Having a Baby Before Marrying a Wicked Husband - Chapter 86

Madam Fu waited outside the door for a long time, but did not see Yan Cai. The gatekeeper at the door kept blocking her and refused to let her in, which made her even angrier.

By chance, a small head emerged from the doorway, followed by a white and delicate little face. He wore a red short-sleeved shirt paired with emerald green knee-length pants.

The top was red, the bottom was green, looking like an upside-down radish from afar. The small hat on the top of the head resembled the mud spots left when pulling out a radish.

Despite the hot weather, the child still wore a hat woven from wheat straws on his head, with a small yellow flower inserted into the brim of the hat.

As soon as she saw the little child, Madam Fu’s clenched fists dug deeply into her palm. This little rascal. It was because of this little rascal that things went wrong last time. For some reason, seeing this rascal again made her previously healed face feel a bit itchy again.

Before, for some reason, her face broke out in a lot of red rashes, and it took a long time for the doctor to treat them. Now, there are faint signs of a recurrence.

Madam Fu uncertainly touched her cheek, feeling uneasy inside.

At a glance, little Qingke recognized Madam Fu as the person who scolded his father before! She’s a  big bad guy.

“Bad guy!” Keke made a grimace at Madam Fu and dashed away with quick steps. Madam Fu really wanted to give him a slap, but since she came to ask for something, she had to hold back.

Madam Fu impatiently said to the gatekeeper, “Quickly call out Yan Cai, I’ve been waiting long enough.” The sun outside was scorching, her skin was almost getting burnt.

“Sorry, Madam, our master is busy at the moment. Please come back another day…”

“I don’t care, I want to go in now! Damn servants, let me in!”

The voice of Yan Cai came out when the gatekeeper was in a dilemma.

“Oh, look who’s here?” Yan Cai, holding his son in one hand, reached into the pocket hanging from his waist and pulled out a handful of roasted beans, popping them into his mouth one by one. His son wanted to lick a couple, but Yan Cai didn’t allow it.

What do kids need to eat roasted beans for? They might break their teeth. It’s not time for him to lose his baby teeth yet.

Yan Cai teased the child and didn’t pay much attention to Madam Fu. Madam Fu’s inner fire burned even more. This kid acted like nobody was there. But since there was a matter to discuss, she had to endure.

“It’s not convenient here. Let’s talk inside.”

“Hey, hold on.” The smile vanished from his face, and Yan Cai said coldly, “We don’t welcome outsiders in our home. If you have something to say, just say it here.”

“You!” How could she express herself in such a public place with people coming and going? All she could do was glare at Yan Cai with a pair of fiery red eyes.

When the atmosphere was tense, Jiang Manxing walked down from the school carrying a bookcase and holding a clay figurine in his hand.

From far away, one could hear Manxing saying, “Keke, Uncle brought you something fun…”

“Manxing?” Madam Fu was initially surprised, then pleasantly so. Jiang Manxing was an easy person to talk to. With him around, it was much easier to persuade others.

“Ah! It’s, it’s…” Jiang Manxing subconsciously wanted to call his mother, but hesitated for a moment, then just said, “Hello, Madam Jiang.”

Madam Fu was not very pleased. This little ungrateful wolf, she had raised him for over a decade, and now he turned his back on her. At this moment, Madam Fu seemed to forget how she had applied double standards in raising someone else’s child compared to her own biological child.

However, at this moment, there was no need to break faces. Madam Fu just agreed with a word. Just as she was about to speak, Jiang Manxing’s attention was drawn away by the outstretched arms of the little child.

His little nephew wants a hug—Jiang Manxing felt his heart melting! Whatever about Madam Fu or not about Madam Fu, he couldn’t care less. He quickly went over to pick up the little child and gave him several kisses.

The soft and fragrant little nephew immediately made Jiang Manxing forget everything. Seeing the opportunity, Yan Cai asked Jiang Manxing to take the child inside first.

Jiang Manxing hesitated; he was afraid his sister-in-law would be bullied. Seeing that he hesitated, Yan Cai pushed him into the door.

There’s just one Madam Jiang; what is he afraid of? It’s this clueless guy standing here that’s getting in the way.

“You are looking for me because of your son’s matter.” Yan Cai spoke frankly. As soon as the words came out, there was a hint of urgency in Madam Fu’s eyes, indeed hitting the mark with what was on her mind.

Then the next second, Yan Cai ruthlessly shattered the hope that had just arisen in Madam Fu’s heart.

“I won’t help you. You figure it out for yourself. You’re really good at scheming, aren’t you? Have you ever thought that between us, there’s only enmity and no kindness? Why would I eagerly help an enemy? Do you think I’m a fool?”

“You! You!” Madam Fu clutched her chest, her heart pounding with anger.

Yan Cai glanced at him and said, “oh my, with that heart beating like that, don’t get angry and have a heart attack. Then you’ll blame it on us.” Even if she blames him, he won’t treat her!

“If it were someone else, maybe I would help. But you? I absolutely won’t. Do you know why?”

Yan Cai blinked, seeing that Madam Fu probably didn’t feel like answering, so he revealed the answer himself.

“You bullied my Manyue when he was young. He may forget, but I won’t.”

After confronting Madam Fu, Yan Cai was in a great mood that evening. So, in a rare moment, he personally took up the knife to cook. Hong Yu watched nervously as Yan Cai chopped and sliced vegetables.

She wasn’t exaggerating at all; it’s really the way he chops and slices vegetables. Young Master Manyue occasionally enters the kitchen. Even if his cooking skills are not great, his way of cutting vegetables is elegant. But her young master is different.

The way he cuts the winter melon is swift, as if he’s single-handedly charging into a hundred thousand troops to claim their leader’s head. The chicken cut in half at the waist, the fish killed with a single stroke, the duck on the chopping board with its eyes wide open…

The young master is terrifying.

Yan Cai, feeling proud after finishing the cutting, realizes— it doesn’t look too good. He used to be accustomed to cooking and baking casually, rarely having the chance to stay and cook seriously. In the apocalypse, that’s almost impossible, so cooking skills… he just can’t learn them.

He can only manage to cook it through. Yan Cai reluctantly sets down the kitchen knife, takes a step back, and lets Hong Yu take over.

“Um, haha, Hong Yu, why don’t you cook instead? I’ll just watch, just watch.” Yan Cai awkwardly rubs his nose, the vegetables on the cutting board looking somewhat ferocious.

Hong Yu knows that the young master of the house wants to cook something for Master Manyue himself, so she ponders over what simple and easy dish the young master can try to learn.

After a while, she thinks she can prepare the glutinous rice flour herself, let the young master roll the dough into small balls, and then boil them in a pot. It’s effortless, and she’ll take care of the most troublesome parts.

Sure enough, with a basin of well-kneaded glutinous rice flour dough, Yan Cai only needs to roll small balls, and he manages it. The balls he rolls are not big, only the size of a soybean. After rolling a bowl, Hong Yu teaches him how to cook the rice wine glutinous balls.

Things like rice wine, rock sugar, and eggs are all available at home, so you just need to boil the small balls, then add the rice wine and egg liquid, and finally the rock sugar one by one.

Yan Cai successfully tries his hand at it and is extremely happy. He feeds the first bowl to his son, and when Jiang Manyue comes home, he receives a particularly large bowl of rice wine glutinous balls.

Jiang Manyue squints his eyes to measure the size of the bowl; after finishing it, he probably won’t need to eat dinner.

“I made quite a few dishes. Why don’t you try and see how they taste? Hong Yu said they were not bad, and I think they’re just average, so it’s not bad.”

Although he seems indifferent, a proud expression eager for praise shows on his face.

Jiang Manyue, who doesn’t particularly like sweet things, politely finishes the bowl. Even though the sweetness isn’t suitable, his expression remains unchanged.

“I heard that Fu came to our house looking for trouble today,” Jiang Manyue mentions between bites.

“Yes. She sent me some letters before, but I ignored her. I forgot to tell you,” Yan Cai responds.

“Ignore her,” Jiang Manyue sets down his spoon with seriousness, “Be careful when you’re out. If that woman loses her temper, no one can stop her. She’s petty, jealous, and scheming. Not a good person.”

Yan Cai, holding a large chicken leg, looks up, raising his arm that seems to lack muscle: “I’m not afraid of her. I’m very powerful.”

The toddler drinking milk nods in agreement. Father is tough, he is tough too, and… hmm, he’ll protect Father. So, he asks for another bowl of milk.

You have to eat a lot to grow tall. He wants to drink more milk!

Yan Cai doesn’t rush to give him more milk but gently pats his belly, then lets Hong Yu take him away.

“Your tummy is full. You’ve eaten enough.”

The baby looks at the other father. Jiang Manyue pretends not to see and nods.

“Your father is right. You’ve eaten enough.”

Forcibly full, the baby doesn’t feel his father’s love at all. Qingke chose to run away from home late at night and sleep with his uncle instead of his two fathers.

At night, Qingke stuck his little head out several times, and why didn’t Father come and take him back? He is already sleepy. Jiang Manxing couldn’t bear to touch Qingke’s sparse hair.

This little one has thin hair, and it grows very slowly, still short, soft, and sticking to his head.

Father, come take me back to bed.

Unfortunately, Qingke couldn’t wait for his two fathers to pick him up before he fell asleep. It wasn’t until midnight that Jiang Manyue went to Jiang Manxing’s room and carried his already sleeping son back.

Jiang Manxing, half asleep, asked, “Where’s sister-in-law?”

“Your sister-in-law is asleep.”

“Oh, he’s asleep.” Jiang Manxing, still groggy, didn’t grasp the implications of the conversation, sleepily agreeing, yawning, then falling asleep.

The next day, when Qingke woke up, he found himself sleeping next to Yan Cai, his eyes filled with confusion. Wasn’t he sleeping with his uncle yesterday?

Qingke’s big face pressed against his father’s face, drooling all over Yan Cai, waking him up abruptly. As soon as he woke up, it was with a flood of his son’s enthusiastic greetings and a face full of drool.

“Father! Father!”

Qingke excitedly flapped his arms towards him. It’s only been one night, yet he’s already this attached.

Wiping off the drool from his face, Yan Cai deeply experiences both the happiness and the tribulations of having a child. Patting his sore back, he feels even more profoundly the joys and pains of having a partner.

Madam Fu didn’t get any results from Yan Cai, so naturally, she couldn’t report this back. But she didn’t want her son to go to that poor and chaotic place to serve as an official. So, she came up with what she thought was a clever idea.

She had her people in the village come up with a bunch of suggestions, sifted through them to find ones that looked decent, and sent them to the Noble Consort, claiming they were all Yan Cai’s ideas.

The Noble Consort looked at the contents of the paper with some doubts. However, being a pampered young lady since childhood, she couldn’t recognize what cotton looked like even when it was in the fields, let alone spot any flaws in these suggestions.

Madam Fu thought she had played it smart.

But the Noble Consort was wary of her. She said, “Since Sister can find him to help with ideas, why not just invite him directly to be an adviser by my son’s side? Wouldn’t that be simpler and more convenient? After all, even if it’s written on paper, it may not convey his true intentions, right?”

Madam Fu was speechless, momentarily unsure of how to cover her lie.