Chapter 226: Sobering Up
Seven days later. The young monk came in carrying a vegetarian meal and said to Su Yaoguang, who was keeping watch by the bedside, “Female Benefactor, you should eat something first!”
Su Yaoguang said hoarsely, “Thank you for your trouble, young Master. Just set it down first. I’ll eat when I’m hungry later.”
“Master said that this Benefactor is injured too severely, and it’s such an important spot like the head. He hasn’t woken up after so long. I’m afraid the day he regains consciousness is far off. Female Benefactor, it won’t do for you to keep staying here like this. Do you think you should take him home to recuperate?”
“Alright, tomorrow morning I’ll take him home to rest.”
After the young monk left, Su Yaoguang held Zhou Wangshu’s hand and gently said by his ear, “It was my fault. I shouldn’t have let you take the risk. Xiao Ci was the Top Scholar in his previous life and was under heaven’s protection. Now that he jumped off the cliff, you suffered the backlash. You barely survived, and as long as you stayed far away, you wouldn’t have been affected by these things. But because of me, you were resented by Xiao Ci, and that’s how this series of events happened.”
“Wangshu, do you know how miserable your death was in your previous life? Now that you’ve lived into this life, you should live freely and brilliantly. Wake up soon! Someone as outstanding as you should have a bright and glorious future. If you die like this, wouldn’t it be even more frustrating than your previous life? You worked so hard to get first place. Are you willing to just hand the honor over to someone else?”
In the middle of the night, Su Yaoguang lay by the bedside, her head pillowed on Zhou Wangshu’s arm.
Zhou Wangshu moved his arm and slowly opened his eyes.
Su Yaoguang noticed the movement, sat up, and looked at Zhou Wangshu, whose eyes were wide open.
“Master Yixing…” Su Yaoguang called out toward the outside.
Master Yixing was in the adjacent Zen Room. Hearing her call, he came over soon after. He took Zhou Wangshu’s pulse and then checked his consciousness.
“Congratulations, this Benefactor is truly blessed with great fortune and destiny. He’s already fine now.”
Su Yaoguang breathed a light sigh of relief and pointed at his head, saying, “What about here?”
“As long as he’s awake, these external injuries can be slowly nursed back to health,” Master Yixing said. “Female Benefactor, you’ve kept watch over him for seven days. Now you can finally close your eyes and rest easy.”
“Thank you, Master.”
Su Yaoguang thanked him, thinking she would donate more incense money tomorrow to thank the Bodhisattva in the temple.
After Master Yixing left, she closed the door.
Su Yaoguang said to Zhou Wangshu, who hadn’t spoken, “You’re finally awake. Are you hungry? Shall I get you something to eat?”
These past few days while he was in a coma, besides her giving him medicine on time, she could only feed him rice soup. After seven days, even an iron body couldn’t withstand it. If this continued, even if his injuries healed, he’d probably starve to death.
Su Yaoguang prepared to go to the kitchen to see if there was any leftover vegetarian meal. If not, she’d make him a bowl of plain noodles, which would be better than rice soup.
Zhou Wangshu grabbed her wrist and looked at her puzzledly. “Who are you?”
Su Yaoguang: “…”
She waved her hand in front of him, her expression changing, then sat back down and asked, “You don’t recognize me anymore?”
Zhou Wangshu shook his head. “Should I know you?”
Su Yaoguang’s eyes reddened again. “You… then do you know who you are?”
Zhou Wangshu shook his head, looking blankly at Su Yaoguang in front of him.
“No, I have to ask Master Yixing.” Su Yaoguang wanted to go find Master Yixing but was held back by Zhou Wangshu grabbing her arm.
“What is our relationship?” Zhou Wangshu asked. “Are you my… daughter-in-law?”
Su Yaoguang hesitated a moment, then finally nodded. “Yes.”
If he really turned into an idiot, forget about the imperial examination—he might not even be able to take care of himself. If she said she was his older sister, it would be inconvenient to care for him. For the long term, it was better to say they were husband and wife. Only as husband and wife could they care for each other forever.
Anyway, she had no intention of remarrying, and taking responsibility for his injuries was only right. Zhou Wangshu had become like this because of her matters. Whether out of responsibility or duty, she should take good care of him.
“You really are my daughter-in-law?” Zhou Wangshu continued asking.
Su Yaoguang nodded. “Yes.”
“I don’t believe it.” Zhou Wangshu looked at her suspiciously. “What evidence do you have?”
Su Yaoguang said irritably, “Would an unmarried woman like me randomly claim a husband? You’re injured now—what good would it do me to trick you back home?”
“Then kiss me. Kiss me once and I’ll believe you’re my daughter-in-law.” Zhou Wangshu said, leaning close to Su Yaoguang and closing his eyes.
Su Yaoguang: “…”
Just as she was extremely conflicted, Zhou Wangshu opened his eyes and burst out laughing.
Seeing him like this, a flash of anger passed through Su Yaoguang’s eyes. “You tricked me?”
Zhou Wangshu slowly lay back down. The idiotic expression from earlier vanished, returning to his usual demeanor. “You looked really funny just now.”
“Zhou Wangshu, I was worried to death, and you’re joking about something so important?” Su Yaoguang said, pinching his arm. “Do you think this is funny?”
Zhou Wangshu winced in pain and begged for mercy. “I was wrong. I just saw you were too tense and wanted to help you relax.”
Su Yaoguang sat back down. “I really thought you’d lost your memory. If you’d lost your memory and turned into an idiot, wouldn’t I have to serve you for the rest of my life?”
“I’m fine.” Zhou Wangshu saw the red veins in her eyes and could imagine how she’d been enduring these past few days.
Fortunately, he had woken up. If he hadn’t, and stayed in that state of neither dead nor alive like the past few days, he really would have become a burden to her.
Actually, while in the coma, he could hear her words. He knew her secret, and knew that dream wasn’t a dream but something that had really happened. So in his previous life, he was an unlucky guy who appeared in less than two scenes, and she was an even sillier woman, completely fooled by a man.
He wouldn’t tell her he already knew the secret. She was blaming Zhou Wangshu for scaring her this way and didn’t notice the pity in his eyes.
Zhou Wangshu hugged Su Yaoguang tightly.
Su Yaoguang stopped her muttering and gently patted his back. “It’s alright now. It must have hurt a lot when that stone smashed down, right?”
“Yaoguang, let’s become real husband and wife!” Zhou Wangshu said.
Su Yaoguang: “…”
Zhou Wangshu didn’t wait for her response and continued, “Look, my head got smashed like this. It’ll probably leave a scar. So ugly no one will want me—you have to take responsibility for me.”
Su Yaoguang had been a bit tense hearing him say that at first, but then he was so unserious again. The more unserious he was, the less she took it seriously.
“I’ll go get you something to eat.” Su Yaoguang stood up. “Do you want noodles or something else?”
“It’s so late, I can’t eat much. Whatever you make, I’ll eat.” Zhou Wangshu said.
The next morning, the masters in the temple saw Zhou Wangshu acting like nothing had happened and were all relieved at his escaping death.
Su Yaoguang said she would add incense money, and sure enough, before leaving, she donated a large amount of incense money and lit a prayer lamp.
These past few days, the brothers from Ming Ye Hall had also been keeping watch here. Now that Zhou Wangshu was awake, they immediately prepared a horse-drawn carriage and took Su Yaoguang and Zhou Wangshu down the mountain.
As for Xiao Yanci’s corpse, they hadn’t found it and didn’t want to look anymore.
Worried about Zhou Wangshu’s injuries, upon returning to the provincial capital, Su Yaoguang immediately took him to other doctors for examination. Confirming his injuries were not serious and that as long as he avoided further impacts during recovery he’d be fine, she then slowly made her way back to the provincial capital by horse-drawn carriage.
The injury on Zhou Wangshu’s head wasn’t healing so easily. All along the way, his head was wrapped in a cloth strip. When they arrived at the county town, Zhou Wangshu insisted on removing the cloth strip.
“They’re back, they’re back.” Zhang Pandi shouted happily.
Zhang Zhaodi came out from inside, excitedly saying, “Our first place is back. Everyone, my son-in-law is back. Today we have a happy event at home—everything at seventy percent off.”
“The shop owner is so generous!”
“Shop owner, your family is truly fortunate to have found such a great son-in-law.”
“That’s because my daughter has good taste,” Zhang Zhaodi said proudly. “Starting tomorrow, we’ll set up a continuous banquet for three days.”
Zhou Wangshu said, “Mom, isn’t this too extravagant and wasteful?”
“Our family rarely has such a big happy event. Of course we should make it grand and extravagant. But trust me, it absolutely won’t be wasteful,” Zhang Zhaodi said. “The leftovers that are clean can be given to others to eat, and the rest can be used as swill to feed the pigs. Anyway, our family rarely has such a big happy event—no one can stop me from making a big deal of it this time.”
Zhang Pandi said with a smile, “When the official came to announce the good news, your mom was overjoyed to hear Wangshu got first place. That official got ten taels of silver as a reward!”
“Has my uncle-in-law not returned?” Su Yaoguang asked. “We saw the list back then—my uncle-in-law was on the list, ranked in the thirties. But we didn’t see him.”
“Chushan came back and said he’d seen him,” Zhang Zhaodi said. “He said he met your uncle-in-law on the way back. At that time, he and your maternal aunt had just rushed to the provincial capital to see the proclamation. They planned to go straight to the capital city after seeing it and not return to the old residence.”
“I’m really envious of my maternal aunt—such a wonderful life,” Jia Chunni said. “Forget the capital city, we’ve never even been to the provincial capital. It’d be great if we could go out and see the world too.”
“Wangshu is going to the capital city to prepare for the exam this time. How about we move to the capital city too?” Zhang Zhaodi said. “We’ll go along to broaden our horizons. Plus, Wangshu going alone to the capital city would be too lonely. We can keep him company and have someone to talk to.”
Su Yaoguang thought about how in her previous life, after becoming the Top Scholar’s wife, she arranged for a shop assistant to pick up Zhang Zhaodi to enter the capital, but she died on the way.
In her previous life, Zhang Zhaodi had never been to the capital city. In this life, she wanted to take Zhang Zhaodi to tour the rivers and mountains, to appreciate the landscapes everywhere. Perhaps as she said, this was an opportunity.
Originally, she hadn’t planned to go to the capital city. If Zhang Zhaodi wanted to go, then they’d go take a look! Now that Xiao Yanci was gone and Jiang Yihuan was gone too, there were no more obstacles in her way.
“Mom is right, we’ll go to the capital city,” Su Yaoguang said. “We have enough silver now to spend, and we can even buy farmland in the capital city.”
“Really?” Zhang Pandi asked.
“Really.”
Su Yaoguang made the final decision, and everyone was overjoyed.
It was just hard on those shop assistants.
Some shop assistants were reluctant to leave their families and couldn’t follow Su Yaoguang to the capital city to develop. With the boss gone, the shop probably wouldn’t reopen, so they lost such good work. Some shop assistants had no family ties and no attachments, so they could follow the owner to the capital city to develop. They firmly believed it was right to follow the owner—after all, almost all the shop assistants following Su Yaoguang had bought courtyards and farmland within half a year.
Su Yaoguang invited Cui Rong over and signed a new cooperation agreement with him.
She handed Peach Blossom Workshop over to Cui Rong to manage, splitting future profits fifty-fifty. Of course, the shop assistants not going with her to the capital city also needed to be properly settled by Cui Rong.
After three days of continuous banquets, Zhang Zhaodi took Su Yaoguang and Zhou Wangshu back to the countryside old residence once. After kowtowing before her father’s memorial tablet, she invited the villagers to a meal and donated a sum of silver to the village ancestral hall to help look after her father’s memorial tablet and the old residence they left there.
All this took half a month to prepare. Half a month later, Su Yaoguang led everyone to pack up their things, hired an Escort Agency, and set off grandly from the county town.
Zhong Chushan and Chen Buyu traveled together with them.
Chen Buyu was in his newlywed period and originally didn’t want to separate from his madam. But a man who has become a husband has finally grown up—he was unprecedentedly ambitious now.
Chen Buyu was determined to obtain an official position, to make his new daughter-in-law proud of him and give her face.
From the county town to the capital city, it was first overland, then by water, then overland again. Such travel would take two months, and that was under very smooth conditions to reach the capital city.
They had plenty of time and no need to rush. So along the way, Su Yaoguang made sure Zhang Zhaodi and the others ate well, drank well, and played well, enjoying the beautiful scenery and delicious food all along the route.
Three months later, they arrived at the capital city.
At the capital city’s grand gate, everyone looked at the majestic capital city gate and felt a moment of emotion.
“This is the capital city—it’s so luxurious!” Jia Chunni said. “If we opened a shop here, we could definitely earn more silver.”
“We haven’t even settled down yet, and this little girl is already thinking about earning silver,” Zhang Pandi laughed. “You don’t know how much she nagged along the way about how much was spent, how much was used, how much less was earned. She said if we were in the county town, we could earn so much a day like this. But now we’re not earning a single coin and keep losing money.”
“Our Chunni has really improved. She looks more and more like Yaoguang the money grubber,” Zhang Zhaodi said. “That’s pretty good.”
“Tonight we’ll find an inn to settle down first. Everyone’s exhausted—rest up, and tomorrow we’ll look for a place to rent a house,” Su Yaoguang said. “Silver is definitely earnable, and we’ll earn even more in the future. This trip wasn’t just for play—I thought up many recipes along the way. Once we’re settled, we can make new products.”
