To Be the Male Lead's Deceased First Wife in a Historical Chinese Exam-focused Novel - Chapter 7

Chapter 7: Don’t Call Me ‘Wife-Lord’

Yan An’s fair and beautiful appearance was a rare sight in the village. People would always take a second look at her. Combined with her status as a xiucai, even if they found her hard to get along with, they would still use Yan An as a role model when teaching their own children, hoping they would be more like her and achieve great things in the future so they wouldn’t have to work hard with their faces to the ground like them.

Yan An didn’t know what Wen Ying was thinking, but even if she did, she would only proudly touch her face. After all, a beautiful face was also a kind of asset!

They continued to work until about six in the evening. The sun was already setting, painting the sky in a canvas of orange and red. In this ancient era, this was a beautiful sight that countless ordinary people could enjoy for free.

After taking the hulled grains to Aunt Zhao’s house, Yan An looked at the sunset on the way back and sighed in her heart. She couldn’t believe she was going to live a life of “working from sunrise to sunset.” It was truly bizarre.

Come to think of it, Yan An in the modern era was almost inseparable from her phone. But after a day here, she hadn’t once thought about playing on her phone or felt bored or empty.

She felt the soreness all over her body, and her face stiffened. “Okay,” she thought, “maybe I just don’t have the time to be bored.”

…

Back home, the first thing Wen Ying did was light the fire and boil water. Then she started preparing dinner on the other stove. It was still a coarse-grain and vegetable porridge, made with the remaining small cabbages from lunchtime. There wasn’t much else they could do.

Of course, it wasn’t that Wen Ying didn’t want to make something else; the family was simply too poor to afford it. Even the small amount of coarse grain was running low. To fill their stomachs, she would have to get up early tomorrow morning and go out to pick some wild vegetables.

Yan An looked at the coarse-grain and vegetable porridge that was identical to the one they had for lunch and felt like an idiot for thinking she could have white rice every meal in the morning.

“You eat first. I’m going to check the fire,” Wen Ying said, placing the clay pot on the table for Yan An.

Upon hearing this, Yan An quickly pulled her down and made her sit. She frowned, displeased. “I just saw the fire; it’s burning just fine. What else is there to check? Hurry up and sit down and eat with me!”

“I…”

“No ‘I’s.’ Eat!” Yan An said, enduring the soreness in her arms and serving her a full bowl. She had just noticed that there was less porridge in the pot than there had been at noon.

Was this person planning to let her eat her fill and then eat the leftovers herself?

Had the family really become this poor?

After serving Wen Ying, Yan An served herself a bowl and began to eat. The physical labor was immense. Luckily, they were eating three meals a day. If they were only eating two, as was common in ancient times, she might have fainted from hunger in the fields today.

But she was indeed too tired. She could only finish one bowl and then felt like she couldn’t eat anymore. All she wanted was to take a bath and lie down and sleep. She didn’t want to move at all!

Dinner was finished in silence. While there was still enough light, Yan An quickly took a bath and lay down on the bed. Although she was exhausted, she forced herself to stay awake until Wen Ying had also bathed and entered the room. Only then did she relax.

She moved inward on the bed, feeling incredibly sleepy. “Do you want to sleep on the inside or the outside?” she mumbled.

Wen Ying looked at her movement, pursed her lips, and then got on the bed and lifted the blanket. “The outside is fine.”

“Okay,” Yan An mumbled, turning her back to Wen Ying and preparing to fall asleep.

In this situation, what boundaries were there to talk about? The most important thing was to just survive!

Wen Ying didn’t lie down immediately after getting on the bed. She looked at Yan An’s profile. “Wife-Lord, let me massage your body for you. You’ll feel much better tomorrow.”

This person had never done this kind of physical labor before. If she didn’t relax her muscles, she probably wouldn’t even be able to get out of bed tomorrow.

“Huh? Oh, okay. Thank you,” Yan An said. Even though she was very sleepy, hearing that someone was willing to give her a massage, she propped herself up on her stomach to make it easier for Wen Ying to use her strength.

Wen Ying lifted the blanket off her and began to relax Yan An’s muscles through her clothes.

The soothing, sore feeling made Yan An feel so comfortable that she almost moaned. Then she vaguely remembered how Wen Ying had addressed her earlier.

“Did you just call me ‘Wife-Lord’?” Yan An asked, her voice filled with a complex emotion.

The hand massaging Yan An’s body paused for a moment. Then, Wen Ying’s calm voice came.

“Yes.”

Yan An: “…”

Her expression was a little speechless. She buried her head in her arm, and her voice became muffled.

“Don’t call me that anymore,” she said. It sounded so weird.

This time, Wen Ying’s massaging motion didn’t stop, but her voice was still calm. She asked why.

Yan An quietly rolled her eyes. She didn’t want to explain too much and just said, “I just don’t like it. Don’t call me that. It makes it sound like I’m your owner.”

Yan An was the type of person who wouldn’t even watch BDSM or domination videos. She simply couldn’t accept it; she found it too heavy and uncomfortable.

Was it possible that in this world, other female couples also called one person “Wife-Lord”?

Wen Ying didn’t say anything more. After Yan An finished speaking, she also became drowsy from Wen Ying’s massage. Just as she was about to drift off to sleep, a very soft voice, but one that was incredibly clear in the night, came again.

“Then what should I call you from now on?”

Yan An was very sleepy. She mumbled, “Just call me by my name. If you really can’t, then you can call me ‘darling’.” Anything but that strange title.

After saying that, she fell into a deep sleep.

After she fell asleep, the room became deathly quiet. After Wen Ying finished the massage, she gently turned Yan An over to a comfortable position. She lay down carefully beside her, curling up slightly to face Yan An. She was also physically exhausted and sleepy, but her mind couldn’t stop replaying the changes in Yan An since she woke up.

“Will you always be like this?” Wen Ying asked softly.

But the person who had already fallen into a deep sleep, of course, couldn’t give her any response.

…

The next day, a rooster crowed, and Yan An groggily woke up. As soon as she tried to turn over, her first reaction was to feel sore.

She winced and woke up completely. She lay on the bed, letting the soreness subside. At the same time, she felt lazy and didn’t want to move, unable to muster any energy.

She lay flat on her back and turned her head. There was no one beside her. She reached out and touched the bed; there was no warmth left.

Yan An: “…”

She hadn’t misheard, had she? She had woken up to the sound of a rooster crowing, right? So how early did Wen Ying get up?!

Yan An sat up with a pained expression. She angrily punched the bed with her fist. This comparison made her feel completely useless! How was she supposed to live like this?

Yan An struggled to get out of bed, enduring the soreness. She didn’t see Wen Ying when she left the room. After she had washed up, she went to the backyard to look for her but didn’t see her there either. It wasn’t until she walked back to the front courtyard that she saw Wen Ying returning with a woven basket on her back.

“What were you doing getting up so early?” Yan An walked slowly to Wen Ying and peeked into her basket.

“…”

“I went out and picked some wild vegetables,” Wen Ying said. “Are you hungry? I’ll go and prepare breakfast now.”

Yan An’s face had a complex expression as she looked at the wild vegetables. Perhaps because Wen Ying had gone out so early, some of the leaves still had dew on them and looked incredibly fresh.

Yan An took a deep breath, comforting herself that these were all-natural wild vegetables that were difficult to get in the modern era. She knew back then, you had to pay a high price for them. But now, she could eat them every meal without paying a single coin! Who wouldn’t envy her?

Wen Ying went into the kitchen to get busy. Since Yan An’s family had owned a restaurant, she was actually very good at cooking, but the current family situation gave her no chance to show off her skills! She couldn’t even use her talent!

Yan An sighed mournfully in her heart and took the clothes they had taken off last night to the well. Wen Ying had already done so much; she shouldn’t just stand around.

Luckily, the original owner’s family still had a well. If she had to go and fetch water, Yan An would really think about jumping into a river.

Wen Ying heard the commotion outside and came out. She saw what Yan An was doing and tried to stop her. “Don’t. I’ll do it later.”

Yan An was trying to lift the bucket of water and didn’t look up. “I don’t have anything to do right now anyway.”

Wen Ying walked over and took the rope from her. With a flick of her wrist, the bucket was filled with water, unlike Yan An, who couldn’t get it to fill up earlier.

“If you really want to do something, you can sweep the courtyard,” Wen Ying said. She lifted the water and poured it into the wooden basin with the clothes, assigning Yan An a different, easier task.

Yan An: “…”

She pursed her lips and asked unhappily, “Why won’t you let me do it? I won’t tear the clothes!”

She wasn’t so useless that she couldn’t even do this, was she?

In college, she had hated using the public washing machines because they were dirty, so she had always washed her clothes by hand!

Wen Ying looked at her expression, and the hand that was still holding the bucket tightened. She said a little stiffly, “You still have blisters on your hands. It’s not convenient for you to do this.”

As she spoke, she couldn’t help but glance at Yan An’s hands. They were so beautiful. Doing rough work like this would inevitably leave calluses and make the skin coarse.

“I…” Yan An felt the pain in her palms and finally gave in. “Fine, I’ll go and sweep.”

Seeing her willingness, Wen Ying let out a sigh of relief. She went and fetched two more buckets of water to let the clothes soak, and then she went into the kitchen to get busy, feeling more at ease.

Does that person never get tired? Yan An couldn’t help but wonder.

But she soon understood. Of course, she gets tired; she was just holding on.

Thinking about how Wen Ying eventually went on to pursue an official career and became a powerful official who controlled the court, comparing her future achievements to her current situation was enough to show how resilient Wen Ying’s character was.

While sweeping, she suddenly walked into the study and randomly opened a book to read.

But… Yan An’s face darkened.

Why were these characters different from the traditional Chinese characters she knew?!

But even if they were the same, she probably wouldn’t have been able to read all of them.

Wen Ying, who had finished cooking breakfast, came out to call her to eat, only to see her holding a book in a daze.

Yan An, like a stuck robot, slowly lifted her head to look at Wen Ying. Then, with a “thud,” she closed the book and held it out to Wen Ying with a respectful expression.

“I’m sorry, I am as stupid as a pig. I cannot bear the hardship of studying.”

Wen Ying: “…”