"She should live by herself now. We won't need to mind her. We can all live our own lives separately. If she's so competent now, she should bring up her three bastard children by herself!"

Qi Yuancheng stroked his 5 o'clock shadow. "Mother's quite right."

"We'll go to the east side of the village together tomorrow morning to take a look." Qi Yuanxiu felt at ease all of a sudden as he spoke. "We won't need to kill the idiot if she's no longer an idiot, Mother already said that! Now we just have to see how she's supposed to bring up her three bastard children by herself! I'll just wait and watch her humiliate herself!"

...

It was morning. The sun rose from the east, driving away the fog.

The weather was great.

After Qi Qingyao woke up, she did a quick cleanup around the house. She eyed the koi fish she had left in a bucket. 'I can't just put it there, what if it dies?' she sighed.

She turned to her three children, "We've eaten up all the fish at home! I have to go fishing or maybe hunting too. If not, we'll go hungry this afternoon."

Hearing her, the children immediately sat up on the bed-stove and stared at their mother with big eyes.

Qi Qingyao continued, smiling, "You three will stay at home with this uncle, how does that sound?"

Xiaobao pouted. He stared at her with his pleading, watery eyes. "Mother, we wanna go hunting too."

Qi Qingyao eyed the ground outside and sighed. "Snow's been melting for the past few days, the ground is muddy and wet. If you three mess about and dirty your shoes and pants, I have to wash them. It's too much of a hassle, so you all be good and stay at home with uncle, okay? You only have to wait till I get home!"

The man, who had been lying helplessly on the bed-stove the past few days, sat up all of a sudden. "I can move now."

If he remained immobile, he would have to continue eating fish and drinking medicine every day. He would not have any chance to eat a good meal!

"Huh?" Qi Qingyao was so shocked, she could barely react.

"I can move now," Jiang Yeqian repeated, pulling the blankets aside and hopping down from the bed-stove.

"Damn it, why didn't you tell me earlier?" Qi Qingyao was so furious, she did not even realize she should ask him how he was still completely immobile the day before.

She tossed a bucket, a fishing rod, and an ax hurriedly at him. "Out, out, out! If you can move now, you'd better come fish and hunt with me! As a man, you should also carry some firewood and help me with the bucket when we return!"

Jiang Yeqian stood in silence in the face of it all.

This woman had not even bothered to feign courtesy.

Neither did she bother to ask him if he had enough strength to go.

Jiang Yeqian quickly cleaned himself up and took a deep breath. Evaluating the situation he had just gotten himself into, he followed behind Qi Qingyao, hauling the ax and the fishing rod over his shoulders and carrying two buckets.

He suddenly realized that there was a koi fish in one of the buckets.

Jiang Yeqian paused.

"Uh…"

"We're releasing it into the wild!" Qi Qingyao explained.

"It's a rare fish. It'd be better if we eat it instead."

Qi Qingyao rolled her eyes in response and headed out.

She was already outside the gates. She turned back to look at her three kids, who were peering out of the doors. She reminded them earnestly, "Wait at home obediently, okay?"

"Okay, we'll wait for you to come back!" They grinned cutely and waved their pudgy hands at her.

Qi Qingyao headed to the Jiuli River with Jiang Yeqian in tow. As they walked, she reprimanded, "Why didn't you tell me earlier that you could walk?"

Jiang Yeqian said, "It just got better recently."

Qi Qingyao curled her lip. She glanced at the man beside her out of the corner of her eye. He was decent-looking enough, but he had somehow offended a group of assassins. He must have failed to pay back his debts to them!

It was nice, though, having someone to do odd jobs for her.