Chapter 1: Chapter 1 Husband, Drink Porridge
Daqian, Mianshui County, Xiantao Village.
In a dilapidated courtyard filled with chaos, Chen Jie lay on the bed, his eyes dazedly staring at the ceiling.
Had he time-traveled?
He never expected such absurd things to happen to him.
But his “new home” seemed utterly empty!
“Husband, you’re awake. Please get up. It was my fault yesterday. Have some porridge,” said a pleasant female voice.
While Chen Jie was still in a daze, he turned his head and saw a woman full of patches on her clothes, without any makeup, carrying a clay pot as she walked in.
A smile squeezed on her face, yet it couldn’t hide the swollen handprint on her cheek.
Su Yunjin!
My wife!!
Suddenly, memories flooded his mind like a tide.
Daqian Empire, foreign nations founding a country… Xiantao Village, a gambling addict…
Pieces of information surfaced, and Chen Jie finally understood his situation.
His original self was named Chen Jiusi from Xiantao Village, Mianshui County. His family was originally well-off; his maternal grandfather was a renowned doctor in the village. Unfortunately, he had no sons, only a daughter. To prevent the Chen family from dying out, he recruited a son-in-law, who was Chen Jiusi’s father.
His father was originally a fisherman in the village. Later, when the family became too poor, he married into the Chen family as a son-in-law, hoping to learn medical skills from the old doctor. However, the doctor was conservative, passing on his skills only to males in the family and not to outsiders. The son-in-law wasn’t qualified to inherit, only those born with the Chen family bloodline could be taught.
Chen Jiusi therefore became the inheritor of the doctor’s legacy, but tragically, the old doctor passed away when Chen Jiusi was only eight years old, and Chen Jie did not inherit his grandfather’s medical skills.
The Chen family’s medical tradition was lost, but fortunately, they still had considerable property left. However, once the grandfather died, Chen Jiusi’s father, without anyone to control him, started drinking heavily and gambling. After one drunken episode, he even went swimming in the river and drowned.
Later on, as Chen Jiusi grew up, his mother remembered a marriage arrangement made by her father when he was still alive. It was with the old scholar from the neighboring village, the Su family.
Back then, one family was descendants of a famous doctor and the other a scholarly family—perfect matches, hence the marital arrangement.
Thus, in her weak state, his mother approached the old scholar, who was very trustworthy and married off his daughter, Su Yunjin, to them.
Initially, life was not bad. Although the Chen family no longer had the medical skills, they did have over twenty acres of good farmland and a large courtyard.
Mrs. Chen was also around to keep Chen Jiusi in line, but the good days did not last long. First, the Su family lost the old scholar when he went to the town and was killed by thieves, leaving behind only a five-year-old orphan girl.
Mrs. Chen decided to have Su Yunjin raise her sister to help. However, just a few days later, Mrs. Chen’s illness relapsed, and she passed away.
Without Mrs. Chen’s restraint, the genes of Chen Jiusi’s father burst forth; he too began drinking heavily and gambling. When he lost, he would even beat his wife, becoming no better than a beast.
It wasn’t long before he gambled away everything that his family had saved for generations. Eventually, they were forced to move into the broken house that his father had lived in before marrying into the Chen family.
Last night, he stole the last three acres of good farmland deeds from his home and lost them all quickly. Furious, he once again drank himself into a stupor and came home to rummage through the house, trying to find money to recover his losses.
Finding nothing and seeing the bottom of the rice barrel, he insanely noticed his five-year-old sister-in-law, Su Yunrui, and remembered hearing that people in the city would pay well for such young girls, training them in brothels to earn a lot of money.
So he began to grab the child. Su Yunjin, no matter how capable, ended up being slapped twice by Chen Jiusi, thrown to the ground, and cursed, “You wretched woman, I am your husband, and whatever I say goes. How dare you defy me? I’ll kill you!”
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He kicked twice more, and Su Yunrui rushed to block in front of Su Yunjin, crying and pleading, “Brother-in-law, please stop hitting my sister, please.”
But Chen Jiusi coldly stared at Su Yunrui and said, “I hit your sister because of you. Be obedient, come to the city with your brother-in-law tomorrow, and I’ll take you somewhere you can have enough to eat, okay?”
“Brother-in-law, I don’t want to go.”
“Not behaving, are you? Then I’ll keep hitting your sister. Do you believe I could kill her?”
“Woo woo, don’t hit my sister, don’t hit her. I’ll go, I’ll go. Ruirui will listen to brother-in-law, woo woo…”
“Ah, that’s more like it.”
Chen Jiusi, satisfied, patted the little girl’s head and then looked at the woman lying on the ground, “What are you still sitting there for? Go fetch water for me to wash my feet, you waste!”
…
Chen Jie recalled the reasons from before, feeling a chill on his scalp. This man was a beast!
Such a beautiful and gentle wife, yet he didn’t cherish her but hit her instead, truly devoid of all conscience.
Chen Jie positioned his former self as a scumbag.
Thinking this, Chen Jie involuntarily took another look at his “wife,” who appeared to be about one meter sixty-five, with very fair skin, large eyes, and wearing coarse hemp clothes patched up, yet still radiating the gentleness and tranquility of a well-bred lady.
Such a woman, if placed in his previous life, would absolutely be a top star, yet now she was his wife; he had struck gold.
Chen Jie couldn’t understand how his former self could have ever brought himself to hit such a beauty.
“Husband, what are you spacing out for? Come, have some porridge.”
The woman brought out a chipped porcelain bowl and spooned up a bowl of white rice porridge. Watching the plain porridge, a cute young girl beside her swallowed hard.
“Gulp, Ruirui really doesn’t want to eat plain rice porridge at all, not at all, gulp…”
The woman glanced at her sister, a flicker of heartache in her eyes, yet still brought the bowl of porridge over to Chen Jie.
“Husband!”
She called out softly.
Handing over the bowl of porridge, Chen Jie saw the swollen palm print on the woman’s face and the bruises on her arms, and instead of taking the bowl, he grasped the woman’s wrist, causing her to shiver all over, nearly dropping the bowl, her hand instinctively pulling back.
But the anticipated violence did not come; instead, Chen Jie rolled up her sleeve, revealing that her arm was covered in bruises.
Chen Jie fell silent.
The woman withdrew her hand, a tear briefly appearing in her eyes, but she continued, “Husband, come have the porridge. It was my fault yesterday. After you eat, you can take Ruirui to the city.”
Her voice was steady as she spoke those words, but Chen Jie could hear the tremor in it. Just as Chen Jie was about to say something, the woman said, “Husband, let’s talk after you’ve eaten.”
Chen Jie sighed, held onto the porridge bowl, and just as he picked up the spoon, suddenly a sound by his ear chimed: Ding~
[Daily Information System Binding…]
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