The villagers finished giving directions.
The old man got on his cart and left.
Everyone at the ancestral hall stared at the goods piled on the two oxcarts, their faces filled with astonishment.
The women who had just arrived found it strange.
But the people of the village found it even stranger.
'Something's not right.'
'Where did this kid get all this money?'
'This...'
Putting that aside for a moment, the villagers who had come to their senses began to speak with passive-aggressive jealousy:
"Look at that little vixen. She just married into the family and she's already bewitched Lu Yuan into buying so much stuff."
"What a spendthrift!"
"He even bought white flour!"
"Just you watch. In less than half a year, that little vixen will have squandered so much of his money that Lu Yuan will have to sell his house!"
...
While the villagers were making their sour remarks,
Lu Yuan was treating Su Liyan to boiled mutton at a restaurant in town.
Autumn had arrived, and with the chilly weather, they needed something hot to eat.
Lu Yuan ate heartily.
But Su Liyan, sitting beside him, looked utterly constrained, glancing left and right.
It seemed she had never been to such a place before, and she felt a little uneasy.
The scene of her husband buying things earlier, in particular, had left Su Liyan at a complete loss.
'Her husband was far too extravagant...'
'He bought meat and white flour without a second thought.'
'And he said they'd have that every day from now on.'
'What decent family could afford to eat like that?'
'Even the rich shopkeepers in Taiping City probably couldn't eat like that every day, right?'
'It's so wasteful. How are we supposed to live a proper life...'
'If it were just the food, that would be one thing. It's her husband's money, and if he buys food for them to eat, there's not much to say.'
'The real issue was the fabric he bought to make clothes for her.'
'A single bolt cost three taels of silver—it was all the very best quality.'
"Brother… why don't we return that fabric? I'll have to work in the fields and all... It'd be a waste to wear such nice material."
Su Liyan suggested timidly, looking at Lu Yuan.
But Lu Yuan didn't even look up. He just scooped a large portion of meat from the pot with his chopsticks and placed it in Su Liyan's bowl, saying:
"It's not a waste when you're the one wearing it."
"Think about it, who are you wearing these clothes for?"
"Isn't it for me to see?"
"And if I see you in beautiful clothes, won't I dote on you even more?"
"What?"
"You don't want your man to dote on you more?"
Su Liyan was taken aback. She hadn't expected her husband to come up with such a twisted argument.
After thinking it over, Su Liyan lowered her head, her face flushing shyly, and said in an incredibly charming voice:
"I want my Brother to dote on me more~"
Hearing this, Lu Yuan grinned and said:
"Aha~ Now that's more like it~"
"Don't you worry. I'm not bluffing you. Our family has plenty of money—more than we can spend!"
Although Lu Yuan was smiling, his words were earnest and full of confidence.
Su Liyan stared blankly at her husband and nodded.
Su Liyan didn't quite have a concept of what "more money than we can spend" really meant.
But seeing how confident her husband was, she seemed to understand a little.
While Su Liyan was in a daze, Lu Yuan's expression suddenly turned stern.
"Also, who's the 'Shopkeeper' in our family?"
"Who's the boss? Who do we listen to?"
Su Liyan paused, a little confused, but immediately replied:
"Of course, it's Brother. Brother is the head of the family. I'll listen to whatever Brother says."
After she finished, Lu Yuan lifted his chin and said:
"So, from now on, just be a good girl and listen to your man."
"No talking back, or I'll have to punish you."
Hearing Lu Yuan's words, Su Liyan froze for a moment before lowering her head shyly.
How could Su Liyan not tell her husband was joking? She understood that he bought her so many things because he cherished her.
'A sweet feeling bloomed in her heart.'
"I know~ Shopkeeper~"
Finally, Su Liyan said sweetly, at last calling him by the nickname.
However, Lu Yuan seemed a little dissatisfied.
"'Shopkeeper' is too rustic. 'Brother' sounds better."
...
In the evening, the two walked hand in hand back to the village, looking incredibly sweet together.
They carried more things in their free hands; after lunch, they had wandered around town for a while and casually bought a few more items.
The town was close to Shige Village.
Just cross a bridge, and you were back in Shige Village.
"We won't hold our wedding banquet in the village."
"For one, our family has no relatives left in the village. For another, there are hardly any decent people here."
"If we host a grand banquet, we'll just be letting those people take advantage of us for no reason."
"We'll hold a proper one when we visit your family."
Lu Yuan mused, holding Su Liyan's hand.
'His wedding banquet had to be a grand affair, with plenty of wine and meat.'
'When the time came, did those bastards in the village think they could feast on such fine food just by chipping in a few Wen as a gift?'
'He wouldn't let those ungrateful wretches get off so easy.'
Su Liyan was surprised that her husband wanted to hold a banquet at all.
In these chaotic times of war, it was good enough for an ordinary family to simply survive and live a peaceful life.
Su Liyan had also noticed that while her husband was wonderful in every way, he was a bit of a spendthrift.
His words, in particular, made it clear he intended to host an extravagant feast.
'Even though her husband said they had money, you couldn't just squander it, right?'
'Her husband wasn't the type to save money, so she, his wife, had to help talk some sense into him.'
'Otherwise, she really would become the wasteful woman the gossips accused her of being.'
Without realizing it, Su Liyan had already adopted the identity of a good wife of the Lu Family, trying to help save money.
Immediately, Su Liyan hooked her arm through her husband's and said coaxingly:
"Brother~ Let's not have a banquet. The people from my home village... they aren't very nice either. They just bully my family. We shouldn't let them take advantage of us either."
"With the money we save, you can buy yourself some nice things to eat and drink. Wouldn't that be better?"
But Lu Yuan waved his hand dismissively.
"Don't you still have relatives over there? A second uncle, a third uncle."
"If we invite all of them, we can fill a courtyard."
"We should save when we need to and spend when we need to. And we need to have a banquet."
Seeing that her husband disagreed and was determined to waste money, Su Liyan was about to say more.
But all she could do was let out an incredibly soft, charming moan as a crisp SMACK echoed.
Lu Yuan grinned wickedly at the exquisitely shy Su Liyan.
"Not listening again? Are you asking for a spanking?"
Having been spanked on the bottom by her husband in public, Su Liyan's face turned beet red. She didn't dare look up at him and could only protest coquettishly:
"Brother~ You're so mean~"
Looking at his wife's incomparably beautiful and shy appearance, Lu Yuan felt he could die of affection.
It wasn't that Lu Yuan insisted on showing off or squandering money.
It was just that...
'Back on Earth, he never had a wife, but after coming here, he'd found such a beautiful one.'
'If he didn't hold a banquet, it would always feel like something was missing.'
Besides, it wasn't like Lu Yuan was pretending to be rich.
His family really was rich. One hundred thousand taels of silver—how was he even supposed to spend all that?
And it wasn't like that was all the money he'd ever have. With the system, he could earn more in the future.
As Lu Yuan, filled with pride, led Su Liyan back to the village, they happened to pass the stone bridge.
The moment he saw the bridge, Lu Yuan's expression suddenly changed.
The next second, he nervously pulled Su Liyan in another direction, saying:
"Let's enter the village a different way. We're not going this way from now on."
Huh?
Immersed in sweet bliss, Su Liyan looked at her husband strangely, not understanding why they had to take a different route back.
They had used this path to leave in the morning.
Lu Yuan's mouth twitched, unable to keep a straight face.
"A few days ago, I ran into an evil spirit on that bridge—a Water Ghost. It scared me half to death..."
'In fact, he had been scared to death.'
'That's how Lu Yuan ended up transmigrating here.'
Lu Yuan had no desire to be scared to death a second time. It would be a terrible waste of the beautiful wife he had just married.
But after hearing this, Su Liyan blinked and immediately said:
"Brother, don't be afraid. Tonight, I'll go have a talk with it for you. I'll make sure that Xingzi never appears before you again."
Lu Yuan listened to his wife's words, a look of complete confusion on his face.
Huh??
'His wife has Divine Abilities like that??'
'Could this be the passive reward from the nine-times Multiplication Factor??'