NOVPUB
Chapter 171: Chapter 164 Bridal Chamber
"I left the watch behind, so you watch the fire and the eggs at home," Shen Yunfang said as she put on her cotton-padded jacket.
"Mhm," Li Hongjun responded emotionlessly.
"Milk the sheep and put it in the west room. I’ll make yogurt when I get back."
"Mhm."
"I’ll try to rush back by noon. If I can’t make it, just heat up the leftover food for yourself."
"Mhm." 𝑛𝘰𝑣𝑝𝑢𝑏.𝘤𝑜𝘮
"Don’t keep scratching your itchy leg. If you’re really bored, help me train Taxue."
This time, Li Hongjun didn’t even give a grunt of acknowledgment.
Watching his wife head towards the mountain through the back door, he felt quite depressed. He looked at his leg still in a cast, furrowing his brows even more.
Li Hongjun had already found out about his wife clearing land on the mountain. As soon as the ground thawed, she planned to go up to till the land. Li Hongjun disagreed, believing that tilling should be his job, that he should do the heavy lifting at home. But Shen Yunfang hit where it hurt, pointing at his injured leg and telling him to stay put wherever he was comfortable.
His leg had been healing for almost two months now, they say it takes a hundred days to recover from bone and muscle injuries. However, under the meticulous care of Shen Yunfang, his leg had almost fully recovered. It was just that the cast hadn’t been removed yet, and he didn’t dare put too much weight on it when walking, so he still needed to use a crutch.
Since Shen Yunfang was going up the mountain to till the land and his leg was temporarily out of commission, he could only stay behind to look after the house and incubate chicks.
There was a history with the chick incubation. During the new year, Shen Yunfang had made fried quail for Li Hongjun, who enjoyed it greatly. So she taught him how to incubate eggs hands-on. If you want to eat quail, you must first have baby quails; without incubation, there would be no baby quails. Thus, to have fried quail, you must learn to incubate eggs.
Li Hongjun was also a farmer’s son, and although he hadn’t done this in years, a few lessons were all he needed to get the hang of it. And he did it well. Seeing how skilled he was, Shen Yunfang went ahead and gave him fifty chicken eggs, twenty duck eggs, and twenty goose eggs to incubate, knowing how much he enjoyed large geese.
It only took Shen Yunfang a forty-minute jog from the back of the mountain to reach the slope. Her physical strength had been improving, even though she hadn’t consumed Essence of Life for quite some time now.
The one secret she hadn’t shared with Li Hongjun was about Essence of Life. Since she couldn’t explain what it was, she decided not to mention it and simply incorporated it into his diet.
Lately, she had been adding the accumulated Essence of Life into a jar of liquor and giving Li Hongjun a small cup to drink daily, gradually improving his constitution.
And it truly worked. Li Hongjun’s severe leg injury had healed significantly in just two months. She believed that the Essence of Life definitely played a part in his recovery.
Shen Yunfang arrived at the slope, carefully observing for a few minutes at the bottom to ensure there were no dangers before climbing up.
She hadn’t returned to this spot since hunting the wolf last year, and the sight of the battleground still evoked strong feelings within her.
But time was pressing, and with a patient at home, she had no time to dwell on the past. She quickly tidied up the pigsty and sheep pen, then started to till the land bit by bit.
While laboring, she actually spotted two or three grey rabbits passing by the edge of the forest, which made her eyes widen with desire. She had lived here for three years now, seen wolves and wild boars, but this was her first rabbit sighting.
She could kill wild boars and slay wolves, but she had no idea how to catch rabbits. What if she threw out a wild boar—would it hit the rabbits? Alas, all she could do was watch helplessly.
Wanting to speed up, she didn’t return home for lunch and continued working until the sun was about to set. Looking at her day’s labor, she had tilled nearly a tenth of the land, a significant improvement from last year.
Feeling fulfilled, she descended the mountain and headed home, only to find Li Hongjun pulling a long face while tending the fire.
"Why are you back so late?" He complained with a hint of reproach.
But Shen Yunfang was stunned—not by his cooking, but his leg, "Did you knock off the cast yourself?" His leg was without a cast.
Only then did Li Hongjun stand up from the small stool and walked steadily towards his wife. "Mhm, my leg is healed. I will join you on the mountain tomorrow."
"What about all those eggs at home?" Shen Yunfang’s first thought was actually about those inconsequential matters.
Li Hongjun frowned disapprovingly.
"Ah, no, I mean, are you sure your leg is up for it? Don’t push yourself too hard."
Li Hongjun’s frown deepened, and he walked over with large strides. Leaning over slightly, he scooped up his wife in a princess carry and walked steadily into the room. "I’ll show you right now whether I can handle it or not."
"Hey, no, that’s not what I meant," Shen Yunfang stammered as she tried to clarify.
The day ended with the couple eating their meal and taking their baths before lying down on the kang together.
Shen Yunfang had turned over soil all day and was sweaty and dirty. She couldn’t let herself be in such a state for her first time.
Li Hongjun turned and pressed her beneath him, something he had been preparing to do since the day they married.
The two locked eyes, speechless, before Li Hongjun bent his head down and kissed her red lips swiftly and accurately.
The suddenness stirred all of Shen Yunfang’s nerves like a storm.
During these nights of fumbling and touching, both of their desires had been kindled. Shen Yunfang wasn’t truly inexperienced—she had ’eaten meat’ in her previous life—and after such a long period of abstinence, she too was intensely longing.
..............
When the storm finally calmed, she stopped Li Hongjun’s hand from moving towards her again, exhausted and needing a rest.
Li Hongjun, feeling pity for his wife and understanding it was her first time, kissed her gently and then embraced her to sleep.
Halfway through the night, Li Hongjun still got up at his usual time to add wood to the fire in the west room.
When he returned to the kang, he couldn’t help but pull his wife back into his arms.
On Li Hongjun’s second time getting up at night to stoke the fire and his third time pulling his wife into his embrace, a wooden barrel in the kang started making chirping sounds.
"Ah... qua, quails..."
At that moment, Li Hongjun couldn’t care less about the quails. What he craved most was already in his mouth.
