Chen Wanqing looked at the knife buried deep in the cutting board and could have almost shed a bitter tear for Wanyue. ’But then again, who told her to start the trouble?’

’She’s not some clueless little girl. She knows right from wrong, and she knew exactly what kind of damage her rumor-mongering could do to me. She did the deed, so she has to bear the consequences. It’s only right and proper.’

Xu Su Ying asked again about their trip to the county seat the day before. Was it Wanqing who was feeling unwell, or was there something wrong with Mrs. Zhao?

Chen Wanqing replied, "My mother-in-law was upset by Wanyue. She wasn’t feeling well on our wedding night. Her complexion was terrible, so Jing and I were worried something was seriously wrong. We took her to a clinic in Qingshui County to get checked out."

She relayed the doctor’s diagnosis to Xu Su Ying, adding at the end that after two bowls of medicinal soup, her mother-in-law was feeling much better.

Xu Su Ying relaxed, then lowered her voice to ask her daughter, "And what about you? Are you still feeling any discomfort?"

"No, I feel fine. I’m in great health."

Xu Su Ying raised an eyebrow. "So, Jing knows how to be gentle with a person..."

As she said this, Xu Su Ying keenly noticed that her daughter’s expression seemed a little off.

Her face immediately fell. "Are you keeping secrets from your own mother?" she demanded. "Hurry up and spit it out. You’ve only been married one day and you’re already hiding things from me. Do you have any idea how much that hurts me?"

It wasn’t that Chen Wanqing wanted to keep secrets from her mother. It was that, having never experienced *that sort of thing*, she hadn’t realized her mother’s question about her "well-being" was about *that*.

She had answered casually, but when her mother followed up by saying Jing knew how to be gentle, she realized her mother must have misunderstood.

’But how could she explain this? Could she really tell her mother that she and Jing hadn’t even consummated their marriage yet?’

Too embarrassed to be direct, Chen Wanqing said vaguely, "Well, you know... Wanyue caused that scene on our wedding night, and then my mother-in-law got upset. Jing and I were busy all night..."

"So you’re saying you didn’t consummate the marriage that night? Fine, that’s a legitimate reason. I’ll accept that. But what about last night? Why didn’t you do it last night either?"

"We spent the whole day running around the county, we were exhausted when we got back."

Xu Su Ying shot her daughter a harsh glare. "You’re full of it. Qing’er, tell your mother the truth. Is it that neither of you knows what to do?"

"Mom, didn’t you teach me that night?"

"I taught you, but were you really listening? Your face was beet red with embarrassment, who knows how much of it you actually heard. I bet you two have no idea what you’re doing. You probably think you can have a baby just by sleeping in the same bed and just muddled through it like that."

Chen Wanqing couldn’t help but laugh. "Mom, we’re not that clueless."

"If you’re not clueless, then why haven’t you consummated the marriage? Are you still upset that Jing was once engaged to Wanyue? Or can you just not accept... that sort of thing between a man and a woman?"

"Mom, I’m not upset that Jing was engaged to Wanyue. After all, I’ve been engaged twice myself. If I truly minded, I wouldn’t have married him in the first place."

"In that case, it must be that you can’t accept what happens between a man and a woman..."

"Accept what? Wife, go on inside and chat with Jing for a bit. I’ll get started on the cooking."

Xu Su Ying shot her daughter a look that clearly said, ’We’ll finish this after dinner.’ Then she turned to Chen Song. "What do you know how to do? With your skills, you can steam a bun that’s edible, I’ll give you that. But if I ask you to boil noodles, you turn it into a pot of mush. If you stir-fry, it’s either too sweet or too salty, too raw or completely overcooked. I’m hosting my new son-in-law today. I don’t need your ’help.’ Go make yourself scarce."

In the end, Chen Song didn’t leave; he stayed behind to help. But they couldn’t just leave their new son-in-law hanging, so the couple shooed Chen Wanqing out, telling her to take Zhao Jing to her room to pack up her belongings.

Chen Wanqing’s clothes and bedding were still at her parents’ house, along with her incense-making tools, spices, and medicinal herbs, all of which were locked away in a cabinet.

All of these things had to be moved to Zhao Jing’s home, but the cabinet was too heavy to lift all at once, and it wouldn’t even fit through the door. The only solution was to take all the ingredients out, dismantle the cabinet, and then carry it over to the Zhao Family’s home to be reassembled there.

Chen De’an and Chen Yaoan came over to help pack. "Once all this stuff is gone, the room will instantly be half-empty."

Chen Wanqing said, "What do you expect? Should I leave it here? Mom said they’re going to start hauling things to the county seat on the twenty-fifth or twenty-sixth, and then officially move on the twenty-eighth. We’ll be spending the New Year there, too."

The reason for the rush was a local tradition in Qingshui County: no one moves during the first month of the new year. But after the first month came the second, and the second day of the second month was the Dragon-Raising Festival—the same day the county exams were set to begin.