The General's Delicious Wife Chapter 043: Swallow who skids upon water
While they were talking, someone suddenly shouted, "Here comes, here they come!"
Xia Yue Chu looked towards that voice and saw a man who appeared to be a lumberjack, leading a young man towards them.
The young man was dressed in black, his long hair was tied at the crown of his head with a hair band, revealing a face that was the size of a palm. He looked even younger than Qin Zheng, only sixteen or seventeen years old.
As he walked close, he greeted with one hand over his fist, "Old Gen Uncle, Supervisor Liu."
Supervisor Liu did not have the time to go over the pleasantries, so straight away, he took out fifty taels of silver and pointed at the wooden stacks in the river and said, "Feng Qi, we can only count on you at a time like this."
Feng Qi smiled, but did not accept the silver, only to say, "Supervisor Liu, help me put this aside for the time being, I will come to get it from you when I finish untangling the pile!"
Old Gen Uncle patted him on the shoulder and said, "Good boy, be careful!"
From Xia Yue Chu's perspective, Feng Qi was merely a child who was half of an adult, and then looking at the thick wooden logs that were several times bigger than him in size. And there, the wooden logs that had been piled up like a hill, and she could not help but started becoming anxious in her heart.
Qin Zheng also whispered worriedly: "With so many people here, asking a child to thrust the pile."
Feng Qi seemed to have heard the voice. He turned his head and looked over to them with a pair of slightly raised monolid upturned eyes, and a hint of trifling provocation.
Qin Zheng immediately stopped making any sounds, thinking in his heart that this person really did not know how to appreciate good intentions.
Xia Yue Chu was too late to retract the concerns revealed through her eyes when she met Feng Qi eye to eye. It felt as if his look turned gentle a little, carrying a hint of smile.
But that feeling was fleeting, Feng Qi quickly returned to his expressionless appearance, and he did not delay any further. Tightening his belt, with a bamboo baton inserted in his waistband and biting onto a dagger, he backflipped into the water without hesitation.
Everyone looked at the river nervously and could only see a black figure as nimble as a fish, and soon swam under that pile of wood log dam.
When he came before the wooden stack, there was a distinct contrast. It became all the more apparent that the mount of wooden logs was as high as the clouds.
Feng Qi swam back and forth twice, looking for the best position to unsnarl that pile, and quickly pulled out the bamboo baton from his waist.
He stuffed the baton between two wooden logs, with both his hands securing a pivotal point on the baton, he pushed his entire body out of the water, leveraging his whole body strength upon the baton.
Everyone who were watching the excitement from the shore stared with bated breath, waiting to see him unsnarl the dam.
Xia Yue Chu's palms were sweaty and her heart palpitated violently, she subconsciously held her breath.
Only to see the log above the baton swayed twice, then became detached from the wooden pile while slamming into the river surface with a bang.
Immediately afterwards, that mountain-high wooden logs tumbled down with time, they were carried by the river flow one after another, making deafening sounds consecutively.
"Fantastic! It's truly the swallow skidding on the water!"
"Feng Qi's skills are really getting better and better!"
"Where is he?" Xia Yue Chu looked over the river nervously, but everywhere within her sight, there was no shadow of Feng Qi. There were only thick logs in the river one after another, colliding with each other and gushing downstream.
Just as she was looking desperately into the river on the tips of her toes, suddenly there was saw a dark figure leaping out from the water. Tapping lightly upon his toes, he landed on a round wooden log that was going with the flow and skidding over the vigorous currents of the violent river.
The strong wind whipped along the corners of his drenched clothing, creating little splashes, drips and droplets of water.
"What a stunning kung fu!" Although Qin Zheng was a little dissatisfied with Feng Qi's attitude, he could see that his genuinely good skills. He couldn't help but praised it.
The person who had to thrust the pile, was not only required have good underwater skills, but must also have good foresight. Facing a giant pile of logs, it required deep knowledge on finding the right breaking point to insert the baton. What they needed was the strength to lift tons of weight that was many times heavier than the person himself. And at the same time watching out for his own safety, this was not a skill that can be practiced in just one or two days.
After the wooden stacks were picked apart, the people by the riverbanks had seen enough of the excitement and dispersed one after another.
Seeing that it was getting late, Xia Yue Chu sped up and walked towards home.
On their way back, they saw two wooden logs being carried down by the Old Song River. There were a few of lumberjacks holding metal rakes along the river, finding ways to hook those up to shore.
"Thanks to Auntie Chen who warned us, otherwise the fish traps will definitely be useless by now." When she went to Auntie Chen's house to get her bucket, Xia Yue Chu could not stop thanking her, and insisted on giving Auntie Chen a large bowl of fish, "You don't have time to go fishing, this isn't of much worth either, give it to the children as a treat."
Auntie Chen could not reject it, so she accepted and replied, "I don't have anything on hand that is presentable. If you need help with any work, don't be polite with me."
"Auntie Chen, aren't you being too distant with me by saying this. Last time when I didn't have enough to eat, you shared with me even when you were still hungry yourself, could it be that you have labelled me as an ungrateful person?"*
Only then did Auntie Chen smile, patting Xia Yue Chu and saying, "You kid, you keep remembering these little things."
On the way home from Auntie Chen's house, the villagers they came across with were all staring at the two of them either discreetly or openly, and even outright murmuring from behind their backs, giving Xia Yue Chu goosebumps.
Passing through the field that was used for sun drying grains, Xia Yue Chu met their neighbor Elder Madam Sun. Xia Yue Chu hurriedly asked, "Elder Madam Sun, what is going on in the village today?"
Elder Madam Sun looked at Xia Yue Chu strangely and asked back, "What, don't you know yet?""
"I went out early in the morning, and I just came back now. I saw everyone staring at me along the way, and I got goosebumps on my back from that."
"Didn't Da Ping have a miscarriage yesterday? Today, your family's son-in-law came to the house. The havoc was so loud and lively, more than half of the village could hear it."
After speaking, Elder Madam Sun checked their surroundings again, and saw that there was no one around and lowered her voice into a whisper, "Our houses both are close to each other, and I witnessed it truly with my own eyes, when your family's son-in-law left, his face was colored with bruises."
Xia Yue Chu was stunned upon hearing this.
Towards Feng Yong Yuan, Madam Sheng's fawning and favoritism was clearly written all over her face. She could not wait to see that Son-in-law of hers to pass the scholar examination so that she could inflate her pride**.
Besides, Da Ping had a miscarriage in her mother's house. Though it was something that no one wanted to happen and the culprit was that Cao Lao Liu, but the Xue family still retained a sense of guilt and debt. When Xue Li was leaving last night, Madam Sheng kept reminding him over and over again, if the Son-in-law was upset, let him cursed out a few words or exploded in violence, he ought to just endure it and he ought to have a good attitude.
"Thank you, Elder Madam Sun, I see, I'll go back and have a look." Xia Yue Chu returned home quickly, and entered through the door to see that there was no one in the yard. Xue Ping's crying could be heard coming from the main room, and also Madam Sheng's cursing.
Madam Sun saw that Xia Yue Chu coming back in the backyard, so she hurried over and whispered, "Sister-in-law, Mother is at the peak of her anger, if you have nothing important, don't go towards the main room. She is scolding everyone she sees at this moment."
"What exactly happened? Why did I hear that we have beaten up Brother-in-law?"
Upon being questioned, Madam Sun suddenly became ashamed, she released a long sigh and briefly told her the good things Xue Li had done. Then said, "Brother-in-law hired a carriage chasing after him to explain, but when he got home here, he heard that Eldest younger sister had a miscarriage, and there was a stir immediately. In the end, Brother-in-law left without caring about the Eldest younger sister, and went back to the city angrily by himself."
Xia Yue Chu became absolutely speechless hearing this, this Xue Li was really a master who failed at achieving anything other than creating mess.
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Translator Notes:
* I don't know how you feel about the way Chinese speaks culturally, but it is an art in the speech when they framed their argument with a passive manner in order to make the other party more agreeable with them.
In this case, Xia Yue Chu is convincing Auntie Chen to take the food without bearing the burden to return such act of goodwill. So she deliberately reduces the value of the fish, saying that it is not worth much, since gifts with insignificant value are easier to accept compared to gifts that are valuable.
And Xia Yue Chu targets it towards Auntie Chen's kids, the fish is not just for her. It's brilliant, calling out to her mother's instinct to feed her children, and rejecting on another's behalf will feel different from rejecting for oneself. So Xia Yue Chu is attempting to make her not to reject the offer, especially earlier on in the chapter, we hear that Auntie Chen has four boys who are still growing and essentially need more food for her sons.
Then she teases Auntie Chen about their friendship, dug out their past and joked about being viewed as an ingrate. This is turning passive aggressive, successfully leaving Auntie Chen no more excuses to reject the food if not, it would mean that Auntie Chen really sees Xia Yue Chu as such an ungrateful person.
And all at the same time, Xia Yue Chu removes Auntie Chen's guilt to be on the receiving end by weighing out with how she has also feed her in the past, making her feel good, leaving a good impression, and further building their relationship.
A very small piece of dialogue but it contains so much emotion and information. It's pretty well written.
** Inflate her pride, the original text is directly translated to growing face. And we have gone through what face represents, face can mean reputation, dignity, shame and pride.
Translated by YellowBean.