The Butcher's Little Husband - Chapter 7

Tian Xiaoman was worried, and Li Wenxuan was not having an easy time either.

Li Wenxuan had learned kung fu from his father since childhood, and his skills were quite impressive. While it was impossible for him to come and go like the heroes in storybooks, climbing trees and scaling walls were still easy for him.

He had an older brother above him, so growing up he had little pressure.

At 17, he left the village with some fellow villagers to make a living. Relying on his martial skills, he became a guard for a wealthy household in the prefectural city. The job was easy, just patrolling every day, and the pay was generous. Once, while accompanying their young master on a hunt, he even saved his life, and thus gained more favor.

However, this carefree life lasted only four years, as his older brother suddenly had to follow the county magistrate to a different post. 

Li Yiran, his brother, was much more studious and had passed the imperial exams to become a scholar. He was preparing for further examinations when their grandfather and grandmother passed away one after another. This meant they had to observe a mourning period for several years, and their father, being the only son, had to shoulder all the funeral expenses, depleting the family’s wealth. As a result, his brother gave up his academic career and came home to support the family.

Fortunately, his brother had performed well enough to gain the favor of the county magistrate, who then employed him as a secretary. He also married the magistrate’s nephew. 

In the following years, the county grew steadily, and the magistrate was promoted to a higher position in the capital. Naturally, his brother went with him.

With both sons now in the capital, their parents were left alone at home. It was unthinkable to leave them there by themselves, so Li Wenxuan packed his belongings and returned home to care for them.

In fact, being called home had saved him from a great headache. Ever since that life-saving incident, his martial skills had caught the eye of the young master, who wanted every possible way to keep him there. After all, the wealthy cherished their lives—having one more skilled fighter around meant their sense of safety would soar!

So, the young master came up with a foolish plan: he tried to give him a handsome young man who worked as a servant for his husband, using the beauty trap to try to keep him there. But Wenxuan didn’t like that attendant, and though he kept trying to decline politely, in the end he was preparing to reject flatly when—right on time—a letter came from home. Using it as an excuse, he packed his bags and left immediately, without a moment’s hesitation.

What he hadn’t expected, however, was to come back only to face marriage pressure. His mother nagged daily in his ears:

“You’re already this old, you must marry! Why, when I was your age, your brother was already three years old!”

Or: “I’m so old now, maybe I’ve only got a few years left. If I don’t live to see you wed and raise children, I’ll die with my eyes open!”

Li Wenxuan rolled his eyes. With his Amu’s energy, he would likely live another 30 or 40 years. It was unlikely that his words were anything more than exaggerated.

Seeing that this wasn’t working, his Amu started showing him his brother’s child in front of him every day, trying to spark fatherly love. Yet although Wenxuan did enjoy children, the topic of marriage never once came out of his mouth.

Eventually, Li Amu used his last trick—he called on some local matchmakers to see if any of them would be interested in Li Wenxuan and set up an engagement.

Although Wenxuan wasn’t the frail bookish type popular at the time, he was still a bright and capable young man. Naturally, there were suitors who found him desirable.

Who would have thought, though, that Li Wenxuan would take the knife his father used to slaughter animals, buy a pig, kill it, and walk around the village covered in blood, proclaiming that he wanted to sell pork and inviting villagers to buy from him.

The young gers who had once shown interest in him were now horrified by the sight of him covered in blood, their faces twisting in fear. 

Needless to say, his prospects for marriage evaporated, and his reputation was soon tainted. Rumors spread quickly—everyone said that on Willow Slope lived a butcher with a brutish face, vicious and cruel, who spent so much time with carcasses he was no longer quite normal.

When Li Amu cried to him about it, Li Wenxuan could only touch his nose in embarrassment. 

Who would have guessed that the villagers were so gossipy? It seemed like his chances of getting married would be postponed for a few years.

Li Wenxuan wasn’t in a hurry, but his Amu was. 

One day, after hearing that a young ger in Xingtian Village was eager to marry, he hurriedly pushed Wenxuan to take a matchmaker and propose, hoping to secure the marriage before the rumors spread any further.

Not long after the proposal, it was reported that the young ger was very fierce and liked to pick fights. It was said that he had even pushed someone into a river during a quarrel and bullied the older boys in the village.

Li Wenxuan didn’t take it seriously. People in the village loved gossip, and even the smallest incident could be exaggerated. Most likely, it wasn’t half as exaggerated as they said.

That night, Li Amu lay in bed, tossing and turning, unable to sleep, he tossed and turned, waking up Li Gensheng in the process. Once he was awake, Li Amu sat up and quietly asked his husband., “What should we do?”

“What is it?” Father Li, still half-asleep, mumbled groggily.

“You useless old man, you never care about your son’s affairs!” Li Amu furiously pinched Li Gensheng.

“Hiss… you this unreasonable fellow!” Father Li woke up instantly. “How can you say I don’t care? Haven’t I been working hard to save up the bride price for him?” He sounded very wronged. Spending all his days on the mountain, he really had no idea what was happening at home.

“You’re not listening, are you? The whole village is gossiping about us,” Li Amu said, wiping his tears. “They say our son’s bride is cruel and vicious. One fierce, one vicious—what a perfect pair! They’ve nearly made our family sound like a bandit’s den!”

“Bah, people outside talk nonsense all the time. Why listen?” Li Gensheng muttered, like most men, had little patience for such things—he wasn’t an old gossiping woman.

“How can I ignore it? It’s everywhere! I feel so upset just hearing it! If we really marry such a bold and violent husband for our son, how will the two of us survive?”

“They also said our son is abnormal! Do you believe that? Could our son really be like that?” Li Gensheng replied rationally.

“True,” Li Amu, reassured by his words, felt a little calmer. “But I’ll go check again tomorrow.” 

Li Amu decided to visit Uncle Liu’s family, since his second husband was from Xingtian Village.

“Go to sleep, and talk about it tomorrow.” Li Gensheng yawned and turned over, quickly falling back to sleep.

The next morning, Mother Li tidied up and went to visit Uncle Liu’s house. Just as he arrived, Uncle Liu’s second husband was heading out with a basket, intending to pick some long beans and chili peppers. He decided to accompany him.

This second husband had distant kinship ties with Tian Xiaoman’s family, and naturally, he leaned toward saying good things. Still, he wasn’t entirely biased—after all, Tian Xiaoman hadn’t really done anything terrible.

Li Amu began to feel a bit calmer, but then he worried again. With all the rumors spreading out about his son, the other party might still back out of the marriage once they heard them.  He thought that if the rumors about his son spread too far, they might call off the engagement.

Concerned, He quickly went home, asked his son to put the wild rabbits his father had caught into a basket, and sent them to the future husband’s family. He wanted to test the waters and see if anyone had heard the rumor. It was also a chance for the families to meet first. If things didn’t work out, they could end the engagement amicably.

Just then, Li Wenxuan, who hadn’t been busy slaughtering pigs that day, was preparing to go hunting with his father. He hadn’t exercised in a while and felt stiff all over. But his mother gave him this task, and he knew if he refused, he’d only get an earful from her. So, reluctantly, he mounted his horse, took the basket, and set off.

This horse had belonged to Master Jiang of the prefectural city. It had been with Wenxuan since the day he first arrived, through four years of sharing life and danger together. Their bond was deep. When Wenxuan left to return home, Master Jiang granted him one wish. Wenxuan asked for nothing else but this horse. He named it Hero, because in his mind, heroes always stood proud with sword in hand and horse beneath them.

Riding the horse for almost two hours, Li Wenxuan finally reached his betrothed’s family. If it had been an ox cart, it would have taken all day. He was hungry, his stomach growling.

He was just about to hurry on to his future father-in-law’s house when suddenly he heard an angry shout from ahead: “Tian Xiaoman, how dare you!”

Tian Xiaoman? Wasn’t that the name of his future husband? 

Li Wenxuan stopped the horse and looked ahead.

What he saw made him smile. A handsome young ger stood there, gleefully shooting slingshots at several others who were frantically dodging the mud balls.

So his future husband was rather lively after all!  Li Wenxuan thought to himself with amusement.