The next day, there were roosters and dogs crowing in the yard, crackling sounds in the kitchen, and shouts and curses. Qiao Mingjin woke up leisurely.
The daughter next to her was still sleeping soundly, holding on to her clothes. This timid child could only sleep like this peacefully by her mother's side.
She tucked her daughter in, brushed the messy hair from her face, and stared at her daughter's young face for a long time. There was a soft spot in her heart that turned into a puddle of water.
She touched her daughter's soft hair and stared blankly at the top of the old tent...
The man who served her porridge yesterday was her husband-in-law, Yue Zhongyao, the third eldest son of the Yue family.
The Yue family has five children, all of whom are daughters, with three sons in the middle. Yue Zhongyao is the second son of the Yue family.
Four years ago, the imperial court attacked the Uighurs and recruited young men over the age of fifteen to join the army.
That year Yue Laosan and Yue Laosi got married in the same year.
When the county government officials came to register, Qiao Mingjin was not yet pregnant. At that time, Yue Laoer's wife Cui and Yue Laosi's wife Liu were both pregnant. Yue Laoer and Yue Laosi refused on this ground.
The quota fell on Yue Laosan.
If Yue Laosan could pay for it, he wouldn't have to go there in person.
It's just that the Yue family is just like an ordinary farmer's family. There are many people in the family but little land. The few acres of thin land are not enough to feed the family. How can there be money to give Yue Laosan a small amount of money?
Later, Qiao Mingjin's natal family heard the news, and people from her parents and uncle's family came.
Her natal father had a reputation as a scholar, and her two brothers, under the age of fifteen, had escaped disaster. This made her feel even more distressed for her newly married daughter. When she heard that her son-in-law was about to be drafted into the army, she hurried over.
Qiao Mingjin's family said they couldn't go because Yue Laosan didn't have a wife yet. But his two brothers already had children. If anything happened to Yue Laosan, would they have to watch Qiao Mingjin die alone?
Yue Laoer and Yue Laosi were afraid that they would be dragged to the battlefield where they would never return ten times out of ten, so they repeatedly stated that if anything happened to their brothers, they would adopt their son to Yue Laosan and would support Qiao Mingjin until they grow old.
Yue Laosan saw his sister-in-law and sister-in-law crying so much that they almost lost their fetus, so he resolutely said goodbye to his newlywed wife of just a few months and left with his official duties.
Half a month after Yue Laosan left, Qiao Mingjin was diagnosed with pregnancy.
The next year, they gave birth to a daughter. Qiao Mingjin's scholar father named her "Yue Qingwan". Following the Qiao family's daughter, she named her after jade and took the word "Wan", which means beautiful jade.
Yue Laosan has been away for four consecutive years without knowing whether he is alive or dead.
Until last year, the Uighurs surrendered, signed a hundred-year non-aggression document, surrendered to the Wei Dynasty, and paid tribute every year.
Only then did Yue Laosan return happily.
Yue Laosan's life was saved by someone.
Before he died, the man asked Yue Laosan, a fellow countryman, to help him take care of his wife and daughter, and Yue Laosan agreed.
After Yue Laosan returned to his hometown, he took the fifty taels of pension money given to him by the court to visit the family.
In the family of the benefactor surnamed Liu, only his wife Sun, who is in her early thirties, her seventeen-year-old daughter Liu Meiniang, who has not yet been engaged, and a fifteen-year-old son Liu Youcai who is studying in a private school are left in the family.
The family lived in poverty, relying on Sun and her daughter to do paddle washing and doing embroidery work for a living. They also had to provide for a son to study, so life was tight.
Mrs. Sun held the fifty taels of silver tightly and cried hard. She grabbed Yue Laosan and said that the sky was falling and she couldn't live anymore.
Dragging Yue Laosan, she cried and insisted that he marry her daughter Mei Niang to repay her with his life.
Yue Laosan was in a dilemma and couldn't bear her pestering, so he only accepted the concubine position.
The Liusun family refused.
After her husband-in-law passed away, the family could no longer survive. Yue Laosan saw a talented person, and was recommended by an acquaintance in the army to join the county government as a catcher and received public food. The family would naturally have hope for survival if he relied on him.
Yue Laosan's mother, Mrs. Wu, saw that her son was recommended by others and became a police officer in the county government. She was very proud of having a public grain of 800 yuan a month, which was guaranteed to be harvested despite drought and floods. She gradually looked down on Qiao Mingjin.
He also heard that Mrs. Liu Sun would give half of the fifty taels of pension money to Liu Meiniang as a dowry, so she immediately accepted Liu Meiniang as her equal wife.
It's pity that Qiao Mingjin had to stay in the cold kiln for four years, raising her daughter alone, hoping that her husband would come back alive. But she didn't expect that her husband would bring her such a big surprise...
Qiao Mingjin was thinking confusedly when she heard the door creak and someone pushed it open from the outside.
Then he saw Yue Zhongyao's head peeking in.
Yue Zhongyao carefully opened the door and stepped in, guarding the bowl in his hand carefully for fear of spilling the porridge in the bowl.
He raised his head and met Qiao Jinniang's eyes, and couldn't help but be stunned.
I was a little confused and a little nervous. But I quickly calmed down, turned around, closed the door, and walked to the bed with a large porcelain bowl.
"Jin Niang, are you awake? Are you hungry?" There was a hint of flattery in her tone.
Seeing Qiao Jinniang not responding to him, Yue Zhongyao pursed his lips. He stood in front of the bed and rubbed the mud with his shoes helplessly. He didn't know what to say for a moment...
He begged for this wife himself, and she has always been at the top of his heart.
At that time, her father was setting up a stall at the market to write letters for others. Someone was causing trouble, and they wanted to charge him for the stall fee and drive him away.
He happened to go to the market to buy things that day, so he helped fight off some gangsters. Because her father's foot was broken, she kindly carried him to the medical center for medicine and bone correction, and then carried him back to Yunjia Village.
.
There, I immediately fell in love with Qiao Jinniang.
At that time, he felt as if someone had momentarily choked his breath, and his chest was pounding violently.
He had never seen such a beautiful woman. Her face was small, no bigger than his hand, and her eyes were big and lively. Her nose, lips, and those pink and tender ears...he just felt like...
They are all beautiful, just like the people in the paintings.
After I came back, I couldn't forget it over and over again, so I took the opportunity to visit the doctor frequently, hoping to see him one more time.
Later, when his family wanted to arrange a marriage for him, he immediately thought of her.
Only my mother disagreed.
He said that the sour scholar came from outside and had no idea of his roots. He had no room and no acre of land. He brought a widowed mother to live in his wife's village. Apart from being able to write two words, he couldn't even pick up a hoe.
Such a family may be so poor that they cannot afford a dowry, and they may not have any clan members to help them in fights.
After hearing this, he just ignored her and decided to marry Qiao Jinniang, the eldest daughter of the family. Otherwise, he would not get married.
He also personally went to find Qiao Xiucai.
Qiao Xiucai agreed to him because he had saved his life, and felt that he had good character, strength, and affection for his daughter.
When Mrs. Wu saw that the Qiao family did not ask for much betrothal money, and could not temper her stubborn son, she turned a blind eye and agreed.
In the end, the Yue family only spent one or two bride price to marry Qiao Jinniang.
When Yue Zhongyao got his wife, he felt that his life would be happy from now on.
His wife was three years younger than him, and had just grown hair when she married him. She had been studying and reading with her father since she was a child, and was taught by her grandmother herself from an early age. I heard that she knew a thing or two about music, chess, calligraphy and painting, and was good at embroidery.
What a wonderful embroidery work. He had seen it before. The mandarin ducks embroidered on the red wedding dress looked as if they were alive.
During the first few months of his marriage, he was full of ambition and smiled at everyone he met. His wife was as good as the girls in the town, how could she be compared to those black girls from the country?
He also knew that his wife had some disdain for him because he was a tall and rough man, and thought he was uneducated.
Later, he gritted his teeth and borrowed several books from Yue's family. Since he knew a few big characters when he was a child, he finished the books word for word in a daze.
If he doesn't understand, he secretly goes to his father-in-law's house to ask for advice, hoping that his wife will look up to him.
He never cared that his wife Qiao Mingjin didn't know how to do farm work.
When his mother scolded Sang and Huai, he secretly helped her do more work.
He was willing to go along with her in everything. He himself didn't think anything of her cold personality, and he always felt that his wife was wronged for marrying him...
For four years, he thought about her all the time on the battlefield, thinking about his wife's smooth skin...
He knew that she must be heartbroken when he agreed to marry another woman as his equal wife. Only then did he think of carrying his daughter back to her parents' home.
Seeing her lying on the bed silently these past few days, he felt a throbbing pain in his heart. He got up before dawn every day and went to the market to buy meat. When he came back, he would personally cook meat porridge for her.
I had just received my job for less than a month, and I had the courage to ask my boss for a few days off to stay with me at home.
Now seeing her lying on the bed and looking at him so coldly, Yue Zhongyao felt a trace of panic in his heart, fearing that she would say anything about reconciliation again.
