Chapter 97: No Matter What, You Can’t Wake Someone Who’s Pretending To Sleep
Back at the new house, Lin Xin put down Lin Nan and let him go play with Cui Shi and Meng Yichen, while she herself walked into the kitchen, having promised to make a good meal to satisfy everyone’s cravings.
Mo Ziyuan followed her in without a word, seeing Lin Xin pondering dishes while looking at the things in the kitchen, and walked over to ask in a low voice: “Let me help you, what needs to be done?”
Lin Xin turned her head to look: “Nothing needs helping, I can handle it alone.”
Mo Ziyuan persisted and walked over, picking up the vegetable basket: “How about I help you wash the vegetables?”
Seeing his resolute attitude, Lin Xin nodded indifferently: “Alright! You all are carnivores, and I don’t love eating vegetables much, no need to wash too many.”
“Got it!” Mo Ziyuan responded, happily grabbing a large basin to fetch water and start washing vegetables, surprisingly doing it quite properly.
After watching him for a bit and confirming he wouldn’t make the mistake of throwing away the edible and keeping the inedible, Lin Xin ignored him and began chopping pork ribs and cutting meat.
Mo Ziyuan was very obedient; since Lin Xin said not to wash too many vegetables, he really only washed one or two kinds, let them drain in the basin, then took the knife from her hand and started chopping meat vigorously.
“Lin Xin, do you have any plans for the future? Have you thought about leaving the village to see the outside world?” The preparations were done, and it was still early to start cooking, so the two sat in the kitchen chatting idly.
“The future?” Lin Xin tucked a fallen strand of hair behind her ear, thought for a moment, and said: “I definitely have to go out; Nan Nan will take the imperial examination later, and with only us siblings depending on each other in my family, we certainly won’t separate.”
“Won’t separate? Lin Xin, you will always have to marry, and Nan Nan will have to take a wife too.”
“That doesn’t conflict! We can just buy two adjacent houses then! But I have no plans to marry; being alone is so free, no one nagging or controlling, but if married, I’d have to serve the husband’s whole family—I’m afraid I couldn’t help but resort to violence.” Lin Xin twirled a grass stick between her fingers while speaking.
“Not marry?” Mo Ziyuan felt black lines crossing his forehead, “How can you not marry? A woman needs a husband’s family for support in the latter half of her life! Otherwise, what happens when you’re old? To put it bluntly, after you die, there won’t even be anyone to make offerings to you—you’d become a wandering ghost.”
“Pfft,” Lin Xin burst out laughing at his serious demeanor; she recalled a joke circulating online before the apocalypse, cleared her throat, and said: “It’s just no one to burn paper money for me! Worst case, I’ll start burning it myself now, save it up, and spend it after death; if not, my parents are down there too, I can just mooch off them then!”
“You…” Mo Ziyuan had never heard such reasoning before and was momentarily speechless.
“But won’t you feel lonely alone?” he added after thinking.
“No! Look,” she counted on her fingers: “Nan Nan will definitely become an official in the future, so he’ll have money then, and he’ll definitely give me money to spend! I can hire people to keep me company! Want to watch opera? Watch opera. Want to see dancing? See dancing. Want to listen to storytellers? Listen to storytellers. They’ll have to perform well since they take my money—way better than scheming and plotting with a big family!”
Mo Ziyuan had never felt so tongue-tied; he even thought that if they kept going in circles like this, he might suffocate to death before Lin Xin even knew his feelings.
“Lin Xin, I’m serious. I like you, I want to become family with you, to care for each other and support one another.” Mo Ziyuan looked at her earnestly.
Lin Xin sighed inwardly; she’d beaten around the bush for so long, but he still said it.
Actually, she was very attracted to his looks and had a good impression of him as a person, but thinking of his family background immediately deterred her—Dingguo Duke’s Mansion! She didn’t want to live her life in a deep courtyard mansion, where every word had to be drafted in her mind in advance, and she’d have to kneel and bow from time to time—she couldn’t do it!
“If you were really just a hunter, I would seriously consider it.” Lin Xin said after carefully choosing her words.
“You have feelings for me too, right? You just don’t like my family background, that’s why you’re saying this, right?” Mo Ziyuan was first dejected, then quickly excited, his eyes shining as he gazed at her: “What if I could give up my family background? Would you be willing?”
This time, Lin Xin was the shocked one; she stared at him with wide eyes: “Are you crazy! Can family background just be abandoned like that?”
“Believe me, give me a little time, and I will give you a clean and pure version of me.” Mo Ziyuan’s voice rose uncontrollably.
“Wait, what do you mean ‘clean and pure version of you’? Is that what we’re talking about?” Lin Xin rubbed her forehead.
“Yes, my fault, I didn’t express it clearly.” Mo Ziyuan scratched his head, showing a rare side unlike his usual self.
“Let me say it again: you probably don’t know much about my family. Although I’m the current Heir of Dingguo Duke, my father doesn’t like me; it’s just that His Majesty appointed my heir’s position, so he can’t change it, otherwise he would have long replaced me with his favorite young son.” Mo Ziyuan didn’t feel like he was exposing family scandals at all; he was even a bit happy.
“The current Dingguo Duke’s Wife isn’t my mother either; my mother passed away from illness when I was ten. Before dying, she begged my maternal grandfather, who entered the palace to plead with His Majesty, and that’s how I became the heir.”
“Ah?” Lin Xin was a bit stunned; what was this? Fiction coming to life?
“So you and your father don’t get along?”
“How could we? Dingguo Duke’s Mansion rose through military merit; our ancestor once fought alongside the Founding Emperor to claim the realm, but later Mo family descendants couldn’t endure the hardship of martial training and produced no one like the ancestor, so the Mo family gradually declined. They didn’t want to train in martial arts themselves, but when I did, they felt I was stealing their spotlight—anyway, they just don’t like me.”
“Ah? Why? Is he your biological father?” Lin Xin blurted out, then realized it was disrespectful to Mo Ziyuan’s mother and quickly apologized: “Sorry!”
Mo Ziyuan waved it off: “When I was born, a traveling monk once read my fate, saying I was the reincarnated auxiliary star of the Purple Star Emperor, destined to assist one who ascends to the nine-five supreme position.”
“Then your father should worship you! With that, the merit of assisting the dragon is guaranteed!”
“It’s just nonsense, but my father was very unhappy at the time, even calling me a disaster star who would bring calamity to the family and wanted to strangle me, but my mother stopped him. She volunteered to go to the family temple in exchange for my life.”
“Does your father have other women around him?” Lin Xin thought of novel plots she’d read, feeling the monk’s appearance was too coincidental, very much like certain novel tropes.
“Yes! It’s the current Dingguo Duke’s Wife. Since a concubine can’t be promoted to proper wife, to put her in the Duke’s Wife position, my father went to great lengths, keeping her as a mistress for ten years until my mother passed away, then bringing her into the mansion directly as Duke’s Wife.”
“That monk was probably sent by this wife!”
Mo Ziyuan’s face showed a strange expression upon hearing this, like he wanted to laugh but couldn’t, which made Lin Xin feel quite bad for him.
“See, just listening to me you can guess she sent that person, but even with evidence in front of my father, he refuses to believe! Isn’t that ridiculous?”
“Sigh!” Lin Xin hadn’t expected Mo Ziyuan to have gone through such a thing; she sighed and comforted: “Don’t take it too much to heart; you know, no matter what, you can’t wake someone who is pretending to sleep.”
