The Fearless Husband - Chapter 3

Chapter 3 — The Scholar’s Cattle Whip Was So Startled That…

The stone had been carried home by Yu Dayou and his two sons, taking turns shouldering the load.

That rock had been lying there for ages—everyone knew about it—but no one had ever thought it could be useful, so they had left it alone.

This time, when Yu Qinglong mentioned collecting dandelion seeds to plant, they figured they might as well expand the vegetable cellar. With the family expecting a new member, they wanted to grow more radishes and cabbage that year. Maybe they could even store some dandelions too.

They knew such greens wouldn’t keep for too long, but certainly better than leaving them outside. They could always eat the perishables first and save the longer-lasting vegetables for later.

So the three of them carried the rock home, washed it clean, and prepared to set it at the bottom of the expanded cellar as a platform for storing vegetables.

The next morning, Yu Dayou and his two eldest sons deepened and widened the cellar before rolling the stone into place.

Yu Qinglong crouched by the edge and called down, “Big brother, second brother—does it feel cool down there? I want to come see too.”

Yu Qingye looked up and said, “Of course it’s cool! But you’d better stay up there—watch your step, don’t fall.”

Hearing that, Yu Qinglong deflated slightly. He looked listless, clearly lacking energy. He had barely slept the previous night.

Their house only had two rooms. The eastern one belonged to the eldest brother and sister-in-law—newlyweds, so it wouldn’t be proper to make them share space.

Yu Qinglong, therefore, slept with his second brother and their parents on the same heated kang bed in the western room. His second brother snored, and the whole place smelled faintly of earth. Already troubled and restless, Yu Qinglong found it impossible to sleep.

When he finally drifted off, he dreamt of someone pulling up all his little wooden markers and running off—on absurdly long legs. No matter how hard he chased, he couldn’t catch up, his anger spiking so high his heart almost leapt out of his chest.

“Big brother, is there anything I can help with?” he asked.

“Go check with Dad and see if there’s something he needs,” said Yu Qingjia. “Nothing much to do here.”

“That’s what Dad said too,” Yu Qinglong muttered. He’d wanted to plant the dandelions himself, but his father and brothers had already done it.

The family had only learned later how much the original Yu Qinglong had suffered at his grandparents’ house—scolded, beaten, and belittled—and they pitied him deeply. Since then, they tried not to let him do hard labor.

The original had never complained, just quietly kept himself busy with chores—washing clothes, cooking a little, or steaming buns. The memories of such tasks were faintly familiar, but Yu Qinglong wasn’t confident in his own ability. He worried that if he messed up, he’d waste precious food—and here, food was far too precious to risk.

That left only one option: doing the laundry.

There was a large, clear river at the southern edge of the village. From their home, he just had to walk straight south to reach it—no risk of getting lost. The problem was, laundry was the one thing he hated most. In his entire life, he’d barely washed his own socks.

Still, fine. Call it “immersing in local life.”

He gathered the dirty clothes into a washing basin and said, “Dad, I’m going to wash the clothes.”

His sister-in-law, Zhou Jian’er, said, “Brother Long, don’t trouble yourself. I’ll go later.”

“It’s alright, let me do it,” Yu Qinglong said. “You’ve already worked hard helping Dad with cooking—and you’re pregnant too.”

In truth, he was planning to check whether the river had fish or shrimp. If there were, maybe he could find a way to catch some later.

They didn’t have soap or detergent here—those were luxuries. Even lye was too expensive. So Yu Qinglong took a washing mallet and a small scoop of plant ash.

Zhou Yuehua was uneasy. There were always people doing laundry by the river, and he worried his son might hear more gossip about himself and get upset again. He opened his mouth to call him back, but Yu Dayou stopped him. “Let him go. He’s right—if he keeps avoiding people, they’ll only think he’s easy to bully.”

Zhou Jian’er hesitated. “Father, Dad, maybe I should go with him?”

She’d just returned from her family’s home yesterday and only then learned that her brother-in-law’s engagement had been broken. Though people outside said all kinds of bad things about him, since marrying in, she’d found him kind and easy to get along with—a genuinely good person.

Zhou Yuehua sighed. “Listen to your father. You should also take care of yourself now.”

Yu Dayou was right. Perhaps it was time their youngest learned to face things head-on.

So Yu Qinglong lifted the basin and went to the southern river alone.

It wasn’t yet noon, but he was already hungry. He hadn’t eaten much breakfast—he had no appetite—and didn’t dare eat ahead of time either. There wasn’t much food at home, and he did the least work, so it didn’t feel right to take more.

As he walked, he took in the scenery. It was spring, and many villagers were bent over their fields, old and young alike, pouring their year’s hopes into the soil beneath their feet.

“Qinglong?”

Someone called his name from behind.

“Ah?” he answered reflexively, turning around.

It was a boy about his age—short, with a sharp chin and pale skin, his eyes large and bright. A familiar face from memory: Hu Bo.

Hu Bo was carrying his own basin and jogged up quickly. “You’re going to wash clothes too?”

The moment Yu Qinglong heard that, he frowned slightly. Wasn’t that obvious? Still, he smiled, shifting the basin in his arms to subtly increase the distance between them. “Yeah. You too?”

“Uh-huh. The sun’s warmer now, not so cold—good time to wash. Um… I heard about what happened yesterday. Don’t take it too hard, alright?”

Yu Qinglong gave him a sideways glance, eyes flicking over that glimmer of false concern. “You mean the thing with Wang Fugui?”

“Yeah.”

“What’s there to take hard? I should be thanking him for breaking it off. A man like that—so easily swayed by a pretty face—if it hadn’t been his cousin’s ge’er this time, it would’ve been his cousin’s cousin next time. Better to find out early than be fooled later.”

“Well… that’s true,” Hu Bo said, scrutinizing him with doubt. Still the same tall, broad-shouldered, “ugly” man as always. He forced a laugh. “As long as you’re not too sad, that’s good. You don’t know how worried I was when I heard.”

“Oh? How very kind of you.”

“Hey, no need to be polite between us. But really, you shouldn’t take this so lightly. We’re the same age—lots of ge’ers our age already have children. Now that your engagement’s broken and you’ve offended the Wang family, who’s going to want to match with you next? You should think of your future.”

“Think of what? My father already said—if I don’t want to marry, he and Dad will take care of me.”

“You can’t rely on that! Sure, Uncle Yu says that now, but if you stay unmarried, people will drown your family in gossip. Do you really want to drag them down with you? You’ve already caused enough trouble. And your second brother’s fiancée—her family heard about the broken engagement. I heard they’re hesitating now. If they back out too, everyone will blame you.”

“Then let them talk,” Yu Qinglong said coolly. “Only the shameless gossip about others—it stains their own virtue, not mine. I’ve done nothing wrong, so why should I care what they say? And you—you’re not engaged either, are you? Maybe worry about yourself instead of me. You’ve got time to skulk around pretending to care, but maybe if you put that effort into your own life, your kids would be running around by now.”

“You—what are you talking about? Who’s skulking around?” Hu Bo’s face flushed red with wounded innocence. “I’m saying this for your own good!”

“For my good? Ha!” Yu Qinglong shot back, “Why don’t you look at your washbasin first? That huge wad of poplar fluff—you think I wouldn’t recognize it? There’s only one tree in the whole village that grows that much, and it’s right outside my house. Don’t tell me it just magically floated half a mile into your basin. To get from your house to the southern river, you have to pass my door. What a joke.”

Throwing him one last glare, Yu Qinglong turned and strode off, leaving Hu Bo standing there, his face cycling from red to green.

It had only been a few days since they last spoke, but Hu Bo almost didn’t recognize him anymore.

Yu Qinglong’s long legs carried him swiftly away, never once glancing back.

He’d seen plenty of people like Hu Bo—those who claimed to care but secretly reveled in others’ misfortune. If Hu Bo had truly cared, he would’ve come to him openly, not hovered outside his house, waiting to ambush him with fake concern.

That kind of person never meant well.

And in the memories he’d inherited, Hu Bo had always been like this—every “concern” a subtle insult. It took every ounce of Yu Qinglong’s self-control not to deck him then and there.

At the riverbank, he set the basin down and watched how three other villagers washed their clothes. After a moment, he followed their example—laid the clothes on a flat stone and began pounding them with the mallet.

They were washing; he looked like he was avenging a murder.

The three villagers, who’d originally planned to gossip when he arrived, promptly shut their mouths. They dared not utter a word after seeing the ferocity in his expression.

Hu Bo lingered nearby but didn’t dare approach, beginning to suspect that maybe the broken engagement had driven Yu Qinglong mad.

He wasn’t wrong about the madness—just the cause.

Yu Qinglong wasn’t driven insane by the Wang family, but by this whole damn world.

Too backward. Too poor. Too remote.
And far, far too lonely.
No one here could understand him.

He took all that simmering frustration out on the laundry. After a good session of furious pounding, he dunked the clothes in the water, swished, rinsed, wrung them tight.

Whether they were actually clean or not—well, that was another matter. At least he’d tried.

When he was done, he piled them back into the basin and followed the river upstream.

He wanted to check for fish.

He’d probably scared them all away earlier with his hammering, but maybe there’d be some upstream. The water was clear—shallow enough to see the bottom. If there were small fish in the shallows, there would surely be bigger ones in the depths.

He walked another fifty or sixty meters until the rhythmic thuds of washing faded behind him.

The water grew shallower, the riverbed glimmering with stones made golden under the strong sunlight.

Maybe some fish hid between those rocks!

He stepped forward quietly, careful not to scare them.

But before he could startle the fish, another sound reached his ears—splash, splash, splash…

That wasn’t the sound of running water. To be exact—it was a sound every man would recognize instantly.

In his wildest dreams, Yu Qinglong never expected that before finding any fish, he’d first find… a grown man taking a piss!

Fang Shu, having failed to recover his “dream stone” from the day before, had been sulking. Unwilling to return home with an empty ox cart, he’d stopped by the river to look around—only to be caught mid-stream, so to speak.

Startled, he jerked and dropped the cattle whip in his hand, hastily turning around to hitch up his trousers.

Both men froze.

Fang Shu sized up the figure before him—tall, steady, composed, no delicate floral mark visible anywhere—and finally exhaled in relief.

Thank heaven, this one was clearly a man.

Cupping his fists, Fang Shu smiled awkwardly. “Forgive me for the offense, brother. I am Fang Shu, courtesy name Shoucheng. I came here to collect some stones.”