A Good Country Wife

Lin Yue held four silver notes, each worth five thousand taels, in her hand, and only then did she feel that the past months of painstaking embroidery in her room had been so worthwhile. That was a whole twenty thousand taels! She had the money to build her manor and to buy a house in the city. There was nothing to worry about. Lin Yue now had the demeanor of someone with enough wealth to do anything, lazily leaning on the lounge chair Zhao Erhu had made for her, her eyes squinting in contentment. She was probably pondering how to spend the money wisely, swinging her right leg over her left in a most leisurely and comfortable manner.

Zhao Erhu, seeing Lin Yue’s tempting little manner, felt an itch in his heart and eagerly edged closer, his hands not remaining idle as they started to roam over Lin Yue’s body. "Wife, what are you thinking about?"

Lin Yue’s mind was still full of various thoughts, and she didn’t pay much attention to Zhao Erhu’s little advances. After all, she had gotten used to Zhao Erhu’s "tofu-eating" antics and failed to notice his increasingly bold moves, not even realizing her undergarment had been untied.

"I’m thinking about how to spend the money. Zhao Erhu, I’m a rich woman now. Twenty thousand taels of silver, truly an overnight fortune. Later, let’s go to the city and inquire if there are any suitable houses to buy. Next spring, Dalang and the others will be off to study, and we need to buy and prepare the house in advance, so they can move into a comfortable home when the time comes."

"Sure, tomorrow your husband will accompany you to the city to have a look. But right now, shouldn’t you be taking good care of your husband first? Be a good wife, let your husband take great care of you," Zhao Erhu said as he swept Lin Yue off the lounge chair into his arms.

"Hey, I don’t want to, Zhao Erhu. Can you not mess around, please? I haven’t even put away my silver notes yet." Lin Yue was in no mood to engage in Zhao Erhu’s playful banter with the arrival of the silver, her mind occupied with a multitude of plans. She wriggled to get out of Zhao Erhu’s embrace but was thrown onto the bed and pinned down.

"The silver notes won’t get lost, wife. Be good, will you? Being such a considerate person, you should think more about your husband. These days, it has been one thing after another. Think about how long it has been since your husband tended to his duties, I have been missing it so much. Just be a good girl and accept it, and afterwards, I’ll do whatever you ask of me," Zhao Erhu said, not waiting for Lin Yue to utter any word of protest before sealing her incessantly babbling mouth.

By the time Lin Yue woke up, it was already the next day. She rubbed her aching small waist, harboring some resentment. Men are just carnivorous beasts, not eating meat for a few meals and they become ferocious. Yesterday, Zhao Erhu really went at it, tormenting her without allowing any pleas for mercy, all the while repeatedly calling her Little Yueyue, forcing her to comply over and over. Lin Yue understood that Zhao Erhu, this petty man, was deliberately tormenting her because he was jealous of Jiang Ziqi, and instead of speaking up earlier, he chose this time to act out.