Chapter 209_1
If it were just a minor tiff, Lin Yue, even after knowing it was Erhu who made the soup, would usually pretend to be unaware and drink it, perhaps even appreciating the thoughtfulness of Erhu. However, this time she was genuinely angry, no bowl of soup could appease her irritation, so she only took a sip before putting the soup down.
"Sister-in-law, I’d like to rest now. Please leave the soup here; I’ll drink it later." If not for the reluctance to hear Mrs. Liu’s tedious lectures, Lin Yue might have asked her to take the soup away immediately. Even so, she had no intention of drinking any more of it.
"Alright, you rest well, I’ll go out for now." Seeing Lin Yue’s reaction, Mrs. Liu was certain she had tasted that the soup was made by Erhu. Thus, she did not urge Lin Yue any further but went to the kitchen with the uneaten lunch and told Erhu about Lin Yue’s response.
After Erhu had made the soup and Mrs. Liu took it to Lin Yue, he had been waiting in the kitchen. Seeing Mrs. Liu return so quickly and with the lunch brought back untouched, Erhu was heartbroken. Yet, seeing that the soup he had made was not taken out, Erhu felt somewhat relieved. Observing Erhu’s expression, Mrs. Liu seemed to understand his thoughts.
"Erhu, I don’t think your wife drank more than a sip of the soup, saying she wanted to rest and would drink it later. But I reckon she doesn’t plan to drink it at all. She probably didn’t insist on taking it out just because she didn’t want to hurt my feelings. Did she perhaps taste something off in the soup?" Mrs. Liu deliberately added that comment while looking at Erhu’s increasingly troubled face.
Strictly speaking, Erhu was Dahu’s own brother, but in Mrs. Liu’s heart, she sided with Lin Yue. Being a woman, her way of thinking and her concerns differed from her husband’s. She saw the practical side of things. Although Dahu claimed their family was living comfortably thanks to his brother’s help, Mrs. Liu believed the key was actually Lin Yue.
Over the years, the two brothers weren’t very close, and their interactions had lessened even more in recent years. It was only after Lin Yue became part of the family that the brothers’ bond began to heal. The fact that Erhu now asked his elder brother to help him with the work at home was likely influenced by Lin Yue.
Otherwise, with Erhu being so close to Wu Qiang—having grown up together and sharing a bond even tighter than that of real brothers—it might not have been Dahu who ended up helping. Their household might still be struggling as before. Let alone how well Lin Yue treated everyone in the family on a daily basis—if Dalang and his brothers had something, Afu and Alin would too, not to mention Qiuqiu, the only daughter.