Liu Yizhu came back with medicinal wine and saw her still sitting there in a daze with her pants legs rolled up. He squatted down on the ground, took off her shoes, put her small feet on his legs, poured some medicinal wine into his palm and rubbed it for a bit before gently massaging her feet.
Li Mingwei glanced at him without moving from the chair she was leaning against. The two of them fell silent and the air turned tranquil.
She was unusually quiet today, not saying a single word. Liu Yizhu still wasn’t quite sure what was going on, so he raised his eyes to look at her, still dumbstruck, and took the initiative to speak first: “What did you come to the county seat to do today?”
“To buy some gifts for the children in Apricot Blossom Village.”
“Are classes over?”
“Almost.” Li Mingwei lowered her eyelids. She hadn’t finished picking out the gifts yet. And now her leg was like this too. She didn’t know what she was going to do later. Big Brother Dong wasn’t very good at choosing these kinds of things.
Liu Yizhu switched to massaging her other foot and continued, “What did you buy them?”
Li Mingwei sounded a little dejected. “Some hair ribbons and little trinkets. I think I'm pretty good at picking out gifts for boys. I wanted to go shopping again after eating.”
“That’s right, I also wanted to go buy a brush.”
The brushes Mr. Jin sells are mediocre. And even if he did have expensive ones, no one would buy them. So Li Mingwei had been making do with what she had up to now. Now that she had some money, she still wanted to buy a slightly better brush.
A good brush has a sharp, neat, round, healthy tip that moves smoothly. For someone who writes frequently, it can be a tremendous help. She didn’t have enough money now to buy a really good one, but she could still look around a bit.
After putting her pant legs back in order and slipping her shoes on, Liu Yizhu held her by the arm. “Stand up and see if you can walk.”
Li Mingwei gently stamped her feet. Her calves were still a little sore but it wasn’t too bad. She stood up and walked two steps, nodding. “It’s okay. Let’s go find Big Brother Dong and Little Lei.”
“Mingwei.”
She had just lifted the curtain, about to go out, when she heard Liu Yizhu softly call out behind her.
“Hmm?”
Li Mingwei looked back. She saw the man in front of her sigh. She waited for him but he didn’t say anything. He just supported her out.
Not wanting her to walk too much, Liu Yizhu told her to wait at the clinic entrance while he went to get Dong Shan and his son. He took them to the bookstore, helped Li Mingwei pick out a brush, and also grabbed some other small items. Then he saw them off at the city gate.
Dong Lei helped Li Mingwei onto the carriage and get settled before obediently standing next to the carriage without getting on himself.
Dong Shan waved at Liu Yizhu, “Go on back, Scholar Liu. You really helped us out today. We should get going now too.”
“It was no trouble at all. Be careful on the road, Elder Dong.”
“Don’t worry. I’ve traveled this road who knows how many times. There won’t be any issues.”
Seeing Li Mingwei slowly organizing things in the carriage, apparently not having anything she wanted to say to Liu Yizhu, Dong Shan pushed the carriage and left.
Liu Yizhu stood rooted in place, watching their backs disappear into the distance. Even when they were out of sight he couldn’t snap out of it.
After all, the two of them hadn’t clarified what their relationship was yet. Dong Shan felt it would be inappropriate to meddle too much in the affairs of the young lady. And as a grown man, it would be difficult for him to broach the subject. He could only go back and tell his wife about it.
Dong Shan was a frank man. He said to his wife, “You ask Little Sis what exactly is going on between her and Scholar Liu. If they’ve truly become an item, we’ll pick a date and settle things. If not we’ll leave it be. It doesn’t look right to keep up this wishy-washy back and forth in public.”
“How can you talk like that!” Wang Chunhua gave him a fierce slap. “Our little sister is already divorced once. The first guy didn’t work out. When looking again, of course she has to be more discerning and really understand someone clearly, not just rush into another marriage blindly. If something else goes wrong, who will take responsibility?”
“You can’t mean to suggest she gets married and divorced three or four times!”
Dong Shan knew Wang Chunhua also had a point. But...
His wife wasn’t listening to him, so he conceded, “Fine, fine. I won’t interfere anymore. You ask her yourself.”
But he still warned, “In any case, dragging this kind of thing out for too long always ends up hurting the woman. And our little sister is already older than Scholar Liu. Now he's even carried her before. If they can settle it, they should hurry up. Once his fortunes change and he becomes successful, it'll be easier for his heart to change too.”
This was indeed true. There was no shortage of men in town who became awful after coming into money. Even those still dirt poor manage to be unfaithful. Who's to say Liu Yizhu won't make something of himself in a year or two? Things that could be tied down should be tied down early.
After thinking it over briefly, Wang Chunhua walked over to Li Mingwei's room. The doctor had said she should move around a little. At the moment she was lying on the bed, directing Dong Lei to help her organize things.
“Group similar items together.”
Crouched on the floor, Dong Lei nodded. “Got it, Auntie.”
Wang Chunhua paid no mind to her son, sitting down next to Li Mingwei on the bed. “Does your leg still hurt?”
“Much better. I’ll just have to avoid walking too much for the next couple days before I can go back to the village.”
“It’s not urgent business anyway.” With her son still here, Wang Chunhua couldn’t ask directly. She just watched him tidy up with Li Mingwei.
Noticing both women looking back at him, Dong Lei pouted. He could let Auntie off the hook, but how could his own mother not come help him? The two of them were just too lazy.
Sitting with her chin in hand, Li Mingwei clearly saw his little expressions and smiled, pointing to a box. “Bring that over here for Auntie.”
“Oh.”
She opened the box. Inside were two brushes. She took out the bigger one and handed it to Dong Lei. “Put this one away for Auntie. What’s left is yours.”
“Mine?”
Dong Lei immediately hugged the box to himself when he saw the brush left inside, overjoyed to receive a gift even if he didn’t understand how it was any different from the brush he already had.
“Didn’t we agree not to buy him anything else? And he already has brushes,” Wang Chunhua said politely.
He did have them, but they weren’t the same. Still, Li Mingwei didn’t explain further, just smiling.
Although Dong Lei would have preferred a toy, he was very happy about the brush. It motivated him to work hard and he finished tidying everything up neatly in no time.
He dusted off his hands and stood at attention. “Anything else you need, Auntie?”
“No, nothing else. You can go on out. Your ma and I need to talk.”
Wang Chunhua shoved him out the door, ignoring his banging and yelling from outside as she grinned mischievously at Li Mingwei.
“Little Sis, you’ve finally decided to heed the Jade Purity Perfected One’s match and not defy the fates huh?”
Li Mingwei knew what she was getting at. Big Brother Dong wouldn’t hide anything from his wife.
She sighed. “I don’t know.”
“Whaddya mean you don’t know? Your brother-in-law said Scholar Liu picked you right up in front of all those people. Men and women are different after all. You two are already like that, so...”
It would be hard to justify not formalizing the relationship.
Li Mingwei rolled around fretfully on the bed, taking Wang Chunhua’s hand earnestly, “Sis, you know what? Right now Liu Yizhu is like a bowl of mutton soup you made, sitting in front of me, beckoning and saying ‘Come eat me, come eat me.’ I admit the smell makes me drool a little. But that bowl of soup belongs to someone else! The old granny worked hard and suffered for so many years just to have that one bowl. She’s still waiting for it to make more little bowls of mutton soup for her. It wouldn’t be right for me to snatch it, would it?”
Wang Chunhua knew she was talking about Granny Wang. Although Wang wasn’t very agreeable, there was no denying she had lived a very difficult life alone all these years for her child’s sake. It would be cruel to snatch this from her.
