Chapter 72: Jiang Chengyan Takes the Bait

Just as Jiang Chengyan curled his lips in a faint smile, Bai Yan suddenly edged closer with an ingratiating look.

“Husband, do you think it’s too many?” Bai Yan pondered for a moment. It seemed that raising human children was quite costly. If they really had ten or eight children, wouldn't they eat them out of house and home?

Her clear eyes gazed at Jiang Chengyan. Though her question was phrased as a query, her expression clearly anticipated a reassuring denial from the man.

But things seldom turn out as one wishes. Meeting Bai Yan’s hopeful gaze, Jiang Chengyan nodded. “It is indeed too many.”

Bai Yan’s little face fell at once.

“One is enough. Or, we could even have none at all.” Having been the object of Madam Zhao’s resentment for many years, Jiang Chengyan understood deeply that Zhao’s difficult labor had nearly claimed both her life and her child’s; such matters were no laughing matter. Even though Bai Yan was different from ordinary people, she would still have to face this tribulation.

Now that she was in human form, she would naturally bear children as a human would.

“Alas, husband, you really are poor now, to the point you can’t even afford to raise children. Fine, I’ll raise them after you’re gone.” With that, Bai Yan was about to climb off the heated brick bed to check on her little mushrooms.

Such fresh mushrooms would surely fetch a good price.

Jiang Chengyan quickly pulled her back, his voice tinged with a hint of suppressed frustration. “Say that again.”

“Husband, look, I can live another five hundred years. You should be able to live... hmm, fifty more years?” Bai Yan raised her fingers and made a quick calculation.

Jiang Chengyan tried not to let the look in his eyes become too intimidating. He narrowed them slightly, pinched the back of Bai Yan’s neck. “By your reckoning, you’re now a hundred and thirty years older than me. Should I call you granny?”

“Granny doesn’t sound good. How about ancestor?” Bai Yan brushed off Jiang Chengyan’s hand with a wave, then scuttled to the corner of the bed.

“Don’t you already live like a little ancestor?” the man scoffed, then sighed, scooping her into his arms.

He had steamed two potatoes for her. Because they’d been left in the pot for so long, they’d turned into a simple mashed potato. Jiang Chengyan sprinkled some sugar on top, then pushed the bowl in front of Bai Yan.

Bai Yan dug into the mashed potatoes, eating as she gazed at her mushrooms.

“You should be prepared. Right now, no one has much money to spare. These mushrooms won’t fetch a good price,” Jiang Chengyan remarked, his every gesture and word refined and elegant.

Hearing this, Bai Yan’s mouth drooped in disappointment. These were mushrooms cultivated by a rabbit spirit, and yet she’d have to sell them cheap!

She was so vexed she nearly fell over backward, looking for all the world like she used to before transforming—a lazy creature exposing her white belly and stretching out all four paws.

……

Though she grumbled, since the mushrooms were ripe, they had to be sold.

Early one morning, when the sky was still shrouded in mist, Jiang Chengyan set off toward the county town, pushing a cart loaded with mushrooms and his petite wife.

Bai Yan clutched her coin pouch, muttering as she counted her money, ignoring Jiang Chengyan entirely and not saying a single word to him.

“You’ve lost quite a bit of silver lately,” Jiang Chengyan observed, glancing at her little pouch—the one he’d had specially made for her, embroidered with a lop-eared rabbit gnawing on a carrot.

His words were like grabbing Bai Yan by the tail. She immediately set down the pouch and sidled up to Jiang Chengyan for a kiss.

Such a blatant attempt to cover up her guilt did not escape Jiang Chengyan’s notice. But he still took the bait… and quickly at that…