CHAPTER 418: CHAPTER 0399: THE NOT-SO-USELESS YOUTH (1)

In Qingshui River Village, there was a distant relative of Chai Eying, Uncle Gui, who had once driven a mule cart and taken Chai Eying to Qingshui River Village to visit relatives. Thus, he recognized Liu Yanbai, who had only one arm.

However, the villagers all just called him by his nickname, Liu Erdan.

"Isn’t this Liu Erdan? Did your mother really drive you out?" Uncle Gui slapped his leg, sighed, "She always shouted about driving you out, but everyone heard it as angry words, and now it’s for real?"

Mentioning his mother, Liu Yanbai’s eyes reddened again.

He lowered his head, his lips trembled, and tears started falling down.

Li Yuzhu said, "Alright, Uncle Gui, let’s not talk about the past, just arrange for him to stay, and I’ll tell Nanny Jiang to make dinner for one more tonight."

"Alright, no more talk." Uncle Gui waved Liu Yanbai over, "Come with me."

Liu Yanbai wiped his tears and followed Uncle Gui away.

Mu Yuanxiu handed the money bag back to Prince Luling and went to park the mule cart.

Li Yuzhu went to the kitchen.

Prince Luling walked briskly, a proud expression on his face as he arrived at the back residence, "Madam!"

He placed the money-filled cloth bag heavily on the table.

Inside were copper coins and broken silver.

When placed on the table, they jingled.

Princess Consort Luling was sitting in the bedroom, sewing winter clothes for Prince Luling and their sons.

The eldest son’s winter clothes would be made by his wife, the daughters would make their own, but for the second and third son, she had to make.

Although it was only early autumn, as the saying goes, "each autumn rain brings a chill."

It rained a bit yesterday morning, the weather cooled a bit, and if it rained continuously, winter clothes would be needed.

When the family arrived here, they wore winter clothes, but after more than a month without washing, they became worn out. Now that the family wasn’t short of money, those clothes were disliked and thrown aside.

Princess Consort Luling took apart the old clothes, washed them, cut them into small pieces, preparing to make diapers for the child in Chai Eying’s belly.

Hearing Prince Luling calling her from outside, Princess Consort Luling put down the fabric in her hand, stretched and massaged her sore shoulder, "What’s the matter, old man?"

Always calling out upon returning.

She rubbed her shoulder and walked into the main room.

"Come, come, look here." Prince Luling excitedly pulled her to sit by the table, seeing her rubbing her shoulder, he started to massage for her.

"What’s this?" Princess Consort Luling looked at the cloth bag on the table.

"Open it and see." Prince Luling said with a smile.

Princess Consort Luling glanced back at him, raised her eyebrows and smiled, "What could this be?"

She opened the bag and saw it was filled with money.

There were some broken silver, and some coins.

"It’s the tuition from the academy, twenty-four taels eight hundred wen, you can count it." Prince Luling said proudly.

Princess Consort Luling laughed, "Yes, Master, Master now has prospects, no longer taking money out, but bringing it home."

Prince Luling muttered, "Stop mentioning the past, will you?"

He had only done one unprofitable thing, alright, had he not had bad luck that day and met hooligans, he could have made money setting up a calligraphy stall.

"Okay, okay, I won’t mention it." Princess Consort Luling laughed.

She gathered the money bag, didn’t count it, and directly locked it in the bedroom cabinet.

Prince Luling teased, "You’re not going to count it? What if it’s short?"

Princess Consort Luling locked the cabinet, tucked the key into her waist pouch, and snorted lightly, "With a daughter around, unless you secretly took some, or dropped some on your way from the door to the room, it won’t be short."

Prince Luling laughed, "You really do trust me not to take money on the sly."

"I know how many guts you have, I could tell with my eyes closed, what’s there to say about trust." Princess Consort Luling laughed angrily.

Being married for over twenty years, they knew each other’s temperament well.

If he said it wasn’t short, it definitely wasn’t short.

If they had to count the money delivered to their hands, always on guard against each other, they shouldn’t be a couple at all, better to split up sooner.

"Heh heh, you do know me well." His wife, though joking and sarcastic, undoubtedly trusted him, and Prince Luling was in a good mood.

He pulled Princess Consort Luling to sit on the chair and talked about Liu Yanbai’s situation.

"Being so despised by his own mother is really rare!" Princess Consort Luling said angrily.

"Uncle Gui knows him, so I entrusted him to Uncle Gui. After this month, I’ll have him work at the county store. At that time, Old Third and Yuzhu will arrange it." Prince Luling said.

"The house isn’t lacking in space, and there’s no shortage of food either. He’s just staying for a month, so let’s arrange it this way." Princess Consort Luling had no objections.

She picked out some of Li Xing’an’s old clothes and a pair of shoes and asked Prince Luling to give them to Liu Yanbai.

.

Prince Luling, holding the clothes and shoes, went to the outer room next to the courtyard gate.

The room closest to the gate was Uncle Gui’s, the second one inside was where Qin Hu used to stay.

When Prince Luling went in, he saw Uncle Gui helping Liu Yanbai make the bed.

However, the bed wasn’t the one Qin Hu used, but a wooden plank placed on two long benches.

The two of them had already set up the bed frame and were working together to spread out the quilts.

The quilts weren’t from Qin Hu’s bed; they had brought over two other old ones.

Prince Luling recognized those old quilts. They were the ones Li Xing’an and the others exchanged for leopard meat from the villagers when they were living in the cave.

Although they were a bit old, they weren’t torn, and Uncle Gui had dried them in the sun and put them away.

"Isn’t there already a bed? Why are you still making a bed?" Prince Luling placed the clothes he was holding on a chair and asked in confusion.

Uncle Gui smiled and said, "This child is so polite. He said he’s small and doesn’t need to sleep on a bed, just the wooden board is enough. When he saw the old quilts piled in the room, he said he’s only staying for a month, so he’ll use the old ones."

Liu Yanbai bowed to Prince Luling, "This is just fine, Mr. Li."

Prince Luling turned to look at Liu Yanbai, who was timidly looking down.

This was a timid yet sensible child.

If forced to sleep on a bed, he might get frightened instead.

Prince Luling didn’t insist and just said, "Alright then, since you’ll be living alone in this room, there’s no need to be too formal, make yourself at home."

"I understand, teacher." Liu Yanbai replied timidly.

Prince Luling pointed to the clothes on the chair, telling him not to disdain wearing them for now. The weather had turned cold, and what he brought were all thin clothes that couldn’t withstand the chill. These were thicker padded clothes.

Although the clothes were all old and oversized, they didn’t have patches.

The material was even better than any of Liu Yanbai’s own clothes.

Liu Yanbai felt even more grateful and bowed again to Prince Luling.

"You really are a polite child." Prince Luling waved his hand with a smile, "Alright, alright, you rest first, we’ll call you for dinner later."

.

As it got late, all the family members who had gone out to work returned.

They were quite surprised to see Liu Yanbai.

Prince Luling explained Liu Yanbai’s situation.

None of them looked down on him; they greeted him and then went about their own tasks.

Seeing the Li Family being so kind, Liu Yanbai felt even more reserved.

He silently vowed in his heart that he would work diligently while living here.

Mu Yuanxiu, as usual, stayed here for dinner and afterward helped Nanny Jiang chop wood.

Liu Yanbai went to help as well.

However, he had only one functional arm and couldn’t lift the ax.

So he helped pick up the chopped firewood or moved uncut logs to Mu Yuanxiu’s side.

Even with one arm, moving logs was hard for him. Unlike Mu Yuanxiu, who could carry five or six logs at a time, he moved them one by one.

He quickly ran back to the woodpile to fetch another log after bringing one over.

Mu Yuanxiu just had to focus on chopping without moving around to fetch logs, saving him quite a bit of effort.

Li Xing’an came over to wash his hands, chuckling as he patted Liu Yanbai’s shoulder, "Not bad, not bad, keep it up. Next month, I’ll take you to the county town to see our shop."

During dinner earlier, Liu Yanbai had already learned from their chats that this handsome young man, not much older than him, would permanently oversee the shop in the county town. This implied that he would be the young man’s assistant in the future.

Liu Yanbai nodded earnestly to Li Xing’an, "I’ll work hard."

His cautious and timid demeanor amused Li Xing’an.

Soon, night fell, and Mu Yuanxiu returned to the mountain.

Liu Yanbo was led by Uncle Gui to wash up and rest.

The other Li Family members each went back to their rooms to sleep.

Li Yuzhu and her two sisters played with Guoguo for a while before succumbing to sleepiness and gradually falling asleep.

.

The next day, as usual, the Li Family got up at dawn.

Nanny Jiang went to the backyard, calling everyone to the kitchen for breakfast, "This morning is chilly, we’re having hot noodle soup with a poached egg."

Everyone came out of their rooms, chatting and laughing as they headed to the kitchen.

Li Yuzhu noticed that Liu Yanbai was already in the kitchen.

He had a smudge of black soot on his forehead.

"Huh, Liu Yanbai, were you just helping out in the kitchen?" Li Yuzhu asked him in surprise.

Liu Yanbai replied bashfully, "I got up early, and since I was idle, I helped Nanny Jiang hand over some firewood."

Nanny Jiang was placing bowls of noodle soup on the table, smiling as she spoke, "Don’t be fooled by him having only one arm, he’s quite nimble at work. Hasn’t he done a lot of work at home before?"

Prince Luling said, "Being quick at work shows you do it often. Yet why does your mother say you’re lazy?"

Liu Yanbai’s expression became somber, and he pursed his lips before saying, "Whatever I do, she says I haven’t done it."

Prince Luling frowned, "That’s nonsense, isn’t that unjust?"

Li Yuzhu patted Liu Yanbai’s shoulder, "Don’t think too much about it. We can see how diligent you are."