worshipping an ancestor?”

No sooner had he finished speaking than Bai Yan, who had just been retching miserably, retrieved a small carrot from beneath the covers and hurled it at the crack in the door. By a stroke of ill luck, it landed squarely on Zhao Chujio’s head.

Unaware that it was Bai Yan who had thrown it, Zhao Chujio assumed it was Jiang Chengyan. As he strode off to buy the sweets, he grumbled under his breath, “You’re something else, man—choosing your girl over your friends!”

Once Zhao Chujio had left, Jiang Chengyan, seeing Bai Yan had stopped vomiting, used a handkerchief to gently wipe her lips, while with his other hand, he lifted her pillow.

Beneath it, two dewy little carrots lay quietly.

“Don’t they poke uncomfortably?” Jiang Chengyan raised a brow, glancing at the pale-faced young woman.

Bai Yan shook her head vigorously.

“Last night you were farting—smelled just like carrots.” Jiang Chengyan, his hands leisurely tidying Bai Yan’s hair, uttered words so mortifying she wished she could sink into the ground.

Bai Yan was speechless, mortified. She could never show her face again. It must have been all those carrots she’d eaten.

Her face, which had been pale from nausea, now flushed with embarrassment.

In a flash, her small hand pushed both carrots toward Jiang Chengyan and she muttered dejectedly, “I don’t want them anymore. Not at all.”

“You were a rabbit in your last life, after all. There’s nothing wrong with liking carrots. They’re good for digestion,” Jiang Chengyan replied, smoothly pushing the carrots back toward her.

“I don’t want them, I don’t want them,” Bai Yan insisted, this time tossing the carrots into Jiang Chengyan’s arms, as if they were something to be avoided at all costs.

“Then I’ll keep them for myself,” Jiang Chengyan said, picking up the two carrots and heading for the kitchen, the sly smile at the corner of his lips never once fading.

With just a few words, he had severed Bai Yan’s attachment to the carrots, while she, still blushing, burrowed further under the quilt.

……

After Zhao Chujio helped buy the sweets, Jiang Chengyan promptly sent him away.

He sat on the edge of the kang, watching as Bai Yan, cheeks puffed out, gulped down the bitter herbal medicine now sweetened with sugar. But the rash on her skin showed no sign of fading after the medicine.

Whether from the illness itself or the exhaustion of another trip to the county town, Bai Yan, after taking her medicine and eating a little, soon drifted into a deep sleep. When she finally woke, her little head turned this way and that, and she realized she was now riding on Jiang Chengyan’s back.

By then, dusk had fallen—the world half-veiled in darkness, and faces on the road were indistinct.

Bai Yan brushed her cheek against Jiang Chengyan’s, curiously asking, “Husband, where are we going?”

Jiang Chengyan didn’t answer, but carried her through another alleyway and stopped in front of a household’s door.

Knock, knock, knock. Jiang Chengyan raised his hand and rapped on the door. Soon, it swung open, and a capable-looking but stern-faced middle-aged woman appeared.

“Aunt Li, I’ll have to trouble you to look after her for the next few days,” Jiang Chengyan said to Li Chunxiang.

Li Chunxiang glanced at the young woman clinging to the man’s back, gave a curt nod, and stepped aside to let Jiang Chengyan enter the courtyard.

As soon as Jiang Chengyan stepped into the courtyard, he felt Bai Yan’s hand pinch his ear.

“Husband, why have you brought me here?”