The General's Delicious Wife Chapter 038: Pretending ghost to scare
Xia Yue Chu is exhausted from this long day, setting the fish traps, then washing up when she reaches home and laying down, she enters the dreamland promptly.
After Qin Zheng uses the hot water to soak his feet, he sits on the brick bed and counts the copper coin earnings from the day, all in all there is a total of five hundred and more coins. Delight bubbles from the bottom of his heart.
Xue Zhuang succumbs to the urge to pour cold water again. "You have to deduct the initial cost for it to be the earnings!"
Hearing that, Qin Zheng does not get demoralised, he smiles in response. "Tomorrow I will ask Sister-in-law what the initial cost is."
After counting all the money, he is too excited to fall asleep. So, he gets up instead and continues cooking the syrup for the medicinal sweets.
The fire in the kitchen continues burning through the night, overheating the brick bed and making Xue Zhuang toss and turn, unable to fall asleep. It is not an easy feat for him to finally doze off, but then he dreams that he is surrounded by fire everywhere, unable to escape in any direction.
Just as Xue Zhuang is about to tell Qin Zheng to stop the fire and go to sleep quickly, a piercing and painful scream can be heard coming from the yard.
Qin Zheng is the first to open the door and rush out, following the sound which leads him to see Xue Ping sitting on the ground.
Her face is pale and white, shivering violently and pointing to the fence in a distance away. Bits and pieces of her ramblings can be heard. "Ghost, there is a ghost, there, there is a ghost over there…"
Qin Zheng looks at the direction which she is pointing, only to catch a glimpse of a corner piece of white clothing escaping from over the top of the fence. Without any time to hesitate, he flips himself over the fence and chases after it.
At this time, light has been ignited from the main room, Madam Sheng runs out with her outer clothes draping over her shoulders and when she sees Xue Ping is sitting on the ground, she quickly goes over to provide her support so that she can stand up. "The ground is so cold, how can you sit on the ground!"
When the shock and fear has tattered for Xue Ping, she begins to feel a growing pain at the lower portion of her abdomen. Being supported by Madam Sheng to get up, she feels a warm liquid slowly flowing down between her legs.
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She feels a forbidding premonition instantly, speaking with her trembling lips. "Mother, I, my stomach hurts…"
Madam Sheng has also received the scare with a jump and dares not make her move anyhow anymore. Quickly carrying her back to the room on her back.
After returning to the room, Xue Ping lifts her skirt and looks, the blood on her inner pants is piercingly red. Her sight blackens and she almost lost her conscious.
Madam Sheng becomes stunned when she sees the redness, hastily sending Xue Liang Ping out to bring the midwife from the village over.
The ruckus in the main room has disturbed others in their sleep as well.
Madam Sheng is anxious in her heart and cannot help harping on. "In this extremely cold day, don't we have a chamber pot in the room, why do you insist on going to the toilet outside, what are you going to do now falling down like this!"
Xue Ping is even more restless in her heart, the excruciating pain from her lower abdomen subtly triggers her intuition that probably she will not be able to keep this child.
A moment after Xue Liang Ping has gone out, Qin Zheng drags a person in through the door by twisting his arm and holding him down.
Xue Yong takes a glance. The person whose arm is twisted is not anyone else, it is Cao Lao Liu from the village.
"What is going on with you this youngster, release your hands quickly, my arm is breaking!" Cao Lao Liu whines and cries out in pain.
Xue Li frowns and questions him. "What is this for, still think that the house is not chaotic enough?"
Qin Zheng stretches his hand into Cao Lao Liu's pocket and pulls out a white piece of clothing, telling them with a cold expression. "You take this in and ask if the ghost that Xue big sister saw just now looks like this?"
Hearing what he has said, what else does everyone still not understand.
Xue Li and Xue Yong have a change of expressions immediately, taking a step forward, grabbing Cao Lao Liu and beating him up.
"Ah—You are beating me to my death! Aiyo—" Cao Lao Liu cries like a pig in slaughter.
Madam Sheng comes out from the room scowling. "Can you stop this chaos, what is the mess for?"
Xue Li grabs Cao Lao Liu up and throws him before Madam Sheng in rage. "Mother, it is this Cao Lao Liu dressing up as a god and playing the devil* that scared big sister."
Madam Sheng is in a daze when she hears that, only beginning to react after a moment.
Cao Lao Liu is an infamous hooligan in the village. He is not capable of any work inside the house or outside in the fields, preferring to slick his way out of responsibilities with his wicked means, he is excellent in not engaging himself to proper work, and more often than not, he acts out in deeds that is harmful to others even when it does not benefit himself.
This time he has come to their house to wreak havoc, it is obviously his revenge, out of vengeance over the beatings he has received in the cemetery on the Tomb's Sweeping Day. The only thing that is out of anyone's calculation is that he has frightened Xue Ping who is unstable with her pregnancy.
"You, heaven cursed hooligan who deserves to be cut up by a thousand swords, if anything of the three longs and two shorts** happens to my Da Ping and the baby in her stomach, I will skin you alive!"
Madam Sheng is so furious that she gives Cao Lao Liu two more kicks, then she sees Xue Liang Ping rushing back with the midwife Madam Huang, coming in through the door.
When Cao Lao Liu realised that Madam Huang has been invited here, he starts panicking in his heart but remains stubborn with his statements. "I have only hanged up a piece of white clothing along the fence of your house, what does it have anything to do with the three longs and two shorts. I have seen many using the same trickery, you are only trying to make me pay for more compensation. Doesn't scare me, your Cao grandpa here will not fall for this trick!"
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At the last sound of his words, Xue Li kicks him to the ground, and again he begins whimpering and crying out.
Madam Sheng and Madam Sun are in the inner room accompanying Xue Ping, Xue Liang Ping and his two sons are outside the door of the common hall, burying their heads down smoking from their tobacco pouch.
Although Xia Yue Chu is the eldest daughter-in-law of the family, she does not have any experience in giving birth or raising children, so according to customs, she should not enter the inner room.
But this is such a huge incident in the family, it is not appropriate if she returns to her room to rest so she takes a seat on the short stool beside Xue Zhuang's wheelchair.
Ineptly it has been a really exhausting day for her, she gets sleepy in just a moment after sitting down and starts nodding her head dozing off.
When Xue Zhuang sees the situation, he straightens his body and discreetly blocks her behind himself from other's view.
Madam Huang sees Xue Ping's circumstances and sighs while shaking her head. "Ai, it's useless now, for certain you will not be able to keep it. Da Ping's mother, quickly get people to boil hot water!"
When Madam Sheng hears that, she feels the celling and the ground spinning as her sight darkens, dropping down to the floor on her butt, she begins slapping her tights and crying out after a while.
"My good daughter, my pitiful grandson, why are your lives so hard—"
Madam Sun wipes off her tears and goes out. "Sister-in-law, Qin, you go boil more hot water. Big sister's child is, is lost…"
Xia Yue Chu is abruptly awake, never has she thought that Xue Ping would lose her child just like that. It feels absolutely terrible in her heart, her sleepy inclinations have dispersed completely, and out of her anxiety, she grabs onto Xue Zhuang's hand.
Half of Xue Zhuang's body tenses up, he struggles in his heart for a moment but noticing how worried Xia Yue Chu is, eventually he does not have the heart to fling her hand away.
Cao Lao Liu is also stunned to hear the news, right at the midpoint of his cries, it is as if someone has stepped on his neck, his voice that is dragging out in a piercing pitch quietens down immediately.
He is still holding onto the hopeful thought that, cannot say for sure, possibly the Xue family could be scamming him.
But seeing right before his eyes, the basins and basins of hot water being brought in and turning into basins and basins of bloody water being brought out. The colour on his face transition slowly into a frightening white, knowing that he has truly committed a grave mistake.
Cao Lao Liu squats low to the ground, in this moment he too cannot be bothered to continue crying.
Even though he is the famous hooligan in the village, at the most, he would eat his fill without doing any work, and being dirty with his words and deeds, often creating trouble for other to make them unhappy. He just has the tendency of scaring others but is actually without substance, if truly, he is made to do something outright evil, he will not be able to do it.
And now due to the misaligned target of their tit for tat, causing the loss of Xue Ping's child, this is a matter that will form an irreconcilable vindication!
The Cao Lao Liu couple has only but one daughter, in his perspective, the three sons in Xue family is considerably counted as many people and of a massive strength. Thinking about his future days to come, he can only feel the bleakness before his eyes.
He discreetly moves himself towards Xue Liang Ping to whisper to him. "What about that… Xue old brother, I…"
When he hears the movement, then Xue Liang Ping remembers that Cao Lao Liu is still in their house.
Cao Lao Liu retreats under the table and curls himself up into a ball, speaking carefully with an anguished expression. "Xue old brother, today's incident in my fault, I am not a thing***, I only wanted to scare your family a little to vent off some anger, I didn't know that Da Ping is here, and, and is also with a child… Ai…"
The more he says the more out of breath he becomes, and at last he cannot continue saying anymore, sighing out a drawn out breathe. "Regardless how you beat me or punish me, I will concede."
Madam Sheng comes out with a basin of hot water, spitting at his words. "Pei! Cao Lao Liu, I am telling you, there will be no end to this matter!"
At the last sound of her words, Xue Ping's cries can be heard coming from the inner room, Madam Sheng hurries back inside.
Cao Lao Liu also knows that he has committed a heaven forbids error this time, this is not something that can be resolved with mere apologises or conceding defeat.
He takes the opportunity to slip out from the back door when the Xue family members are focusing their attention on Xue Ping's condition and cannot be bothered with him, he runs away speedily by jumping over the fence.
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Translator Notes:
*Dressing up as a god and playing the devil, this is a phrase to describe people who pretends to be the mystics to deceive and scam people.
**Three longs and two shorts, according to the ancient Chinese ceremonial practice, the coffins at that time are not nailed shut, but instead, it is closed with three long and two short leather straps. So now, this phrase is commonly used to connotes the life and death matter, unexpected accident and misfortune.
***Describing a human being as a thing, is a common saying and can be used as an insult to put someone down. And describing a human being as not being a thing is a common swearword, that is even worse than being less than a thing.
Translated by Yellow. Oct 2022.