Chapter 62 – West Lake

When Li Mo and everyone else returned home, they saw Li Shu feeding the chicks in the courtyard.

Seeing that everyone had returned together, Li Shu immediately shouted, “Where did you all go? No one else was at home. You guys even forgot about feeding the chickens and pigs -“

“Oh.” Li Man lightly smacked her own head. She was really failing to live up to her responsibilities. She had been the one that wanted to buy the chicks and piglets. And now, she was also the one that forgot to feed them.

“Let me to do it.” She hurriedly ran over to Li Shu’s side, took the chicken feed from him, and fed the chicks that were inside the fenced area.

Seeing her like this, Li Shu awkwardly scratched his head. “I wasn’t scolding you. It was just that I didn’t see you when I came back so…” He just wasn’t use to it, that’s all.

“I went to look at the fields,” Li Man said with a smile. Actually, she wasn’t offended by his earlier words.

Li Shu skeptically curled his lip as he said, “The fields? What’s so interesting in about them? Third Lai’s fields are just overrun with weeds.”

Li Man didn’t answer him. After she finished feeding the chickens, she asked him, “Have you feed the pigs?”

Li Shu immediately raised his eyebrows and replied, “Yup, those two little things have eaten their fill. You can go look for yourself.”

What was there to see? She knew that Li Shu was very diligent about his work, so she simply said, “Thank you.”

“There’s no need to thank me.” It was only right that he would help his wife out by feeding her animals.

At this time, Li Mo came out of the kitchen with a bucket to get water from the well. Thinking that Li Shu was pestering Li Man, he said, “Third brother, go take out a fish from the pit.”

Buying fields could be considered a big event; furthermore their entire family was at home right now, so they should prepare a good meal to celebrate.

Feeling quite happy, Li Shu cockily raised his eyebrows at Li Man and said, “Wife, wait here. I’ll go get a fish for you.” After he finished this, he took out a bamboo pole from the chicken fence and headed over to pit.

Li Man was left behind and feeling at a loss. What did he just call her? Wife? Suit? West Lake?

(T/N: Wife, suit, and west lake are almost homophones in Mandarin. They have the same spelling and only differ by tone marks.)

No, those guesses were wrong. Suit was a modern-day word. West Lake? Why would he mention that out of the blue? Moreover, she didn’t even know if the West Lake existed in this world. Then, that meant he had just called her wife?

She had several days’ worth of interactions. Although she didn’t fully understand the local dialect yet, because this dialect shared many similarities with Mandarin and many words were almost pronounced the same, she was able to guess that Li Shu had probably just called her wife.

Wife? As in spouse?*

* (T/N: Li Man is actually using the old-time word for wife. Then, she lists out a bunch of modern-day Mandarin words that also mean wife, but there isn’t really an English equivalent to all those words, so I just used spouse.)

Li Man was so shocked that her mind seemed to have stuttered to a halt. It couldn’t be that she was Li Shu’s wife, right? Had she simply misheard, and he had said something else that happened to sound very similar to wife?

Right, that was it. She had just misheard him. But… When she thought of Li Shu’s attitude towards her, she felt a bit apprehensive.

“Wife, look at this fish.” At this time, Li Shu had already gotten the fish and walked back to her side. He waved the fish in front of her to show it off.

Feeling as if a chill swept through her, Li Man returned to her senses. Seeing Li Shu’s exuberant smile, she couldn’t help asking, “What… what did you call me?”

She was using Mandarin to ask him this question, so Li Shu couldn’t understand her. He patted her shoulder and said with a smile, “I’ll go clean up the fish, then you can cook it. I want to eat that fish with pickled vegetables again.”

After saying this, he tossed the fish down by the well, then went into the kitchen to get himself a knife and container.